The post-loyalty era

Recently I’ve been speaking to clients about the concept of the ‘post-loyalty-era’ which is to say that customers are retained these days not by a sense of loyalty but rather because the experience they receive is effortlessly and consistently great.

The truth is that real customer loyalty is harder won in the ‘post-loyalty’ era but with the right approach retaining customers is achievable.

What’s really changed? Over the past 20 or so years customers have turned a blind eye to poor customer experience if they were rewarded with loyalty points or offers that effectively locked them in to a cycle of repeat purchase. This reward based transaction is less about loyalty than about apathy on both sides. The trouble is that some brands have focused so much on attracting and retaining rewards based customers that they’ve dropped the ball on the basics - there is no greater loyalty scheme than exceptionally good customer experience every time.

In the post-loyalty era marketing and CX experts must work together to co-design and communicate exceptional customer propositions and then work relentlessly to deliver products and services that meet and exceed that customer proposition every time.

Customers are much more likely to vote with their feet in the post loyalty era but deliver on the basics and be there when things go wrong and you’ll retain your customers for the long term. In the post-loyalty era the role of marketing and CX experts is to think like a customer and in the final chapter of this book we’ll consider what this actually means

The CX triple lock

What is the CX Triple lock?

The triple lock isn’t a secret and you don’t need a special password to open the door. The CX triple lock is a simple and pragmatic tool which recognises

 that providing a product or offering a service is inherently risky - how can you possibly ensure high levels of satisfaction when customers are by their very nature divergent, contradictory and hard to impress?

This is the reason the triple lock exists. No product or service should be offered without applying the model as a sense check - a customer experience risk assessment.

The Triple Lock comprises 3 simple elements which are each as vital as each other and no single one can exist in isolation. The best chance of delivering the customer experience you are dreaming of is by delivering three essential customer needs:

Accessible

Available

Answerable

That’s it, the three A’s of the CX Triple Lock. Deliver these and your brilliant product or service will be a winner in your customers’ eyes. Ignore them and watch your social media and customer service channels light up with costly complaints and customer rectifications.

“No product of service should be offered without applying the model as a sense check - a customer experience risk assessment.”

Over the course of the next three chapters we’ll explore each of the A’s in turn and prepare you to delver your best possible customer experience every time.

For a free customer experience risk assessment on your business click here