Buying loyalty vs building commitment: developing the optimum retention strategy

Trevor Richards

The paper examines the role of customer loyalty in maximising opportunity, and will argue that loyalty, as measured by customer spending, is simply a reflection of short-term behaviour and can only be sustained by one of two routes: building the customer relationship with the brand; and 'buying' sustained loyalty through price and/or promotions.

Buying loyalty vs building commitment: developing the optimum retention strategy

Trevor Richards Research Surveys of Great Britain (United Kingdom)

BACKGROUND

Customer loyalty has been the focus of much attention over the past decades and it is now generally accepted that the key to profitability is more likely to involve the retention of current (profitable) customers and increasing their spend than in trying to win new customers.

Research into the much publicised 'store wars' in the grocery market in the United Kingdom have demonstrated that market supremacy (achieved most recently by Tesco) has been driven more by persuading customers to...

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