Customer Loyalty - Coursework Example

Customer Loyalty Customer loyalty is defined as something very intrinsic to the basis of consumer preference with regards to a product and/or service. He will come back and forth to purchase this chosen brand or to avail the service with which he extracts the most benefits (of usage) from or has a positive inclination in terms of the experience related with the brand. Consumer loyalty means the retention of the customers and this indeed is an activity that demands a lot of patience on the part of the brand building team and the agency which is collaborating upon the same. Customer loyalty takes years to build and once it is established, the need is to make sure the company maintains its threshold over the existing customers as well as attract new ones to make the business more and more profitable and strong. (John, 2003) Establishing a new product out of the blue seems to be not a very favorable option in the developed markets as no one would be attracted to the new hype. Rather people will take it as a ‘just another new product in the market’ idea and continue with their lives. This cannot be allowed for a business, which is in its starting days, at all. Sooner or later, it will come back to the thought of merging itself with some strategic alliance for the betterment of its business, until the business itself is standing on its feet and that too with pride and without anyone’s help. These strategic alliances not only help the big businesses to capitalize on the strengths of large, multinational companies but also draw huge sums of benefits, both in the form of money and customer loyalty. This is a challenge both for the new business as well as the alliance with which the company is thinking of forming a bond with, chiefly because their own business is partly dependent on the new one, which they will help to set their feet upon. A product’s equity depends on four such factors which might include its name and how much the people are aware of this very name. Another factor is the loyalty level of the consumers with regards to this product or the brand which is available in the market. Under the loyalty level are five types of groups present which include the non-customers who simply do not buy this product which is being sold under the company’s name but purchase the one of the competitors’. (Griffin, 2002) Other one is the group that houses the price switchers who are extremely sensitive to price. The passively loyal lot buys out of habit rather than any reason. Fence sitters do not make an effort to judge between the competing products and buy any one and mostly they do not pay that much of a heed that is necessary in making that selling exercise. Lastly, there is the group of committed people who will stick to your product no matter what happens in the marketplace. The third factor is that of the perceived quality in which people have pre-conceived notions with regards to a product or a brand. This can happen due to their already set reservations in the mind with regards to this product’s packaging, size, colors and so on and so forth. The last factor is that of the associations attached with the product which include some celebrity spokesperson who is selling this product or the brand and with whom the people do not want to get associated to, hence bringing in low sales of this product in relation with the competitors’. The consumer persuasion as well as the influence as concerns to marketing communications and more precisely the field of advertising is deemed as being an art in entirety rather than being considered as a discipline of science itself. Thus it must be comprehended with regards to the distinct consumers who visit the market place for satisfying their personal needs and requirements. Persuasion is a difficult process and the consumers need to be told about the benefits that they can draw from the product itself. Customer loyalty can result in increasing sales trends for a company with regards to a particular product line and thus revenues start pouring in from left, right and center. The niche needs to be touched upon so that the customer base remains satisfied and does not feel unhappy about any steps that have been taken by the brand team every now and then. Brand equity is only built when there is brand loyalty, related associations with the brand, the brand with its name and attached symbols and the brand personalities which portray it in their respective lifestyles and endorsements. Equity is not built overnight rather it’s a long process that takes years to come up. Such is the intensity of brand equity that it takes a lot of convincing and planning on the part of the organization bringing out the brand towards its target audiences. Brand equity requires hard loyal customers to back up the whole ideology. It is for this matter that consumer loyalty stands out as being quite unique to the people’s hearts who are the eventual users of the brand or the service itself. The competitors need to come up with their own answers when the competition is cut throat. Then there is the notion that the people who stand as being more loyal to a brand or for that matter to an organization cost much less to the company as compared to the ones who have not still touched base with the product which is available for them. In addition, the fact of consumer loyalty is a digression which asks for specification that has to be seen through the eyes of the consumer demands which are on the changing curve every now and so often. Thus we need to understand the actuality that consumer loyalty is something which the customer himself cannot suggest as concerns to the people around him since positive word of mouth ratios have been seen to be on the lower side as compared to the widespread coverage that happens with the negative word of mouth where the same has been seen in the contexts of jungle fire. Marketers can make use of customer loyalty when they understand the customer base as well as the brand (or product and/or service) which is on offer. This means that their homework should be steady and complete to give the consumers the offerings which they really need. If the needs and wants are met in a back and forth manner by the brand team, then there is this possibility of the customer to hook on to a single brand for quite a long period of time. The best aspect of customer loyalty is that the customer would not buy any competitor product or abandon buying any product that is available as a substitute for the said brand if the latter is missing from the retail outlets or is just not present in the market anymore. (Johnson, 2000) The marketers must realize the potential of their products and hence make sure that the retail presence is there for the loyal customers who would just not remain satisfied if the product of their choice goes missing. Consumer loyalty is more of a mind game than being a purchase process. If the consumer has decided for his own self that he has to make the purchase of a peculiar brand then the brand team should consider itself to be the leader as far as ensuring communications activity and the quality of the product is concerned. The customers must remain loyal as long as they could when we talk about a brand or a service and this guarantees that the brand team is doing its very best and there are less pitfalls in the whole equation all said and done. The definition of consumer loyalty is thus complete when the thinking process of the target audience makes a purchase itself and there is just the formality of going to the outlet and buying for his own personal satisfaction. In concluding remarks, it is pertinent to note that marketing communication practitioners must make use of their role which is concentrated upon the lines of ensuring as well as maintaining consumer loyalty trends and similar levels. What this does is to have the consumers’ perception and influence getting built in the wake of the equity of not only the brand but the organization that it is working under. On the part of the marketing communication team, there must be more attention laid on the roles that are being adopted with the passage of time on the consumers as well as the manners in which the same are in essence having that very vital purchase which the brand actually wants for itself. There should be attention on the scenarios which are making the industry grow as a result of these steps. Marketing communication team thus must focus on the role of the loyalty related with consumer as well as brand equity. BIBLIOGRAPHY GRIFFIN, Jill. (2002). Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It. Jossey-Bass JOHN, Joby. (2003). Fundamentals of Customer-Focused Management: Competing through Service. Praeger JOHNSON, Michael D. (2000). Improving Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Profit: An Integrated Measurement and Management System. Jossey-Bass Word Count: 1,511 Read More