Business Case and Implications for Consistency – Part 2: Business Case for Consistency

In a previous post we considered why humans value consistency.

Loyalty is the holy grail of managing the customer experience.

The foundation of customer loyalty is consistency. In a 2014 research paper entitled, The Three Cs of Customer Satisfaction: Consistency, Consistency, Consistency, McKinsey & Company concluded that trust, trust driven by consistent experiences, is the strongest drivers of customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Kinēsis, believes that each time a brand and a customer interact, the customer learns something about the brand, and they adjust their behavior based on what they learn. There is real power in understanding this proposition. In it is the power to influence the customer into profitable behaviors and away from unprofitable behaviors. One of these behaviors is repeat purchases or loyalty.

Customer loyalty takes time to build. Feelings of security and confidence in a brand are built up by consistent customer experiences over a sustained period of time. Across all industries, customers want a good, consistent experience with the products and services they use.

The value of customer loyalty is obvious. Kinēsis has found the concept of the “loyalty effect” to be an excellent framework for illustrating the value of loyalty. The loyalty effect is a proposition that states that customer profitability increases with customer tenure. Consider the following chart of customer profit contribution to customer tenure:

This curve of profit contribution per customer over time is called the loyalty curve. At customer acquisition, the profit contribution is initially negative as a result of the cost of customer acquisition. After acquisition, customer profit contribution increase with time as a result of revenue growth, cost savings, referrals and price premiums. Loyal customers and consistent customer experiences require less customer education, generate fewer complaints, reduce the number of phone calls, handle time and are more efficient across the board.

In the next post we will explore the causal chain from consistency to customer loyalty.