The real secrets of winning customer loyalty: part 1

In the first of a two-part series for Investment Week's Articulate page Geoff Webb explains the current difficulty with retaining customers and what it is they actually want. If there's a subject you'd like to see explored on this page, please email: [email protected]

Customers yearn to be loyal and there are better ways of winning their loyalty than conventional loyalty schemes, because let's face it: most loyalty schemes today are really a confidence trick. The rewards they offer are meaningless to most customers. Do even the major brands that launch these schemes honestly expect them to be effective in winning true, bankable, customer loyalty? I doubt it. The tiny value of benefits offered by loyalty schemes - typically about one hundredth of what customers spend - is one of the main reasons why these schemes rarely work. An even more important reas...