Brand Loyalty
In any industry, several brands are competing against each other for consumer loyalty to stay in the game which is the nature of any business. To remain competitive brands/companies would lower or match their prices to remain competitive, however, that does not build brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is defined as ‘the tendency of some consumers to continue buying the same brand of goods rather than competing brands’. For any company, it is difficult to build and maintain brand loyalty.
Why is brand loyalty important to a company?
For a brand/company to remain in the market and competing, they have to build a reputation among consumers that they believe, your brand is the best brand out of all competitors. By having a group of customers that are loyal to the brand ensures repeated transactions. Loyal customers will also shout loud about how amazing your brand is and they will spread positive messages to persuade others to go with your brand. For new customers it is easier to get them to try out your product however most likely they would have moved from a competitor’s product, which they might be loyal to.
How to build brand loyalty?
To get a consumer to be loyal to your brand you have to sell your ethos to the consumer and make them buy into your values of why you exist. It is important for brands to consider the why, how, and what.
Why – Why do you exist? Why do you offer your services? And, why should we choose you?
How – How do we achieve what we do?
What – What do we do?
Once the company has defined those key questions, it will be easier for the brand to deliver its ethos across to consumers and employees. If the consumer believes in your motives and ethos then they will come back for repeated business and spread your ethos to other future customers. For employees, if they believe what your brand is trying to achieve, the company ethos and mindset will rub off on their approach to work and the customers they serve.
Brand loyalty can be lost and gained
Long-established brands will often lose sight of why they existed in the first place and their focus may have shifted away from their ethos to just making money and profit. However, having the mindset to make money means your decisions will be based on a spreadsheet rather than building products that your consumers will believe in. Brands such as Apple and Microsoft have had their brand loyalty suffer through difficult periods especially when they have leadership changes or the leader has no defined vision for the company.
Apple
During the time when Steve Jobs was kicked out of the company, the company turned their focus on competing against IBM but during that period the products they produced did not match their ethos which was “To contribute to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind”. Their products did not show any hint of that and they just produced products that would bring in sales but over time the consumers stopped believing and sales started to drop. Apple brought back Steve Jobs and he brought back the ethos that he set the company under and produced products that enabled humankind to advance.
Microsoft
When Bill Gates stepped down and took a back seat in Microsoft, Steve Ballmer turned his sights to increase profits and sales, which he did achieve. However, at the same time, Microsoft lost market dominance in many areas that were taken over by the likes of Apple, Google, and Samsung. They started to produce products that competed directly against its competitors to make profits. An example is the short-lived Zune MP3 player to rival the iPod, however years later after the release of the Zune, Apple would release the iPhone which would change the mobile phone sector forever and since then Microsoft has been playing catch up until recently they discontinued their pursuit of creating a Microsoft mobile operating system. Many now consider the tenure of Satya Nadella refreshing as he brings back what Microsoft meant when Gates was leading. Satya has refocused the company and started to produce innovative products that will help companies to work more efficiently via their Office 365 product and their focus on cloud-based technology platforms.
Summary
For customers to be loyal to your brand you must make your consumers believe in your reason for existing and why they should come back. If you imagine if all companies had the same resources and the same number of employees then ask yourself, why would a customer want to choose your company over another? It is the same with technology companies, why do some consumers choose one brand over the other even though they have the same resources and build the same products. Always think if your customer gets asked why do you choose your brand, you would want them to answer by defining your ethos and your company values rather than your price of products.