Three Reasons Why Consistency is Essential for Brand Loyalty

If you follow the Pearl-Plaza blog, you know that we believe loyalty is the end all be all of customer experience efforts. If customers are loyal to your brand, it means they spend money with you, interact with you, and give you feedback—even better, they do so consistently. This means plenty of benefits for your organization, but it also requires quite a bit of consistency on your part.

A consistent experience is widely recognized as one of the major contributors to overall customer loyalty. Take it from Footlocker’s Director of Customer Experience Tyler Saxey, who had this to say on the subject: “That’s how you drive loyalty the most in my perspective: value and consistency. Think about Amazon. You are almost shocked if your product doesn’t arrive in 2 days, and you are willing to give them a break if it happens. If you consistently succeed, you will drive revenue. If you consistently fail, people will find other places to spend their money.”

To break it down even more, memorable experiences that happen consistently lead to loyalty, which increases a customer’s lifetime value, which increases revenue. Sounds pretty straightforward, right?

In order to get to the benefits, however, it’s vital to understand why a uniform brand experience means so much to your customers. Here are three reasons why consistency drives loyalty:

Consistency makes you reliable.

This might sound a little weird, but stick with me here. Think about your favorite comfort food. There’s a reason why that mac and cheese, fried chicken, or pizza is more than just a dish you like. The difference between it and any old salad is that your comfort food elicits an emotional response. No matter where you are in life, you can rely on that simple meal to give you a sense of comfort.

In the same way, a customer should be able to rely on you to create a certain feeling for them. Maybe they’re excited because they know you will always ship their purchases quickly or that when they call you, they’ll be met with a happy and helpful representative. No matter what, that dependability gives your customer a sense of confidence and trust because they know you can be relied upon. If they can rely upon you to deliver every time, they’ll keep coming back for more.

Consistency makes you recognizable.

In today’s crowded market, everyone is looking for a way to stand out. Everywhere you look there are new, more interesting ways that brands are marketing or re-branding themselves to differentiate from the competition.

I would like to suggest that one of the best ways to stand out is consistency. By keeping your color schemes, messaging, product presentation, and any other detail uniform across your organization, your brand will be instantly recognizable to customers. Whenever they have a need for a product or service in your industry, they will automatically think of you if you keep it consistent.

Consistency makes you a part of their lifestyle.

Because you are a consistency rockstar, customers now think of you whenever they think of the industry you’re in. Because of that simple association, whenever they need a new pair of shoes, a new car, or a vacation, they will automatically google your brand first. If they’ve bought from you before and had a great experience, they are likely to come back the next time they’re in the market for your services.

Take Starbucks as an example. I bet you can think of at least one person in your life that is a “Starbucks person.” Whenever they’re out and about and in need of coffee, they pop right over to the nearest drive thru. This is because their experience with the coffee giant has been so consistent that they don’t even need to think of where to go when they need caffeine. The brand has become so embedded in their lifestyle that the customer is guaranteed to be a regular.

If you look at it from this perspective, consistency really is key to driving customer loyalty. It helps customers form emotional attachments and automatic associations with your brand, as well as making brand a part of their routine as a consumer. In short, consistency helps you create a solid relationship with customers, and that’s a pretty big win for your customer experience and your bottom line.

Looking to become a consistency rockstar? Pearl-Plaza’s CX Intelligence Cloud empowers you to identify customer pain points both on a larger scale and at a location level. To learn how this solution can be tailored to your brand, schedule a demo with one of our CX strategists today!