Customer loyalty: 3 key insights for the future

Customer loyalty is volatile—consumer habits keep changing and companies must keep up with both current and newly emerging expectations for service to create strong, long-lasting, and loyal relationships.

Antonio Gonzalez, industry insights manager at Talkdesk, Peri McDonald, VP of customer and partner marketing at Talkdesk, and industry thought leader Sasha Verbitsky, VP of digital and customer analytics at Panera Bread got together to share their insights on what companies should be doing to build loyal customer relationships—and the vital role of contact centers in strengthening these relationships.

They discussed the Future of customer loyalty, a report by Talkdesk Research™ that gathers three surveys—two of them conducted with qualified customer experience (CX) professionals and the third one with consumers across 12 different global markets—to unveil the main drivers of customer loyalty and how they vary by generation.

The main takeaway is clear: loyalty is hard to build and easy to lose. 49% of consumers say that they would stop working with a brand because of a single poor experience of customer service.

Loyal customers are essential for long-term growth. In this challenging scenario, what can companies do to attract customers and create loyalty? And how can they maintain a loyal customer? Discover the main takeaways of our conversation.

3 key insights for the future of customer loyalty.

There are three key insights companies must keep in mind to build and maintain loyal relationships:

1. Easy interactions and quick resolution are the main drivers of customer loyalty. 

The number one driver of customer loyalty is the ability to resolve a customer query on the first contact. With the rise of hybrid work and the increasing adoption of digital channels for commerce, customer experience is the most important differentiating factor. Customers value and expect a company to resolve their issues as quickly and smoothly as possible—regardless of the channel they use to address their query. The fact is that 69% of consumers consider essential a seamless and easy transition between different channels throughout a single customer service interaction. Regardless of the channel they use to reach out, customers want to feel like their goal was achieved on the first contact.

The value of delightful customer experiences is undeniable when factors such as agent proactiveness, empathy, and attention follow as the main drivers of customer loyalty.

According to Sasha Verbitsky, to build deep and strong relationships with customers, CX leaders must enable agents to have meaningful interactions with customers while resolving their issues quickly and easily.  In his words, it all comes down to how well brands know their customers. It’s important to adopt technology that can help to truly know and understand customers, as well as predict their behaviors. It’s the key to building personal messages and creating personalized interactions, making customers feel heard and important.

Sasha highlights the value of identifying customer preferences and the main points of friction throughout their journey. By collecting and analyzing this data, CX leaders get a better understanding of the customer and are able to create smooth and simple interactions.

2. Loyalty is increasingly driven by the consumer’s overall connection to a brand.

Customers are changing—and so are their principles for brand loyalty. Although easy and quick resolution have the main impact on customer loyalty, it is likely that in the future, loyalty will be also highly influenced by brand values, especially regarding social issues and sustainability. Younger consumers—mostly Gen Z, but also millennials—tend to value the companies’ positions and actions within a broader social context.

For companies, Peri explains, it will be more important than ever to have a strong presence and empathy regarding social and environmental events and concerns on a global scale. If companies empower their agents to act as brand ambassadors, be aware, informed, and thoughtful the impact on loyalty will be very positive. There should be well-defined processes that align agents with brand values and positions, so they can be involved in broader social conversations with knowledge and confidence.