Infographic: What makes customers stay loyal?

Acquiring new customers is an expensive process for businesses, so it’s vital that some of them become loyal to the brand and return for repeat purchases.

This not only helps to drive revenue but also could ultimately lead them to become brand advocates, which in turn could help bring in more new customers.

So what helps to drive brand loyalty? This infographic from Zendesk shows that consumers rank quality (88%) and customer service (72%) as the two biggest drivers of loyalty.

However delivering excellent customer service can be difficult in a multichannel world.

We’ve previously looked at what defines good online customer service and spoke to BSkyB about how a live chat function on its website helped to improve both customer service and sales.

The infographic also looks at the importance of first impressions, how loyal customers share their brand experiences and the impact of loyalty schemes.


Topics: Strategy & Operations Customer Experience
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Reader comments (6)

  1. Avatar-blank-50x50 Andrew Allsop

    11:09AM on 17th October 2012

    There's a lot of research that suggests marketing for loyalty isn't as effective as marketing for penetration. Almost all brands, irrespective of category, experience extremely low high purchase frequencies. The double jeopardy effect states brands with lower market share experience far fewer buyers and lower brand loyalty. This is even true of cult-like brands such as Harley Davidson and Apple. So, the only way to increase loyalty is to increase the number of low frequency buyers. These are empirical laws with extremely few exceptions, to pursue an unnatural buying patterns is an ineffective and ill informed decision.

    See -



  2. Avatar-blank-50x50 Ruth Gilbert

    6:22PM on 17th October 2012

    Yes. But, then surely the 78% of loyal customers spreading the word must help with that...increasing the number of (albeit low frequency) buyers.

    And for the (even low frequency) further purchases, still cheaper to get those sales through loyalty of existing customers than converting new ones.

  3. Avatar-blank-50x50 Tehmina Zaman

    9:48PM on 17th October 2012

    In a world that is increasingly becoming high-tech, over-automated and outsourced, I believe that a company that offers genuine, caring customer service will always thrive and retain its customers.

  4. Avatar-blank-50x50 Shep Hyken

    12:01AM on 18th October 2012

    Want to know what drives customer loyalty. Study this infographic from Zendesk. It comes as no surprise that quality and service (in that order) drive loyalty. However, you can’t have one without the other. A great resource with fascinating information.

  5. Avatar-blank-50x50 James

    11:02AM on 18th October 2012

    Andrew, you're correct double jeopardy questions the value of loyalty compared to market penetration - however there's an important distinction between the 'loyalty' discussed in double jeopardy (which is focussed upon buyer behaviour) and loyalty as it's commonly discussed - which is more about attitudional loyalty.

  6. Avatar-blank-50x50 Andrew Allsop

    11:49AM on 18th October 2012


    Interesting James, I'll take a look into the distinctions between the too. Behavioural vs attitudinal isn't something I'd considered before.

    Ruth - I'm a little sceptical that the cost benefit of increasing low frequency buyers through increasing high frequency ones will be greater than vice versa. The problem with word of mouth is that although people's social graphs are expanding through the use of technology, their voice still doesn't spread far enough to influence people who aren't already singing from the same song sheet. That is, the people you're most likely to tell probably already know.

    Despite my scepticism I do see why businesses should value this type of loyalty, it pushes them to create products/services more in line with their customers expectations and beliefs of what they should be. However, as to whether this is something the marketing can influence cost effectively, I'm not completely sold.



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