In today’s customer-centric world, interaction and personal experiences are what truly bind people to brands. It all boils down to how we feel during those moments of connection.
Imagine walking into a store where the cashier greets you with a friendly smile and a light-hearted joke. You leave feeling uplifted. Then, on your drive home, you hear an advertisement that resonates with you, making you smile once again. These seemingly small interactions collectively create positive emotional memories. When you think about that brand, you’re reminded of how easy and enjoyable it is to engage with them—how they serve you on a personal, connected level.
Brands that manage to fill every gap in their customer engagement points create something more powerful than loyalty: they create behaviour. Loyalty becomes part of the customer’s habits, influencing their decisions and driving repeat interactions.
Understanding Loyalty: The Walker Model
The Walker Employee Loyalty Model breaks down how a person’s perceptions and interactions with a company evolve into loyal behaviour. The same principles that apply to employee loyalty can be applied to customer loyalty as well.
The figure suggests that a person’s daily personal interactions and physical experiences shape their perception of a company or brand. Our overall perceptions and attitudes toward a brand are based on the image we have of it. Loyalty and commitment are what drives our behaviour.
To translate loyalty into actionable results and profitability, companies should focus on these key stages to identify gaps and continuously improve areas of engagement.
Measure Experience:
Start by identifying areas for improvement in customer interactions or employee engagement.
Make Improvements:
Implement feasible changes to create a more positive experience.
Affect Perception:
Better personal experiences will influence how customers or employees perceive the brand.
Gain Commitment:
As perceptions improve, it strengthens their commitment to the brand.
Drive Positive Behaviour:
Increased commitment naturally leads to behaviours that benefit the business, such as repeat purchases or stronger work performance.
Achieve Profitability:
Ultimately, loyal behaviour drives profitability and sustainable growth.
Bridging the Gap
To foster loyalty, companies need to evaluate both customer interactions and overall attitudes. Understanding the customer’s journey from interaction to loyalty requires in-depth analysis to identify the root causes of gaps in the customer engagement process. This requires businesses to consider all critical customer engagement points.
While employee commitment underpins their behaviour, it is equally important to measure employee engagement and loyalty, as employees are the ones who create the best experiences for customers.
So how do we measure both and track whether the changes are effective?
Personal Interactions
A Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) measures a customer’s level of satisfaction after a specific interaction or transaction.
Overall Perceptions and Attitudes
This is done through an NPS (Net Promoter Score), which assesses a customer’s long-term experience and overall loyalty to your brand.
By measuring these elements, companies can pinpoint gaps in both employee and customer experiences, enabling them to take action and ultimately strengthen loyalty at every level.
