Drivers of Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction

Every supplier wants to create and retain a loyal customer who engages in continued profitable business with him. Customer Loyalty is the measure of success of the supplier in retaining a long term relationship with the customer. Thus customer loyalty is when a supplier receives the ultimate reward of his efforts in interacting with its customer. Customer loyalty tends the customer to voluntarily choose a particular product against another for his need. The loyalty may be product specific or it may be company specific. When a loyal customer has repetitive requirement of the same product, such customers may be described as being ‘brand loyal’. On the other hand he may also require different products of the same manufacturer. That is to say he makes significant purchases direct from the same supplier and that counts as the company specific loyalty.

Most of the organizations have murkiness in considering customer loyalty and satisfaction. They feel that both are same and a satisfied customer is always loyal to them. But this is not true as the customer can be delightfully satisfied but he may be or may not be loyal. This is because satisfaction an emotional and slushy feeling over the job done. But loyalty is related to the action taken by the customer future.