When loyalty isn’t what you think it is

Every brand wants loyal customers. So we measure satisfaction, preference, and emotional connection. We call them loyal when they say they love us. But then they switch to someone else next month.

That’s the loyalty trap - believing that what people say reflects what they’ll do.

Real loyalty lives in behaviour, not emotion.

Love doesn’t always lead to action

People don’t always act on what they feel. They might love your brand but still choose the cheaper option, the closer store, or the one they saw first in their feed.

Most brand tracking misses this because it measures attitudes, not actions. It captures how people think about a brand, not how they behave with it.

The result: loyalty scores rise while sales stay flat.

Loyalty is a pattern, not a promise

At Trakkster, we look at loyalty as repeated behaviour over time.

• How often do people choose you again?

• What makes them return faster?

• What conditions make switching less likely?

These questions reveal how loyalty actually works. It’s not about how much someone likes you - it’s about how easy and rewarding it is to come back.

When you measure behaviour, you find what really keeps people.

Designing for repeat choice

True loyalty doesn’t need to be begged for. It’s designed into the experience. Remove friction. Reward frequency. Remind at the right time. Do that, and you’ll see loyalty rise long before the next brand tracker does.

Because when behaviour changes, business follows.