Relationship?

There are all sorts of relationships in this photo…

• husband to wife
• ex-wife to ex-husband
• parents to children
• step-father to step-children

• sister to sister
• sister-in-law to ex brother-in-law and brother-in-law
• father to step-father
• French culture to English culture

The (somewhat strange, I’ll admit) connection between the above is that they are all human-to-human relationships and we all get on with each other very well because we all have determined to and bacause we all love and like each other enormously (yes, even the ‘ex-s‘ and the ‘steps and originals’!)

The point is that these are human relationships.  Living beings relating to other living beings capable of intellectual analysis, prejudice, ratonality (and irrationality!), humanity, feelings, suspicions, mis-readings, mis-interpretations, cosmic judgements, fears, preferences, likes and loves ….. and…   The list is pretty much endless.  Can anything remotely like this be going on within the context of a commercial situation between a potential buyer and a product, brand, corporation…?

Where am I going with this…..?

Well, the Marketeers speak of Customer Relationship Management (CRM),  ‘relationship building‘ and ‘loyalty’…. but is this even remotely possible when one is speaking about non-human–>human relationships….?

1. can a person / potential customer have a REAL ‘relationship‘ with a company that exists only on paper, having only a legal rather than human nature/personality?
2. can a person / potential customer have a REAL ‘relationship‘ with a brand (an intangible, created construct owned by a corporation)?
3. can a person / potential customer have a REAL ‘relationship’ with a company and its brands mediated by something non-human: ICT – a database somewhere ‘in the cloud‘, email, websites, social networks, algorithms, A.I. ?
4. Do customers actually want any kind of relationship at all with an entity desperate to sell its products or is the consumer’s real wish just to succesfully purchase a product that meets his / her needs and wants?
5. [Even if some ‘relationship‘ might be held to exist], is it conceivable that one party could actually ‘manage’ (as in CRM) the relationship as a whole for both parties (via intermediary technolgies)?  If that were happening, it wouldn’t be a meaningful, two-way, balanced relationship, it would be one of one-party control, surely.

So, are theorists and marketeers simply dreaming when they speak about (human) relationships and the hoped-for output of ‘loyalty’?

I vote ‘YES’ – IMHO they really are dreaming!

OK, Tony, WHY?

1. CRM implies ‘Management‘ of the relationship by ONE party: the company.  I cannot see how this works!  In any human ‘relationship’ there is NO possibility that ONE party ‘manages’ 100% the relationship on behalf of both partners….certainly not the technology half of the equation.
2. Are customers looking for a ‘relationship‘ when they start searching for something?  IMHO NO!  They are looking for solutions to a problem / fulfilment of a need…. it may be embodied in a product or service, but the solution is what the customer is after: the product delivered, to specification and working as advertised in-situ.  ‘Stuff’ the relationship – just give me the solution’!
3. If a REAL relationship doesn’t exist, then surely ‘Customer loyalty‘ can’t either!   Loyalty implies a strength of relationship and a willingness to follow someone / something perhaps even past the point of common sense, with considerable (‘blind‘ faith).

What is it that potential customers want?

• Well, is it a warm and cosy ‘relationship‘ with a company (that is neither human nor tangible…[so is it even possible?] ) or is it the product that meets their needs, to specification and at the price cited, delivered to the home on or before the promised date in perfect condition?
• Are companies just imagining a ‘relationship‘ that doesn’t exist?  If companies deliver on their promise, if they offer the best quality/price and delivery combination (‘value’) as compared to the competition, then why wouldn’t the customer come back?  No need to imagine some sort of relationship or situation in which a client might accept lesser quality, higher price because of the relationship….  Just deliver the solution the client wants as promised ….  BUT ….. watch the competition: if ever their Q/P proposition (value) improves as against yours, then the rational customer will levae anyway!  Companies mistake multiple repeat purchases for ‘loyalty’ to the company and its brand  when none, in fact, exists.
  • First, what IS ‘loyalty’?   I would stay sticking with the person/product/service when times get tough because you believe in them (accepting things might just occasionally go wrong .. being prepared to wait that bit longer or pay that bit more rather than seek a competitor offer….. using that as a ‘test’, consider this personal example.  I am sure easyJet has my wife and down as spectacularly loyal customers as we have flown with them some 50+ times… but am I a ‘loyal customer to the company and the brand‘?  I don’t think so… we were ‘loyal’, yes, but ‘loyal’  to the airline with:-

• the route we wanted
• the times  we found most convenient
• the best price for the route
• the least rubbish and aggressive policies about luggage
• the most sensitive and functional service for people with mobility difficulties

That turned out to be easy-Jet 50 times… BUT that is no guarantee that there will be a 51st!  If any one of those features change that affects our perception of value (Q/P) we will re-evaluate easyJet against other competing propositions and potentially shift our business elsewhere.

• At the time of writing (late CoVid) the airline has not restarted the route into our preferred UK airport: Bristol.  Going into a London airport with easyJet adds the cost of two overnight stays and 500km of driving and effectively subtracts time available (two days!) to being with our families.  We would be shattered too! The flight times are nowhere near as convenient as the Bristol route.
• So, presently, if just about any other airline comes along flying into Bristol with a reasonable price (i.e. less than easyJet to London tickets + the cost of two overnights and a tank of petrol ) and a more advantageous schedule, then we will switch our business without a thought.  Goodbye easyJet!

So, I do NOT believe that ‘loyalty‘ exists in consumption, primarily because I don’t believe meaningful relationships can really exist.   I also cannot see any reason why I should pay more than I have to for less than I could have from a competitor….as a consumer, I am simply not that stupid and I am amazed that corporations believe I am!!   I also happen to believe from (bitter and frequently repeated) experience that when the marketeers speak of ‘loyalty‘, they are speaking of the customer’s ‘loyalty‘ to the product/service, the brand and the corporation and most emphatically NOT the other way round.  For example, I have held a bank account for 60 years with the same bank  and this happened:

1. covering the costs and arrangements of a family funeral…. I rang up (and was told the call would be recorded) to say that I would stay within my overdraft limit but would not be able to get it back in credit for three months.  I was told that this had been recorded and the circumstances understood and there would be no problem. I was even offered the Bank’s condolences…  I was also told I could ‘ignore’ the inevitable automated letters about it.
2. I got back after burying my Dad to find a letter dated about the same time I had had the call and took this to be the automated letter I was told I could ignore.
3. A couple of weeks later I am told that the total sum of the overdraft would have to be repaid in 14 days at the latest.
4. I called the bank to tell them about my telephone call and what had been agreed.  To cut a long story short, even after a formal complaint had been dealt with I was told that the bank had no record of anything on my file and no recording of the conversation that had taken place.  I said: ‘So you don’t believe me / you are calling me  liar after 50 years + of banking with you’ (+ 75 years of banking with the same bank by my father whom I had just buried).   Reply: ‘It’s not that we don’t believe you – we just have no record of this’.  They could have said that for such ‘loyalty’ (father and son) they would accept that the conversation had taken place but there had been an error somewhere in recording it and let me repay the sum (as had been agreed) in 3 months’ time.  They didn’t.
5. Poetic justice.  They tied themselves up in escalating the complaint to the very highest level, by which time (three months’ later’) I had been paid my ‘heures de vacation‘ and paid off the overdraft.

So no, when it comes to the crunch, I see no meaningful relationships are possible between sellers and buyers and therefore no prospect of genuine ‘loyalty’.  For me it is all ‘smoke and mirrors‘ and Marketeers trying to justify their roles and dress up their ‘art‘ and its importance.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that ‘interactions’ don’t happen between the parties: exchanges of information and digits, offers and orders, but I am saying that let’s not call necessary and functional interactions ‘relationships‘ when they are not.

So, make your own mind up on the basis of your personal experience … do you HONESTLY have a REAL, meaningful relationship with companies, websites and their brands….?   Do you?Really?????   Or are they one-sided masquerades to make you ‘feel’ the company ‘cares’ when all it really cares about is its profits …………

Footnote: Revenge of the Consumer!

Have you ever thought about ‘loyalty’ cards….?

OK…. I accept that sellers can glean a lot of information on our buying habits which they can use (if they are sophisticated enough … and IMHO not many are!)….  But think about this:

• If I like a seller’s products’ Q/P value proposition and keep coming back, then (provided the seller continues to offer me the best value proposition on the market) then I am very likely indeed to continue to re-purchase….  So WHY, then, bother to give me pathetic points that accumulate into small moneyary rewards???   It is a total waste of time and effort and the company’s money:
  • I will buy the product anyway (without monetary inducement)
  • I do not go to buy so that I will put points on my card – I go because I want the product based upon its value proposition
  • The existence of a loyalty card will NOT stop me going elsewhere to purchase if I feel the competitor’s value proposition is better.
• What about the discount vouchers often printed at the till?  How many times do you receive vouchers to re-purchase things you have just bought?
  • if it is for things I buy, it’s is a false economy for the company: they have just made cheaper something I am normally content to purchase regularly at the full price anyway.
  • if it is for brands I don’t buy (when I do buy the same type of product), I am intelligent enough to realise that they are giving me an inducement to switch to something (probably more expensive) upon which the shop will make a bigger margin, so I reject it.
    • Example.  Shops’ systems really don’t understand.  I’m a dog owner and whenever I buy the dogs’ crocquettes I almost always get invited to buy another brand with a voucher.  As any dog-owner will tell you, this is NOT going to work: you change a dog’s food at your peril: you will be cleaning the floors for days and days (buying tons of kitchen wipes, anti-bacterial sprays, plastic sachets and air fresheners into the bargain): their tummies don’t like change and an owner won’t like the consequences.

So,

Q. Do loyalty cards keep me ‘loyal’?   A. No. I am not ‘loyal’ in the first place to anything other than the best value proposition out there!  If shops want to give me points / money-off for buying what I want to buy then it is their lost profit! [Instead of wasting this money, they should spend it upon making sure that their valu proposition remains the best available].

Q. Do loyalty cards keep me from going elsewhere?  A. NO. I’ll stay only as long as the value proposition appears to me to be the best, but if it isn’t, then I’m off to the competition!

It appears to me that, apart from the shopper purchase data the retailer can garner (hopefully to use intelligently), then ‘loyalty cards’ are a fundamentally flawed concept because there really is NO REAL RELATIONSHIP at play and therefore NO LOYALTY.  If the shopper purchase data value is less than the free give-aways, then it is a waste of time, effort and money for the store: only the card-carrier wins…..

Think about it next time you use your ‘loyalty‘ card!

T