Brand Loyalty and the User Experience

I recently attended a brand presentation where the video below was shown. It’s pretty funny, and also (in my opinion) a perfect example of how interactive products and consumer-generated content should fundamentally change our traditional views of customer loyalty. Loyalty in our current environment is fostered through repeated great (user) experiences, not through advertising and coupons…

But even though I like the general point the video is trying to make, I think it stops a little short of the real issue. It is really just saying that we should listen to our customers better. But that's not enough -- we need to understand the customer in ways they don’t even understand themselves, and then build experiences that meet unmet (and sometimes unconscious) needs through repeated, positive experiences that deepen the customer-company relationship.

Uncovering these needs happens not through "Voice of the Customer" research programs, but through more contextual research efforts like ethnography and contextual inquiries (combined with validating quantitative research). I believe this is where traditional Market Research programs have historically fallen short -- although there is evidence that the tide is turning on this topic as HCI becomes more mainstream and user experience research techniques become more accessible.

In my view there can be no more powerful synergy in discovering how to deepen true customer loyalty than a collaborative effort between Market Research and User Experience Research. This view is very much in line with the thinking described in the Adaptive Path blog essay The Long Wow, which I have referenced before.

So in essence, my viewpoint is this: To not realize how important repeated, quality user experiences are to Loyalty would be an egregious misjudgment of what Loyalty really is about with an interactive product.

User experience and the brand

Here is a nice article about the challenges a lot of designers faces when it comes to the brand attributes they have to adhere to:
http://www.uxmag.com/design/303/dont-let-branding-kill-your-brand

I fully agree that for online brands, the user experience is the brand. You can't separate the two from each other.

The way users feel about their experience is inseparable from the way they feel about your brand. This maxim holds true for brick-and-mortar experiences as well as for digital interactions. A restaurant with great food but incredibly long lines and a bad wait staff will experience brand damage. The user experience is bad, and people will look elsewhere. The same thing will happen if your users get baffled by confusing menus, hard-to-read text, and perplexing layouts. The user experience is bad, and people will look elsewhere.

The way a user feels when they come in contact with a brand interaction point will implicitly shape their image of the brand itself. This realization is a powerful tool for user experience professionals and can help snap clients and peers out of static thinking.

I also agree, and have seen first-hand, that the way to cross this divide is to bring the Marketing function closer to the design process. I want to take it a step further and say that one of the most effective ways to do this is by involving them in user research -- especially ethnographic research like in-home visits. Once you see a user struggle with your product, and realize that they blame the company for their bad experience, not the designers (and blame you pretty loudly and creatively in some cases...), it is a real, undeniable wake-up call. No-one sees our business in the siloed way we do. It's all one experience, so how we design it directly influences brand equity.