Loyalty: The Gift of Permission to Fail

If there is one measurement for the degree to which a consumer is loyal to a brand, look no further than their propensity to grant permission to fail. The simple ability to give the brand the benefit of the doubt, to assume the moment of disappointment was an anomaly, stems from a sense of brand affinity and brand loyalty.

I believe the key to inspiring and earning loyalty resides in a brands ability to be empathetic, to have the desire to create true value for their customers. To be empathetic, open and relevant. To connect emotionally, to make experiences meaningful.

I believe that if brands do this, the loyalty they earn is a form of emotional equity.

And this emotional equity has an intrinsic value, it makes the one who is loyal feel good about both themselves and the other party, but it also has an extrinsic value in terms of granting permission to fail when things don’t go exactly to plan.

We know for ourselves that within loyal interpersonal relationships, when one person makes a mistake or under-delivers on expectations, they are given the benefit of the doubt. An assumption is made that intentions were good, there was simply a momentary lapse in consistency or an unintentional error and the end result is perception of the person doesn’t change.

And provided there is a swift return to ‘business as usual’, the incident is written off and promptly forgotten, the emotional equivalent of being given a ‘get out of jail free’ card.

For brands, developing the type of loyalty that enables this ‘permission to fail’ is something of a holy grail, for at some point, no matter how much care and attention goes into the delivery of products, services and the brand experience, mistakes do happen. Expectations fail to be met.

When this happens, brands that are fortunate enough to have developed this emotional equity, are the ones who are able to weather the storm, turning things around fast without losing any of their customer base. In some cases, even using it to their advantage; reacting quickly and empathetically when things don’t go to plan sometimes even results in increased emotional investment by their customers.

One brand that has proven this out is Apple. By developing a relationship with their customers based on the five core qualities outlined above, they have turned a customer base into a legion of adoring brand fans. It’s immediately evident when you have an Apple fan in your presence, they talk about their relationship with the brand in the same way someone in the grips of a heady infatuation would describe their new beau. They identify with the brand, seeing themselves as belonging to a like-minded tribe who all kneel at the altar of Apple design and technology.

It’s for this reason that when an Apple product is experienced to be faulty, the most likely reaction of the customer is to either assume they’ve done something wrong, or they got the ‘one faulty product’.

I witnessed this myself in an Apple store when a customer was returning a phone whose biometric sensor didn’t appear to work. As they described what they were experiencing to team member on hand, they first stated that maybe they hadn’t set it up correctly, but then on discovering that it was in fact faulty, they declared their belief that it was probably one phone out of a million that hadn’t quite passed the QA.

Not for one moment did their view or emotional equity in Apple diminish.

Nespresso is another brand that has shown to have secured high emotional equity.

For a brand that came from the same stable as Nescafe (an average instant coffee), it surprised many when it developed an almost overnight loyal following. Nespresso confounded the early critics who struggled to see how a brand from the same stable as Nescafe could become a high-value habitual purchase product within months.

Nespresso understood they were appealing to a different type of customer. One who wanted an experience and efficiency. One who wasn’t buying coffee, but a lifestyle enhancement.

Nespresso found a way to be relevant in a different context and established an emotional connection at the same time. They blended good design with functionality, combined ease of use with ease of access and they built their brand identity through humour and tapping into their target consumer’s lifestyle.

You only have to witness the sheer volume of customers to purchasing more than one machine, and the fierce adherence to using Nespresso coffee pods despite the arrival of lower cost machine-friendly capsules produced by mainstream retailers to see how loyal consumers are.

Without question it has been Nespresso’s ability to identify with consumers on a level beyond mere feature and function, that has earned this trust and loyalty. It’s this that also gives Nespresso permission to fail.

Listen to any customer service call regarding a Nespresso machine and you’ll no doubt hear the phrase “oh no what did I do” over a criticism of the machine’s design or construction.

As with Apple, the first reaction to an underperforming product again is the assumption of user error rather than product error.

Permission to fail is quite the feat of brand relationship building. It’s quite the feat of brand trust. But even more than that, it’s quite the feat of sustained brand influence.

Apple and Nespresso are only two examples of many brands who understand the value of building a genuine relationship with their customers and putting real effort into building and maintaining customer loyalty. Disney, Netflix, Amazon, Dove, Tesla, Google and many others are leading the charge in crating this emotional equity in consumers. These brands appreciate the permission to fail, but they don’t take it for granted. They know it isn’t unconditional love and can’t be treated as such.

They are ever mindful that the position of ‘favourite’ or ‘first choice’ must be continually earned in the heart and mind of the consumer and focus continually on developing their brand experience to ensure they do just that. They know that when brands take customer loyalty for granted, the backlash is severe.

You only have to look at United Airlines for the world’s most visible brand experience fail and the consequences of their repeated failures. From passengers dragged off planes, to rabbits and puppies perishing in-flight, insincere apologies and delayed recovery actions, it’s no surprise they are watching their customer base desert them in droves. But the most-talked about United Airlines aside, similar mistakes are being repeated by brands the world over:

• Lululemon’s ex-CEO Chip Wilson demeaning women who didn’t fit his vision for the perfect brand user

• Volkswagen’s ‘defeat device’ that led to the emissions scandal destroying trust in what had been a fiercely loyal consumer base

• Pepsi’s misjudged Kendall Jenner ad trying to piggyback the ‘black lives matter’ momentum and diminishing its importance as it did so

• Adidas’ ill-thought through and poorly timed email to 2014 Boston Marathon runners with the subject line “Congratulations, you survived the Boston Marathon”

• Nivea’s double whammy of their ill-thought through advertising campaigns, from “White is Purity” (they received heated allegations they were promoting white supremacy) to their racially controversial men’s ad campaign showing a black man throwing away a Neanderthal mask with the caption ‘recivilise yourself’.

The list is endless with new entrants arriving almost daily.

As with all things in life, nothing is static.

Even the most loyal customers with the greatest propensity to grant permission to fail need continuous reasons to believe in a brand.

They need to know their loyalty is valued and never ever taken for granted.