Entrenching brand loyalty is the ultimate goal

Tough enough getting the consumer to trust your brand and even more difficult getting across the perception of honesty and integrity.

But entrenching brand loyalty? Surely the modern consumer is far too fickle, streetwise and cynical to allow any brand to become entrenched?

Your favourite brand?

Now, instead of digging up research by brands that like to think they have some entrenched loyalty among their consumers, I thought it would be a good idea to simply ask everyone interested in this idea to try and think of a brand that has entrenched itself within their very souls. As most readers of Bizcommunity.com are somehow involved with one or other facet of the marketing industry and, by implication, cynical consumers themselves, this little bit of research will prove to be very telling. I'd really welcome the feedback. [Respond in the comments section below this column or on Twitter using the hashtag #myentrenchedbrand - managing ed]

I am not talking about brands with which you might be having a brief love affair; I am talking about brands that have consistently given you satisfaction beyond expectation for at least four or five years and more.

When I first sat down to write this, I doubted very much that I would find a single brand that I would admit had become entrenched with me. My whole professional being rests on my ability to look at everything cynically and to test customer service to the point of being infinitely picky and choosy.

Nice but not entrenched

I wandered around my home looking at products in the pantry, my cellphones, service providers, security company, sound systems, TV sets. I looked in my garage and, while my Land Rover did produce an audible sigh of satisfaction from me, it didn't qualify as an entrenched brand because that sigh of satisfaction also recalled the crap I have had to put up with in the past. It's one of those brands that is great when everything goes well but falls flat on its face when there's a problem.

Same with my Harley Davidson - great when all goes well but pathetic when the chips are down.

I own a lot of brilliant products - Apple, Lenovo, BlackBerry, Kindle, Sony, Citizen, Raymond Weil - all great stuff but they just don't crack the entrenched brand category with me.

Here's one for example

Then I remembered British Airways. Now, here is a brand that over the past two decades has consistently produced great service - beyond my expectation and I reckon it's probably the only entrenched brand among all those with which I have had a relationship.

Why? Well, first, I can't think of a single occasion when the folk at British Airways have ever let me down. Sure, there have been problems; things have gone wrong. But, they have always been sorted out. [Ha! Unless you were trying to travel internationally in December 2010 when there were those dreadful storms in England. That was when BA really dropped the ball with customer service, so I've read - managing ed]

It all started about 25 years ago when my colleague at BMW, the financial director and I sat down and bemoaned the way in which South African Airways and Lufthansa were taking us for granted. We not only had executives flying between South Africa and Germany on an almost daily basis, but we were also exporting 90 tonnes of leather car seats a week. That is no small amount of business.

But, SAA just took it all for granted and continued to deliver shoddy in-flight and airport service, while Lufthansa just trudged along doing its best to turn air travel into a sort of concentration camp art form. We had a chat to British Airways and it grabbed at becoming our third preferred supplier with both hands.

Talking the gap

The first thing it did was to go the extra air mile, and more, in securing the use of a Concorde to use for the launch of a new BMW 3-series in the early 1990s. That was the project that SAA fought against by complaining to the minister of transport that the Concorde would make SAA look as though it was technically inferior.

And when the minister told SAA to get knotted, it said it would agree if British Airways painted one side of the Concorde in SAA livery. Seriously. The minister told it to get stuffed on that one.

I noticed immediately that there was something special in the BA service. It had a brilliant rewards programme with miles that didn't expire and went the extra mile for its members. Very quickly the realisation came to me that if you support BA, it will support you.

It's in the eyes

It was on a BA flight that I discovered an interesting thing about customer service. And that is to look into the eyes of the person serving you, helping you or selling something to you. The eyes are the big giveaway - you can see immediately whether the person involved is genuine or not. The eyes of the BA staff were all sincere and continue to be.

Of course, I am treated very specially on BA these days, but only because I have been a loyal frequent flyer on BA for the past two and a half decades. It has my profile. It has my history. I don't ever have to ask for seating, special food or anything like that. It just does it automatically. So, yes, I am biased. But I have earned that bias.

So, do you have any similar brand experiences where you can put your hand on your heart and say that some product or service has well-entrenched itself with you?

But, be tough - earning "entrenched" status for a brand is not small thing. It is massive.

Respond in the comments section below or on Twitter using the hashtag #myentrenchedbrand.

Last updated at 11.02 at 13 April 2011.