In its infancy in the 1960s, the field of customer research was pretty straightforward. The only question surveys really asked was, “how satisfied are you?” Since then, experts have learned that understanding loyalty — and more importantly, how to gain it — is a lot more complicated.

But with findings showing that long-term customers contribute up to 95% of profits for large companies, and that customer loyalty can drive revenue growth up to 20%, it is certainly a conundrum worth figuring out. So much so that The Conference Board ranks loyalty among the top ten most concerning challenges for CEOs.

Early attempts at winning customers’ loyalty spawned one of the first modern-day loyalty programmes — frequent flier miles. Ubiquitous reward stamp cards, free gifts and exclusive offers are just a smattering of what most companies now provide, as businesses have carpet-bombed the market striving to bring customers back. However, today with so many wallets already overstuffed with reward cards and endless emails cluttering inboxes, penetrating through the quagmire is a growing challenge.

Companies have learned that building and keeping customer loyalty is not a goal that can be achieved through simple marketing tactics such as loyalty card programmes.

According to Synovate Loyalty CEO Dr Larry Crosby, generating effective loyalty requires an intimate understanding of your customers and a business that is operationally aligned with a comprehensive loyalty strategy from top to bottom.

“Understanding customer loyalty behaviour is critical to fully leveraging this strategic asset,” says Crosby, a 30-year veteran of the customer loyalty and relationship measurement and management field. “In order to effectively impact customer loyalty, we have to discover the experiential, cognitive, emotional and behavioural links.”

Shedding light on these customer motivations requires taking a multi-dimensional view of the entire customer experience — a burgeoning trend among some businesses as they reinvent their interactions with customers, moving towards relationship-oriented and away from transaction-oriented relationships.

Perhaps the biggest challenge, however, lies in the adjustments that must take place across the board within a company adopting an effective loyalty strategy. For many, building a customer-driven enterprise requires significant organisational and cultural changes.

“Moving customer loyalty to the centre of a business strategy — and not just an ancillary strategy — is a significant task,” says Synovate Loyalty’s Global Director of Strategic Marketing, Sheree Johnson. “Impacting decision-making and resource allocation to align an organisation around a customer loyalty strategy requires some major changes.  Companies must build new competencies in defining, planning, executing and monitoring a customer loyalty strategy.”

While operational adjustments may cause a few growing pains, Crosby affirms that an aligned business strategy is the way to effectively drive a successful customer loyalty strategy, and gaining a closer understanding of the customer relationship can create a winning formula for both sides.

“New customer loyalty insights can be used by companies in defining their value propositions, in how they allocate resources and in how they design their customer experiences,” says Crosby. “Through these relationships, both the company and its customers can enjoy lifelong benefits.”