We’re very good at measuring customer loyalty.

We can track how much a customer spends and how often. We know how long they have been with us and have a plan for retaining them. We create premium memberships, gold cards, reward programs and ego boosting voicemails.

And yet, we often overlook one important fact.
Loyalty is reciprocal. It’s a two-way street.

Even in the age of customer empowerment, an unprofessional dentist will overtreat a patient to boost revenue. An insurer will cancel the cover of a client who’s paid tens of thousands in premiums if a single payment is missed. A bank will close a local branch used by elderly customers, who don’t bank online, to cut costs.

If we’re eager to measure how loyal customers are to us, why aren’t we so keen to measure how loyal we are to them?

Maybe it’s time for a rethink?

What if instead of only measuring, rewarding and expecting loyalty, we started measuring how we demonstrate it?

Image by Todd Gross