Understanding the Layers of Loyalty
A loyalty crash course
What is loyalty? That is a question we get asked often. Years of loyalty research points to one answer: loyalty is like an onion. No, not in the “it makes you tear up” kind of way, but in how loyalty is also multi-layered.
In this article, we look at the four layers of loyalty that have frequently emerged from existing research; what each layer looks like, how they matter, and what drives or hinders loyalty at each layer.
Four Layers of Loyalty
One of the most influential loyalty framework published to date was from Dr. Richard Oliver, a former Vanderbilt University professor. In his widely cited paper “Whence Consumer Loyalty” published in Journal of Marketing, Dr. Oliver defines loyalty as:
“a deeply held commitment to rebuy or repatronize a preferred product/service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand-set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior.”
