The amazing customer experience expert Kathy Sierra surfaced last week at Hugh MacLeod's blog in order to share a rant about the loyalty marketing movement. Although I totally agree with what she says, I think, as a member of the "Support Local Grow Together" movement, I can be really unselfish when I buy something. Supporting members of my community makes me more willing to spend a little more and give someone and chance. And it makes me three times as angry if they take advantage of me. 

Gapingvoid: Your customer won't take a bullet for you, 2011-Aug-14, by Kathy Sierra

The key to understanding (and ultimately benefitting from) true “customer loyalty” is to recognize and respect that customers–as people– are deeply loyal to themselves and those they love, but not to products and brands. They are loyal to their own values and the (relatively few) people and causes they truly believe in. What looks and feels like loyalty to a product, brand, company, etc. is driven by what that product, service, brand says about who we are and what we value.

That doesn’t mean we can’t benefit from customer loyalty. The moment we stop trying to manipulate, coerce, incentivize, gamify customers into being loyal to us is the moment we free ourselves to consider how to help them where their true loyalty lies. And it starts with the deep recognition that:

If I buy from you it’s not because I like you but because I like myself.

As I said in my previous post, the key is to help users become better at something they care about. My what-looks-like-rabid-loyalty to Apple, Adobe, Gaiman, and Astund is because they have all contributed to Me Kicking Ass in a measurable, meaningful, sustainable, powerful way.