Does your CRM system have a mechanism for capturing exceptional acts of loyalty?

• A customer who picks up the phone and argues for your value with a referral?
• An ex-customer who publishes an article about their positive experience with your company? 
• Someone who skips a big discount to stay with you?

Sometimes we can't even know an act of loyalty has happened. So we have to handle our customer records as if they represent real people we know. We have to give them ratings and rankings and make notes. We make those records accessible to everyone in the company so they can add information. 

Our dashboards should include a number represented our "most loyal" customers as marked by a consensus of the people who touch the account. In business-to-business environments, the dashboard should count both companies and people. 

Colloquy: Loyalty is an Emotion, 2014-Sep-15 by Steven Dennis

Luxury brands are defined by scarcity and intangible benefits. As such, they present an example for non-luxury merchants to understand the emotional connections between a brand and its core consumers and dial up those elements in all of the marketing mix, regardless of whether a loyalty program is a core element or not. Ultimately, the loyalty that matters is that which compels customers to advocate proactively for a brand within their tribes, without a special incentive. The loyalty that matters occurs when customers choose one brand over the cheaper or more convenient competitor. The loyalty that matters occurs when customers willingly and generously invest their time to collaborate with and improve a brand’s customer experience.