I was in IKEA in Brooklyn yesterday for a record minimal amount of time since I knew exactly what I needed (and refused to be drawn in IKEA-experience). Truth to be told, at one point I did get trapped and had to cry "how the hell do I get out of here??". But this was the consequence of me refusing to follow the arrows (which is exactly what happens to those disobedient shoppers who just have to be too difficult to go with the happy flow). In any event, I wanted my purchase delivered, and there is where the mess started. In a hyper-disorganized line for delivery (actually, there was 2 lines), customer service first packed my stuff forever (oh, let me go get that duck tape - will be back later) and then, I had to wait in another line to set a delivery time and to confirm my address (um , why the fist guy could not have taken care of that?). All the while, I WAS NOT blaming IKEA (why?? how?? i love to hate brands!!), but the actual people working at the customer service in that particular Brooklyn store. That is, I strongly believed that IKEA customer service is perfect (present evidence to the contrary), and that the poor customer service that I was currently experiencing must be an exception. It defies common sense to think that everywhere else it works great, but that in this store and in this situation it is not. But, that's the story. Or, as a friend of mine said, you can't use American Express in
so many places, so why do you still have
it? The real issue here then is not why a person stays brand-loyal when everything is peachy, but rather why does one stay loyal when this is not the case? These bad experiences are conflict situations in which we experience cognitive dissonance, and, thanks to my buddy Todd Thiessen, I recently started thinking about how some brands can get away with it, and some can't. I tend to think that the question goes beyond brand perception and has to do with the people's actual experience (i.e. how are those "conflict" moments incorporated in the whole system of relations that a brand develops -- if this system is strong enough, it won't go down; if it's not, it will). In any event, it's good to start thinking about brand loyalty not only in terms of repeated positive brand experiences (b/c in those situations, it's easy to be loyal), but also in the context of real-life, actual "conflict situations" when we actually have to choose what to think.