Brand Loyalty: What It Means and How to Build It
Brand loyalty combines a preference for a brand with repeated purchasing, making both buying behavior and preference relative to competing brands part of its meaning.
What counts as brand loyalty?
Chaudhuri and Holbrook’s research distinguishes two dimensions of brand loyalty: purchase loyalty, expressed in repeated buying, and attitudinal loyalty, expressed in commitment to the brand.
| Dimension | What it describes | What to examine |
|---|---|---|
| Behavioral loyalty | Repeated purchases of a brand | Purchase frequency and continued buying |
| Attitudinal loyalty | Preference and commitment toward a brand | How the brand compares with alternatives in the customer’s opinion |
Repeated buying alone leaves the reason for returning unanswered. Jacoby and Kyner’s foundational study explicitly distinguishes brand loyalty from simple repeat purchasing behavior. Purchase records establish that a sale occurred; they do not establish a continuing preference.
For measurement, keep purchasing and preference visible separately. Assess whether repeat buyers identify the brand as their preferred choice, and record the reasons they give for that preference. This makes the term more informative than a label applied to everyone with a second order.
Brand loyalty, customer loyalty, and satisfaction
Qualtrics’ practitioner guide emphasizes emotional and reputational bonds in its use of brand loyalty, while Dick and Basu discuss customer loyalty through relative attitude and repeated patronage. These definitions overlap; check what a report measures before comparing it with another.
Richard Oliver’s analysis explains that satisfaction and loyalty are related, but satisfaction does not universally develop into loyalty. Measure preference separately from satisfaction when assessing commitment.
Retention tracks continued business with a provider and can reflect factors beyond preference: a study of budget hotels in China examined how inertia mediated the relationship between switching costs and customer retention. Check the reasons for staying alongside the retention figures.
These distinctions suggest different questions: satisfaction concerns the experience, retention concerns continued buying or use, and brand loyalty concerns the relationship between preference and repeated choice.
Why brand loyalty matters
In a study covering 107 brands, Chaudhuri and Holbrook linked purchase loyalty with market share and attitudinal loyalty with relative price. These results support assessing loyalty alongside brand performance; they do not predict an individual business’s sales or pricing power.
Qualtrics describes recommendation to friends and family as a behavior associated with brand loyalty. Measure recommendations separately from purchases to assess advocacy alongside repeat buying.
Why customers keep choosing a brand
Perceived quality and value
Qualtrics identifies perceived quality and value as characteristics of brand loyalty. Ask buyers how the brand compares with competing offers, which benefits distinguish it, and whether those benefits justify its price.
Trust and positive feelings
Chaudhuri and Holbrook’s study links brand trust and brand affect with purchase and attitudinal loyalty. Examine confidence in the product alongside the feelings associated with using it.
The experience of buying and using the brand
Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello’s research examines responses to design, identity, packaging, communications, and environments, and reports relationships with satisfaction and loyalty. Review the experience from discovery through purchase and use, including whether product information and the delivered experience agree.
Social connection
Oliver’s analysis includes social bonding among the mechanisms that contribute to loyalty beyond satisfaction.
Harley-Davidson provides a documented example of this approach: its Harley Owners Group offers member events and community features through the H-D App, including groups and a social feed. These activities illustrate the community element of an ownership experience.
How to build brand loyalty
Use these drivers to choose specific improvements, then evaluate purchasing and preference after the changes.
- Identify the reason to choose the brand. Ask repeat buyers what they value most and which alternatives they considered. Use the responses to name the product or service qualities to preserve. Keep the questions comparative, following the emphasis on relative attitude in Dick and Basu’s framework.
- Address recurring service and purchase problems. Review complaints, returns, checkout difficulties, and feedback for issues that can be corrected. Shopify’s guidance on repeat customers recommends improving service, acting on customer feedback, and making the buying experience easier.
- Align the brand’s presentation with the experience. Review packaging, product information, communications, and the purchase environment together. Treat this as a practical application of the dimensions examined in brand-experience research, then check whether the changes improve customers’ assessments.
- Offer useful ways to participate. Consider owner activities or customer connections where they fit the product. Harley Owners Group’s official offering provides a concrete reference for events and community participation. Evaluate participation and brand preference separately rather than assuming attendance establishes loyalty.
Set a manageable goal for each improvement: fewer recurring complaints, stronger stated preference, or more repeat purchases. Treat these as separate outcomes so a change in one does not conceal a problem in another.
How to measure brand loyalty
Start with purchase data, then add evidence about preference. Shopify’s repeat-customer formula counts customers who have bought more than once as a percentage of all customers:
Repeat-customer rate = (customers with more than one purchase ÷ total customers) × 100
State the customer base and observation period alongside the result. For comparisons, use the same purchase-count rule and a comparable period of observation. A rate calculated over the full purchase history answers a different question from a rate calculated only within a recent month.
For subscriptions or ongoing services, monitor continued use, renewals, and cancellations as behavioral measures. Qualtrics recommends combining repeat-purchase and churn data with repurchase and recommendation intent, rather than relying on a single measure.
Add a short preference survey to those records. The following are suggested research questions, not a standardized loyalty scale:
- Which brand is the first choice for the next purchase in this category?
- Which competing brands are also being considered?
- What makes the preferred brand better suited to the purchase?
- How likely is another purchase from the brand?
- How likely is a recommendation, and what explains that answer?
Compare answers with subsequent behavior. Keep recommendation intent, repurchase intent, and actual purchases in separate fields. Record discounts and rewards alongside transactions when reviewing purchases made during promotions, so the conditions of buying remain visible.
Interpret purchase counts alongside relative attitude toward the brand. Report the frequency of buying and the strength of preference separately, then examine whether they agree.
Do loyalty programs create brand loyalty?
A loyalty program is a tool for encouraging or rewarding repeat buying. Its effectiveness needs evidence beyond enrollment or higher spending among members.
A 2007 study of Dutch grocery loyalty programs found a small positive effect on share of wallet—the share of a household’s grocery spending captured by a retailer—after accounting for self-selection into membership. That effect was much smaller than a model that ignored self-selection suggested: already loyal customers can join because they expect to benefit.
Define a program’s intended effect before assessing results. Compare additional purchasing with reward and administration costs, and examine preference separately. Where possible, use a credible comparison with customers who did not receive the offer, accounting for differences in prior buying. Membership totals alone do not establish that the program created loyalty.