There I was, picking out my usual dinner treat after a long day, just like every night. But tonight, as I waited for my order, it struck me: I’ve developed an emotional connection with Careem Eats – a food delivery app.
It sounds dramatic, but this “everything app” has become my little escape. More than just food delivery, it’s a break, a way to unwind and make each evening feel special. But to think it takes one small mistake with the food delivery to make me walk away and switch to another more efficient app.
This makes me wonder what the real secret behind brands succeeding in building loyalty, while others lose customers in the blink of an eye.
Is it possible for businesses to maintain customers’ loyalty at a time when individuals are less brand loyal than before?
Achieving Brand Loyalty: Mission Impossible?
Just before answering this question, let’s take a step back and analyse the current situation. In today’s landscape, consumers around the world seek to do things the easy way instead of the right way, and everyone, with no exception, is looking for instant gratification and immediate results.
The availability of options has made consumers more selective and less attached to brands. Not to mention that the influence of technology, mainly social media, has disrupted the whole ecosystem by making switching between brands easier than ever.
In this highly competitive environment dominated by the youth, leading brands are unable to retain their status as they once did. A loyal customer base can melt away in a second for so many reasons. So here’s the biggest challenge: how to retain them and win their loyalty in the long term?
What I always say, is that a brand should be able to understand its customers before they understand themselves. This is simple and important. It is a tipping point — the factor that can turn a decent brand into a great one in a split second.
While gaining new customers is the end goal, retaining them is the real challenge.
How can brands do this? I will break it down into three important features.
In markets dominated by tech-savvy, young populations, gamification has proven to be a powerful engagement tool. However, its true impact depends on thoughtful design and implementation. When strategically implemented, gamification transforms interactions into exciting experiences, rewarding users for referrals, enrolling, gameplay, or completing surveys.
This approach has increased app visits by 26% and engagement by 28% — from my own experience and clients. When done right, gamification becomes more than a feature; it becomes a gateway to deeper loyalty and unparalleled engagement.
Can we all agree that artificial intelligence is what drives (almost) everything now? What interconnects with AI firmly is hyper-personalisation. Right? By capturing and analysing user data, such as gender, age, location, interests, spending habits, financial goals, mobile app visit behaviour, and past redemptions, AI can recommend and trigger personalised rewards through various channels.
The AI-enabled hyper-personalisation approach has yielded remarkable results, such as a 35% increase in customer redemptions and a customer satisfaction score of 93%.
Here comes the secret ingredient in all this sauce: we know what you love, when you love it, and where you love it. But will we know how to offer it?
Let’s imagine I did not use Careem Eats, what is the probability that they’ll send me an email or a notification checking up on me and offering me my favourite meal for free?
In today’s world, brands invest heavily in vanilla AI tools. This allows them to automate the prediction of customer needs and preferences, but are they able to track our emotions too?
According to the KPMG global survey, 61% of respondents revealed to be either ambivalent or unwilling to trust AI. It’s understandable… the more you include emotions, the better your AI works, and by that, I mean emotional intelligence.
The use of EI in my Careem Eats situation will not only recommend my favourite meal but also offer it to me for free because I was distant, so maybe something was going south in my life. Empathy, trust, and ethics; are three characteristics AI alone can never achieve.
That’s how these three features, gamification, AI/hyper-personalisation, and emotional intelligence are correlated. They are not stand-alone and can never achieve desirable results if one component is missing.
Customer experience is like a traditional dish, excluding one ingredient flops it, and adding an ingredient that doesn’t blend well makes it worse.
Winning customers’ hearts…
In a world where switching from one brand to another is just a click away, building and maintaining brand loyalty is no small feat. The secret lies in understanding that customers crave more than just products—they want experiences, values, and connections that resonate with them on a personal level.
Brands that succeed in fostering loyalty are those that master the balance of storytelling, community building, and purpose-driven strategies while leveraging technology to enhance personalisation and engagement.