Customers give their loyalty to these companies

Cologne The corona crisis was unable to intimidate the management of the Pieper perfumery. On the contrary. The retail chain defied lockdowns and went on the offensive. The company from Herne invested in a new and several existing branches. In 2020, the online shop also received a technical and visual update.

The customers of the perfumery, with its 140 branches in four federal states, have rewarded their efforts in difficult times – this is the result of a study by the market research institute Yougov. The study ascertains how loyal customers are to a brand – and which providers from 33 categories were able to increase consumer loyalty the most compared to the previous year.

Pieper is right at the front here. The perfumery chain increased by more than 16 percentage points to an absolute value of almost 60. “We are always a touch more personal in the area of ​​customer loyalty – as a family business, we simply act differently than corporations,” says Managing Director Oliver Pieper.

In fact, competitors such as Douglas or the Flaconi online shop have not improved significantly in terms of customer loyalty. “Last year’s survey already showed that companies do well if they invest during the Corona period.

We are now seeing this trend again,” says study leader Felix Leiendecker from Yougov. Douglas, on the other hand, announced in the summer of 2021 that it wanted to close 60 of its 430 branches in Germany.

Alltours has also increased its customer loyalty in the tour operator segment. The Dusseldorf increased its value within a year by 13 percentage points to 70 points. “Thanks to our 49-year company history, we benefit anyway from increased customer loyalty,” says Alltours spokesman Jens Völmicke. In addition, his company “did some things right during the crisis”.

According to Völmicke, Alltours left its affiliated hotels open even when occupancy was low, while many competitors closed their houses. The company also gave its customers more flexible cancellation options than usual. For example, they were able to react to corona-related restrictions at short notice by canceling travel – without incurring any costs.

This service was originally a reaction to the pandemic, says Völmicke. But it has proven itself and will be continued. Alltours also used the Corona period for further investments. Last year, the company integrated 14 branches of the travel agency RSO into its branch network. In total, Alltours now has 80 of its own offices and 90 franchise offices.

With the high commitment during the crisis, Alltours wants to lay the foundation for future growth. The company announced at the end of October that there should be 20 percent more guests in 2023. In addition, the package tour offer was expanded to around 40 countries worldwide – Alltours also secured additional flight contingents. According to Alltours, the calculation seems to be working out. “The bookings for the summer are currently above the pre-crisis level,” says Völmicke.

Hotels are also benefiting from the renewed desire to travel. “During the corona crisis, the industry collapsed almost completely and is now coming back. “After the Corona years, the travel industry is about to boom,” explains Leiendecker. At the same time, he notes that the segment has “overwhelmingly positive developments in customer loyalty”.

B&B Hotels are right at the top of the rankings for customer loyalty with an increase of eleven percentage points. Overall, considerable price increases in the accommodation trade could have helped the rather cheap provider to become more popular. According to the comparison portal Idealo.de, hotels have increased the average overnight price by 27.5 percent from 109 to 139 euros within a year.

Willingness to change grows

Strong price increases are also making life difficult for established gas station brands. In the ranking, the Westfalia and Agip brands showed an upward trend, while more well-known providers such as Esso, Shell or Aral lost favor with customers. “As products become more expensive, customers switch brands more often. They hope for greater savings,” says Leiendecker.

However, Westfalia (62.5) and Agip (59.6) also start from a comparatively low level of customer loyalty. “Bigger leaps are possible, especially with younger brands that are not yet very well known,” says Leiendecker. On the other hand, if brands have already reached a high level, it is more difficult to further improve the loyalty value.

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The most popular coffee brands prove that this is still possible. 90 percent of German adults drink coffee and most of them swear by their brand. According to the Yougov study, loyalty to the preferred provider is nowhere as pronounced as among coffee drinkers. Three brands create a value of more than 80 percent. This means: More than four out of five customers would buy the respective brand again.

Tchibo, which opened its first shop in Hamburg in 1955, achieved the best mark (87.1) and was even able to win new customers at this high level. “Tchibo’s growth can be seen as a recovery,” says Leiendecker. “Like many others, the brand had lost loyalty during the corona crisis.”

Loyalty to the niche product

An example of a young brand with a high level of customer loyalty is Love Nature. The subsidiary of the consumer goods group Henkel has only been selling its ecological cleaning products since 2020. Now Love Nature has been able to increase its value by eleven percentage points – at around 82 percent, the absolute value is also above average. In the detergents and cleaning agents category, no brand grew more than the Henkel subsidiary.

The success of Love Nature could have been even greater without the pandemic and energy crisis, says study leader Leiendecker. Because in times of crisis, brands for everyday use in the upper price segment would have a harder time. “When money is tight at the end of the month, many then go back to the cheaper products,” says the Yougov expert.

Love Nature relies on recyclable packaging and does not use ingredients of animal origin. Some drugstores and supermarkets also offer refillable Love Nature detergents and dishwashing liquids. However, this service has so far only been used by a minority. At the end of 2021, the market shares of self-service systems were between 0.1 percent for detergents and one percent for bathroom cleaners. This is the result of figures from the market researchers at Euromonitor International.

Overall, the market still offers a lot of potential. According to the Henkel website, the number of people who make a conscious decision to make their household more sustainable is still comparatively small. Maren Lahm, Marketing Director at Henkel, attests that customers have “a high level of trust” in the brand. “Love Nature relies on a consistently sustainable concept,” says Lahm. This is confirmed, for example, by external certificates such as the EU Ecolabel.

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