the future of loyalty: winning a larger share of your customer’s life

Imagine a world where your favorite brand doesn’t just sell you products, but seamlessly and intelligently integrates into your daily life, delivering value in multiple ways.

This isn't a far-off dream—this is becoming the reality of businesses embracing a "share-of-life" mindset. Increasing a customer’s share of life means providing more types of value in more of the moments a customer experiences every day. That value is delivered of course by the product or service itself, but it also includes things like making customers feel known, respected, cared for, and confident. This expansive approach to delivery of value represents a new level of true customer centricity.

the current landscape: why customer centricity matters more than ever

In today’s market, being customer-centric has become a necessity to survive, much less thrive. Companies struggle to keep up with their customers’ ever-evolving expectations, often fueled by digitally native businesses.

Recent data underscores the urgency:

A record-high 88% of customers now say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.1
87% of customers report that a positive experience directly influences their future beyond buying behaviors, from recommending products to increasing their share of wallet.2
Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than their less focused competitors.3

However, there is a significant gap between customer desires and reality. Among digital strategy professionals, only 14% believe customer centricity is a true hallmark of their company. Even more telling, a mere 11% of customers agree that brands they interact with are genuinely customer-centric.4 The post-pandemic landscape has exacerbated this issue. Forrester reports a third consecutive year of decline in customer experience quality, reaching a new low of 69 out of 100.5 As a result, loyalty rates are plummeting, with consumer and retail companies experiencing a 17% decline in loyalty compared to the previous year.6

the three pillars of achieving customer centricity

To drive engagement, brands must become more valuable in more moments of customers’ daily lives. This involves delivering value beyond the product or service you sell. This added value can manifest in ways such as helping customers feel more secure, engaging them in a community of interest, or rewarding them for accomplishments.

Consider the success of Equinox Fitness. Equinox’s holistic ecosystem encompasses luxury fitness clubs, personalized training, nutrition programs, hotels and wellness services. By fostering community through exclusive events and digital offerings like the Equinox+ app, the brand has created a proposition that reaches well beyond fitness in their members' lives. Their “It’s Not Fitness. It’s Life.” philosophy supports premium pricing, drives 2-3x higher retention rates compared to standard gyms, generates 20% higher lifetime value for members engaged in multiple services, and contributed to revenue exceeding $1 billion in 2023.7,8,9

To embed customer centricity into your business DNA and increase your share of customers’ lives, we believe it’s critical to focus on a few key dimensions.

develop rich insights

Understanding your customers goes far beyond demographics, income, and lifestyle. It requires deep insights into their goals, needs, attitudes, behaviors, and pain points. These insights should come from a combination of first and third-party data, surveys, and qualitative methods to create a well-rounded understanding of the moments that matter and why. This understanding should inform virtually everything you do to grow your business. When you assume you know what your customer wants, you miss important nuances and lost sales are often the result.

Procter & Gamble (P&G) has been a leader in leveraging data, ethnographic studies, surveys, and in-home observations to deeply understand the detailed motivations and pain points of customers. One example is their innovation in the baby care segment. By identifying that sleep quality is a top concern for parents, P&G enhanced its Pampers line to include improved overnight absorbency technology, leading to better dryness and fewer sleep interruptions. This and similar strategies across their brands have paid off with 7% growth in organic sales, despite economic challenges.10

build insight-led products and experiences

Next, the insights you collect should directly inform all customer touchpoints, not just the product or service. The goal should be to consistently exceed customer expectations – success is when customers tell you your product is worth more than it costs. Accomplishing this requires applying insights holistically to everything you do that touches a customer. Look to align every touch point to customer needs and desires, in a way that fits with your brand promise and across every channel, whether on a screen, in-store, or over the phone.

Apple has been much discussed but remains a gold standard at creating a “share-of-life” brand experience. Everything from the hardware, to the OS, to the physical stores is tuned to the needs and desires of their customers – often needs customers didn’t know they had until presented with a solution. Apple’s approach of creating an integrated, customer-centric ecosystem across all touchpoints has resulted in 77% of Apple customers own more than one Apple Device, with 94% of iPhone users remaining loyal to the brand in 2023.11

leverage AI and machine learning

Modern customer experience (CX) platforms can unify data from multiple sources, including in-person interactions, call centers, mobile apps, websites, social media, operating systems (OS), and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, to provide real-time insights. These technologies leverage advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to gain deeper insights into customer behaviors, preferences, and journeys. This allows you to answer critical questions about your customers, moving from hindsight to insight and even foresight.

AI and ML technologies enable hyper-personalization of customer experiences. For example, journey orchestration tools can use AI to analyze customer data and automatically deliver personalized messages, offers, or interventions at the right moment in a customer’s journey. This level of personalization can lead to significant improvements in key metrics such as revenue growth, marketing ROI, and reduction in acquisition costs.

Netflix’s data-centric approach combines advanced AI and machine learning with a culture of constant experimentation. The streaming giant leverages data from over 230 million users worldwide, gathering insights from viewing habits, search patterns, device usage, and even pause times. Over 75% of content is based on their recommendation system, with over 80% of the content viewed coming from personalized recommendations.12 This data is used not only to personalize content recommendations, but also guide content creation. By continuously refining its algorithms and testing new features, Netflix consistently enhances the customer experience, contributing to its growth and customer loyalty.13

embedding customer obsession into your culture

This approach only works when customer obsession is deeply embedded into your organizational culture and ways of working. It requires all employees – not just those in customer-facing roles – to be aligned with delighting customers, and to be focused on delivering customer-centric goals and outcomes.

Customer-centricity starts at the top. Leaders need to model customer-obsessed behavior through their everyday actions, language, and attitudes. These behaviors must cascade from c-suite executives to front-line employees. Former CEO Jeff Bezos forwarded emails from unsatisfied customers to his team with just a single question mark added, prompting immediate action to resolve the issue. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, reads and sometimes responds to up to a hundred customer emails every day. Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s CEO and his co-founders stayed in customers’ homes to learn firsthand about the customer experience.

Customer-centric cultures also empower employees to make decisions that benefit the customer. This requires upskilling employees with knowledge and tools to understand and act on customer insights. This mindset shift encourages employees to think from the customer’s perspective in all of their decisions.

Ritz-Carlton is famous for empowering employees to create memorable experiences. The story of Josie the Giraffe exemplifies this principle. A young guest left her favorite stuffed giraffe Josie during a stay at the hotel. The staff not only returned the toy, but went above and beyond by photographing Josie enjoying a mini “vacation” at the hotel—lounging by the pool, getting a massage, and working in the security office. A personalized photo album, autographed by the staff thanking Josie for the help, accompanied Josie when she returned to the family. The effort showcased the lengths to which Ritz-Carlton employees are empowered to go to create memorable, personalized experiences for their guests.

future of customer centricity

As we look to the future, the importance of customer centricity will only grow. GenAI-based predictive analytics will enable companies to anticipate customer needs and behaviors on an individual basis, while automated decision-making will streamline processes, reduce response times, and close feedback loops. Advanced journey platforms will monitor customer’s behavioral signals across touchpoints, process data using sophisticated algorithms, and automate actions across multiple channels and ecosystems.

However, as this data-informed technology becomes more integral to customer relationships, businesses will need to navigate complex ethical considerations around privacy and data use. Companies must strike a balance between personalization and privacy, ensuring that customers feel their data is being used to benefit them without infringing on their rights or comfort levels. Actions can include consent management and implementing systems that allow customers to easily understand and control how their data is being stored, used, and for how long.

Leadership commitment will also be crucial, with leaders needing to champion ethical practices, fostering a culture where ethics are part of all decisions about customer data, and employees act with the knowledge and tools to behave accordingly.

As we move into this new world, the organizations that can master this intricate balance will set new standards for delivering exceptional customer experiences.

embracing a share-of-life mindset

Transforming your organization to increase its share of a customer’s life is a journey, not a destination. It requires ongoing commitment, investment, and a willingness to continuously evolve. Here are 10 steps to guide your way:

Assess your current state to identify gaps in both technological capabilities and cultural readiness for customer-centricity, including a thorough audit of your existing CX tech stack and data infrastructure.
Develop a strategy that aligns your CX vision with overall business objectives. Establish measurable goals for your customer-centric initiatives and create a business case that demonstrates the potential ROI of investing in both technology and cultural change.
Engage key stakeholders to build support and educate leadership on the importance of both technological investment and cultural change in driving customer-centric success. Consider establishing a cross-functional steering committee to guide the transformation.
Invest in the right technology by prioritizing solutions that will have the most significant impact on your specific customer and business goals, and are able to scale. This might include AI and ML-powered analytics platforms, omnichannel customer feedback systems, and journey orchestration tools.
Nurture a customer-centric culture throughout your organization. For example, develop a comprehensive customer-centric education and upskilling program for employees at all levels, and incorporate customer-centric metrics into performance evaluations and incentive structures.
Start with pilot projects in high-impact, low-risk areas to build momentum and demonstrate value quickly. Use the pilots to refine your approach based on learnings.
As your efforts scale, establish or align with existing data governance and ethical AI practices to ensure responsible use of customer data and AI technologies.
Implement continuous feedback loops to regularly collect and analyze customer feedback across all channels. Create mechanisms for employees to share insights and ideas for improvement, and establish a process for regularly reviewing and acting on these insights.
Develop a comprehensive set of CX metrics and KPIs that align with your business goals, and report on progress to both leadership and employees. Celebrating successes and learning from setbacks help maintain momentum and engagement.
Experiment, iterate, and evolve, recognizing that creating a share-of-life experience is an ongoing journey. Continuously reassess your strategy and adjust based on changing customer needs, technology advancements, and business priorities.

The future belongs to companies that seamlessly integrate into their customers’ lives, delivering value across multiple moments and occasions. Achieving this requires a transformation that blends customer insights, advanced technology, and a deeply rooted customer-obsessed culture.

For organizations looking to navigate this complex terrain, it’s critical to have the right partners by your side. Leveraging strategy, UX/UI, data, technology, and skilled talent is key to creating truly personalized, customer-centric experiences. By investing in both the right technology and the right people, organizations can set new standards in CX excellence.

About authors:

nick hahn, senior partner, consumer & retail vertical advisory lead

Nick is a Senior Partner at Randstad Digital Advisory, focusing on the Consumer & Retail industry. With 35+ years in consulting and industry, he excels in digital strategy, transformation, and growth for top companies.

He has deep expertise in product management, omnichannel, and business model innovation, with a proven record of driving revenue growth. Nick previously led at West Monroe Partners, Publicis Sapient, Vivaldi Partners, Coca-Cola, and Johnson & Johnson. He holds a BA from Middlebury College and competed in their Division 1 Nordic Ski Team.

aaron kennelly, CX transformation leader

Aaron Kennelly is a global CX design leader with over 15 years of experience in customer experience, innovation, and digital product design. As VP of Customer Experience at Randstad Digital, he drives executive teams to enhance experiences, boost revenue, and optimize costs. Known for his leadership in design innovation, Aaron blends creativity with human-centered design to scale transformative ideas.

His work is featured in "The Responsive Enterprise," and he is a member of the Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA). Aaron holds an M.S. in Instructional Technology, certifications in Service Design and UX Research, and has lectured at Penn State and Harrisburg University.

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