Researchers found that socially excluded consumers may change their purchasing behaviour to restore their sense of control.

 

Dr Jiang Yu-wei

“The days of complete customer loyalty are over” argues Dr Jiang Yu-wei of the Department of Management and Marketing and his co-researchers. Companies might still actively seek to cultivate consumer loyalty by offering high-quality products and efficient service, but total consumer loyalty is in decline. Indeed, Dr Jiang pointed out that revenue lost by companies due to consumers changing brands is at US$5.9 trillion. This increase in consumer switching presents substantial challenges for the product and service sectors.

Dr Jiang and his team know that social exclusion had been found to deprive people of their sense of control. Switching to a new product or service, they posited, might help excluded consumers demonstrate a degree of influence over their environment.

To determine whether their supposition was correct, the group conducted five studies that measured the effects of social exclusion on consumers’ brand and product switching. Their first significant finding was that participants who perceived themselves as being chronically or temporarily excluded were indeed more likely to switch services – in this case, determined by whether or not they continued to patronise their originally preferred canteens.

In subsequent studies, researchers found that the reason for this greater propensity to switch was indeed the desire of socially excluded participants to restore their sense of control. They also found that the effect of social exclusion on switching disappears when the initially used product or service can help maintain consumers’ sense of social belongingness, such as through social conformity or when the choice of the product or service symbolises social connection.

These findings show that “when companies are attempting to create consumer loyalty, it is easy to look in the wrong place”, the researchers argue. They suggest that to prevent switching, companies should strive to make their customers feel more socially connected. Companies could also appeal to new customers by relating to feelings of loneliness or past experiences of social exclusion through marketing campaigns, before presenting their products or services as antidotes.

The findings of this study were published in the Journal of Consumer Research. ♦