Customer loyalty – how do you define it?

It’s been an interesting year for those of us in the customer experience realm.  Lots of passion on both sides of the fence regarding the Net Promoter Score has resulted in positive good overall – it has raised awareness of the era of customer choice.  The more aware a company and its leaders are regarding their customers and their customer needs, the better opportunity that company has to grow organically.  Having used a number of the methods espoused by the various experts, I can see the pros and cons of each of the methods.  What I find the most interesting is not what method but why they choose the method.  Surprisingly, many times that choice is made without actually looking at how their market works and how their customers behave.  Looking their first really helps narrow down the field of what methods will work best for measuring and driving customer loyalty.