Confusing Customer Inertia with Loyalty: Colin Shaw’s Warning to Leaders

In a recent LinkedIn post, Colin Shaw highlights a critical disconnect he observes between leadership’s perception of customer loyalty and the reality of customer experience. Shaw, a consultant specializing in customer experience, details a conversation with a senior executive whose company was celebrating high Key Performance Indicator (KPI) scores, believing their customer loyalty was strong.

However, upon testing the customer journey himself, Shaw found a starkly different reality. He describes an experience characterized by silos, lengthy customer waits, and internal processes that disregarded the customer’s perspective. This led him to a key observation:

“In my view, they were actually confusing customer inertia with customer loyalty. This is a common mistake.”

The Embellishment of Internal Reporting

Shaw elaborates on why such discrepancies often occur within organizations. He points out that internal teams, perhaps unintentionally, tend to soften negative feedback as it moves up the corporate ladder. This filtering process can result in leadership receiving an overly optimistic, and ultimately inaccurate, picture of customer sentiment.

He explains the consultant’s role in cutting through this potentially misleading internal narrative:

“The consultant’s job — my job — is to say ‘your baby is ugly’. Not to be harsh. But because no one else will.”

This directness, Shaw argues, is essential for real progress, as internal teams may shy away from delivering uncomfortable truths to senior management.

The Cost of Poor Customer Experience

To underscore the significance of this issue, Shaw cites data from PwC, illustrating the tangible consequences of neglecting customer experience. He notes the significant gap between executive beliefs about customer loyalty and actual customer agreement.

According to the PwC data he references, a substantial number of consumers cease doing business with brands due to negative experiences:

“52% of consumers say they stopped using a brand because of a bad experience. A further 29% left due to a poor customer experience — online or in person.”

Shaw emphasizes that these defections are often within a company’s control, stemming directly from the quality of the customer journey provided. He reiterates his core argument that many leadership teams are currently operating under a false sense of customer loyalty.

Moving Beyond Perception to Reality

Shaw concludes by stressing the value of a consultant’s objective perspective. By providing an unvarnished assessment of the customer experience, consultants can challenge flawed assumptions and guide companies toward genuine improvements. As Shaw puts it:

“Your loyalty numbers are not what you think they are. Your customers’ experience is not what you believe it to be.”

He asserts that while this truth may be uncomfortable, it is the necessary conversation for driving meaningful change and fostering true customer loyalty, rather than simply benefiting from customer inertia.