A question of loyalty
Loyalty in friends is something to be cherished, but I have a friend who is so uncompromisingly loyal it’s embarassing. He is probably the loyallest person I have ever known. In fact he is so loyal that he’s had to buy himself a ‘manbag’ because his wallet simply won’t hold all his loyalty cards.
That’s why his loyalty is embarassing; I am not going to a shop or garden centre or petrol station with him anymore because, while a queue steadily lengthens behind us, he stands at the counter, shuffling through several packs of loyalty cards until he finally finds the right one to have swiped, stamped, written-on or otherwise endorsed.
I think the Competition & Markets Authority should launch a ‘fickleness card’ which retail outlets are obliged to endorse on presentation. This would a) waste their time and perhaps make them rethink their own innane marketing gimmicks and b) assert the consumer’s inalienable right to shop where he bloody well likes.
There is much to be said for disloyalty. If Suze and I are shopping at Sainsbury’s, we try to make sure we are carrying Morrisons shopping bags, taking the enemy colours into the den of the foe, letting them know that, while we have deigned to patronise them on this occasion, they certainly cannot count on our continued custom. After all, they wage continual psychological warfare against us with their Orwellian doublethink slogans along the lines of ‘buy now and save’.
We have recently started doing our weekly shopping at Lidl, mainly because they have the best selection of European products but also because they don’t waste everybody’s time processing or issuing vouchers for schools, Nectar points, discount dentistry, funeral plans and various breeds of so-called ‘loyalty’ cards.
Also, at other supermarkets one has to tolerate the inconsiderate cret . .er, customers who want to cash-in a fistful of gift vouchers or some such. The rigmarole the checkout people have to go through to do this gives everybody watching them a headache. Meanwhile the icecream you hope to eventually pay for and take home is well on its way to becoming a pistachio milkshake.
There’s none of that at Lidl. No “do you know we have a three-for-two offer on these?” Instead they credit you with the intelligence to buy three if you want three and they get you through the checkout with all the speed and efficiency of pit-stop mechanics. When they get to know you a bit you might be favoured with a “Thanks guys”, delivered with a tad more sincerity than the flatulent “Have a nice day.”
So Lidl has won our loyalty simply by not making such a meal of it.
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