To describe loyalty we have looked at four principles from the field of neuroscience—rewards, emotions, memories and social interaction.

A study of MRI scans of loyal and less loyal customers found that in the case of loyal customers the presence of a particular brand serves as a reward during choice tasks, but less loyal customers do not exhibit the same reward pathway.

It also found that loyal customers had greater activation in the brain areas concerned with emotion and memory retrieval suggesting that loyal customers develop an affective bond with a particular brand, which serves as the primary motivation for repeat purchases.

In order to become loyal to a brand the brain must make a decision of brand A over brand B, a process which relies on the brain to make predictions based upon expected reward and then evaluate the results to learn loyalty. The brain is required to remember both positive and negative outcomes of previous brand choices in order to make accurate predictions regarding the expected outcome of future brand decisions. For example, a helpful salesman or a points program may serve as a reward to encourage future customer loyalty.

Rewards

A reward is the positive value someone assigns to an object or behavior. Primary rewards include those that are necessary for the survival of species, such as food, sexual contact, or successful aggression. Secondary rewards derive their value from primary rewards. Money is a good example. They can be produced experimentally by pairing a neutral stimulus with a known reward.

Neuroscience portrays a conflict in the brain between the desire
for immediate gratification from a small reward versus delayed gratification from a greater reward. The limbic system causes people to be temporarily inclined towards the immediate gratification, but the reasoning cortex of the brain can overcome this inclination by reminders of the better delayed reward.

In loyalty programs, this conflict is diminished by creating a balance between the immediate gratification that can occur when points are themselves framed as mini-rewards with the delayed gratification of the sizable reward that can only be had by a considerable accumulation of points. In short, adding the “earn” experience to the “burn” experience allows the member to have their cake and eat it too.

Emotions

“When it comes to shaping decisions and actions, feeling counts every bit as much—and often more—than thought.” The brain chooses what data to store and to retrieve based, in part, upon emotion.

When the brain detects an emotionally charged event, the amygdale releases dopamine in to the system. Jill Eichwald quotes John Medina in the Maritz Institute white paper, “The Dynamics of Effective Business Communication Through the Lens of Neuroscience”: Because dopamine greatly aids memory and information processing, you could say the Post- It note reads ‘Remember this!’ Getting the brain to put a chemical Post-It note on a given piece of information means that information is going to be more robustly processed.

Brain systems work in parallel, mixing emotional and rational functions
in various ratios. Unconsciously, emotions color how the association and programs are viewed, and whether people feel motivated to buy more, advocate for, work harder, bond with others ... or join the disengaged who simply “bear with” the organization.

In addition, people’s emotions, attitudes and moods impact others and their social group as a whole. This phenomenon of “emotional contagion” goes beyond face-to-face interaction. As several studies have shown, emotions, including happiness and loneliness, can be spread through social networks.

Memories

For humans, it is highly pleasurable to remember past enjoyment. People respond to current experiences and make decisions based upon remembered past experiences. Memory is a critical factor in determining behavior and attitudes. People remember better what is charged with emotion.

When a person perceives an object, groups of neurons in different parts of the brain process the information about its shape, color, smell, sound and so on. The brain then draws connections among these different groups of neurons, and these relationships constitute perception of the object. Subsequently, whenever someone wants to remember the object, they reconstruct these relationships.

Neuroscientist Jeff Hawkins points out, “The brain doesn’t remember or recall things with complete fidelity— not because the cortex and its neurons are sloppy or error-prone, but because the brain remembers the important relationships in the world, independent of details.”

In addition, isolated pieces of information are memorized less effectively than those associated with existing knowledge. The more associations between the new information and things that someone already knows, the better he or she will learn it. Creating meaningful experiences that form positive memories will contribute to an association’s success. If people enjoyed interactions with a brand, and felt good about themselves during

the experience; these feelings will be remembered and triggered in future interactions, and will prompt people to want to continue to do business with the brand.

Social Interaction

Neuroscientist Daniel Goleman explains: The social brain is the sum of the neural mechanisms that orchestrate our interactions as well as our thoughts and feelings about people and our relationships.

The most telling news here may be that the social brain represents the only biological system in our bodies that continually attunes us to, and in turn becomes influenced by, the internal state of people we’re with. All other biological systems, from our lymphatic glands to our spleen, mainly regulate their activity in response to signals emerging from within the body, not beyond our skin... Our social interactions even play a role in reshaping our brain, through “neuroplasticity,” which means that repeated experiences sculpt the shape, size, and number of neurons and their synaptic connections. By repeatedly driving our brain into a given register, our key relationships can gradually mold certain neural circuitry.

People pay enormous attention to what other people think, feel, say and do. There are many influencers that drive people’s behavior and choices. People, for the most part, do not make decisions independently. Rather, they are influenced by the behavior of others.And by those they view as credible, reliable, well-intentioned or well-informed, and by people they identify with in some way.

Cooperation and social acceptance are so important to people that when excluded it is physically painful.

For A Copy Of The Full White Paper: The Neuroscience of Member Loyalty