Where will people get their meal deals now?The subsequent social media melt-down generated the following headlines: The Telegraph’s ‘sainsbury’s ‘£3 meal deal’ change prompts fury among customers?; the Metro’s ‘sainsbury’s just massively changed their 3 meal deal and people are notpleased?; and the Huffington Post’s ‘sainsbury’s Meal Deal Change Is Leaving People Absolutely Furious. Something tells me that Sainsbury’s is big enough to absorb the shock of a few office workers going elsewhere for their sandwiches, but I think there might be a lesson for small businesses in this sorry tale. If you do a quick Google search on brand loyalty, one thing that comes up again and again is consistency. In other words you can’t just completely overhaul your product offering overnight and expect love and admiration from the very same customers whose favourite sandwich you’ve just panned. According to marketing experts, Andrew Pickering and Peter Gartland: “Loyalty is formed out of the habits and rituals our consumers have with our products and services. If we make changes, we break that routine and loyalty is lost. The trust is lost. change is necessary sometimes, but not always appreciated by consumers. To maintain that loyalty we need to be building a brand people love. Especially in the digital age, it is a tall order to build trust in a company as, according to a survey by 24/7, around 47 per cent of customers would take their business elsewhere within a day of poor service. In addition, customers are more likely to promote negative experiences over social media than positive ones and this can have a knock-on effect with other potential customers. This means that, if you decide to make changes to your product offering, you need to be fairly confident your customers will be on board.No matter which way you spin it @sainsburys , your new meal deal is quite a bit crappier isn’t it? Really tasting that difference today.
? Jamie Harris (@jamiecraigh) 12 September 2016
