Customer loyalty programs are attempts to bond customers to a company and its products and services by offering incentives— such as airline frequent flyer programs or special credit cards with valuable benefits—t0 loyal customers. In support of loyalty programs, companies often invoke the “80/20" principle, which states that about 80 percent of revenue typically comes from only about 20 percent of customers. However, this profitable 20 percent are not necessarily loyal buyers, especially in the sense of exclusive loyalty. Studies have demonstrated that only about 10 percent of buyers for many types of frequently purchased consumer goods are 100 percent loyal to a particular brand over a one-year period. Moreover, 100-percent-loyal buyers tend to be light buyers of the product or service. “Divided loyalty” better describes actual consumer behavior, since customers typically vary the brands they buy. The reasons for this behavior are fairly straightforward: people buy different brands for different occasions or for variety, or a brand may be the only one in stock or may offer better value because of a special deal. Most buyers who change brands are not lost forever; usually, they are heavy consumers who simply prefer to buy a number of brands. Such multiband loyalty means that one company's most profitable customers will probably be its competitors’ most profitable customers as well.
Still, advocates of loyalty programs contend that such programs are beneficial because the costs of serving highly loyal customers are lower, and because such loyal customers are less price sensitive than other customers. It is true that when there are start-up costs, such as credit checks, involved in serving a new customer, the costs exceed those of serving a repeat customer. However, it is not at all clear why the costs of serving a highly loyal customer should in principle be different from those of serving any other type of repeat customer. The key variables driving cost are size and type of order, special versus standard order, and so on, not high-loyalty versus divided-loyalty customers. As for price sensitivity, highly loyal customers may in fact come to expect a price discount as a reward for their loyalty.
The author of the passage suggests that which of the following is most likely to be true of a customer who is exclusively loyal to a particular brand of product?
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逻辑简图：
第一段：解释customer loyalty programs，并引出80/20理论--提出理论的不足，用2层evidence进行论证--提出更合适的说法"Divided loyalty"并阐述理由，并得出结论：一家公司的profitable customers，同时也是另一家的profitable customers.
第二段：继续提出customer loyalty programs拥护者的观点--先肯定再批驳--提出最核心的变量
A. The customer probably began buying that brand of product only within the past year.（未提及）
B. The customer is probably among the most profitable customers for the company that manufactures that brand of product.（未提及）
C. The customer is probably not a heavy consumer of that particular type of product.（100-percent-loyal buyers tend to be light buyers of the product or service.）
D. The customer is probably a loyal customer when purchasing other types of products as well.（第一段第三层，层次定位错）
E. The customer probably sampled numerous brands of that type of product before
becoming loyal to a particular brand.（未提及）
推理题：定位到第一段的第二层。
第一段Moreover, 100-percent-loyal buyers tend to be light buyers of the product or service.
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2021-12-17 21:29:27
Moreover, 100-percent-loyal buyers tend to be light buyers of the product or service.
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2017-08-27 08:39:07
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