Data from the SAP Emarsys Customer Loyalty Index (CLI) and Buyer Loyalty Index (BLI) quantifies a widening difference between stated loyalty and actual behaviour.
While 67% of consumers say they “love and trust” a favourite brand, both shoppers and businesses are increasingly drifting away. Three in five (61%) of shoppers switch for a better price, while almost half (48%) abandon a brand for a poor experience.
Meanwhile, B2B buyers stay with suppliers out of habit or because switching is too hard. The BLI finds that 72% of B2B buyers have Default Loyalty, based on the pain of switching rather than the value of a partnership.
Quiet quitting has come to retail, and its B2B counterpart is Default Loyalty. Both look like loyalty but are fragile. The reason? Internal complexity rather than a lack of intent. Every brand wants to engage better but many are not yet able to do so.
– Sara Richter, CMO, SAP Emarsys
Enter ‘dark data’: the signals brands already collect but can’t activate because they’re trapped in disconnected systems across technology, service, marketing and revenue. It’s not lost or ignored, but brands fail to use it in real time without an intelligence layer.
That’s why AI matters. AI connects those signals so brands can deliver personalised, connected experiences across every touchpoint, every time.
– Sara Richter, CMO, SAP Emarsys
The ‘Loyalty Gap’ in numbers
B2C (CLI 2025):
- 67% say they “love and trust” a favourite brand, yet:
- 61% switch for a better price
- 48% leave after a poor experience
- 27% walk following a controversy
- 27% exit over sustainability concerns
B2B (BLI 2025):
- 69% of buyers claim loyalty, yet 72% of that is Default Loyalty: staying because switching is painful, not because the value is strong. When integration barriers fall or a superior offer appears, that customer is motivated to move on.
Why now?
Budgets are tight, expectations are higher, and journeys are fragmented. Despite oceans of data, over half of brands say their data is too unstructured to use, and a similar amount cannot act in real time. The result: faith-based loyalty instead of evidence-based engagement, because the signals that predict churn sit in silos.
This is the essence of what has become known as the Engagement Era. Understanding how customers engage beyond transactions and using one intelligence layer to interpret signals across technology, service, marketing and revenue in real time. Traditional marketing platforms weren’t built for that.
– Sara Richter, CMO, SAP Emarsys
