We’re definitely on the same page here. We found that benefits fall into one of two categories: some are “common”, or, the types of benefits you’d want out of any commercial relationship regardless of industry. Here we include things like reliability, trustworthiness, or adapting to meet specific customer needs. To your point, excellent execution of these “basics” is critical for getting a customer to consider a company in the first place. But when we looked at companies with the highest levels of loyalty, they weren’t stopping at the basics … they ALSO provided a benefit that was distinct to their specific company. This is where “unique benefits” come into play. Highly preferred companies focus on delivering one or two benefits that the competition isn’t going after while performing strongly on a few common benefits as well. Check out my earlier post on this here: http://mlcwideangle.exbdblogs.com/2009/11/03/deliver-unique-benefits-and-customers-will-follow/