Customer Loyalty

The concept of customer loyalty in the United States is something that has been in slow and steady decline since the early 1900s as a result the Industrial Revolution and unchecked Capitalism. Today, produce is bought at the most conveniently located name-brand grocery store, where the price is right, the quality is tolerable, the selection is nearly infinite, and the absence of human interaction is actually one of the most preferable components. Shopping for groceries is as necessary and impersonal a task as is brushing one´s teeth.

When shopping for food in Italy, however, one is not simply buying necessities for living, but one is in fact entering into the community in a fundamental way. Here in the city of Rome, for instance, there are small outdoor markets scattered throughout the city. In my own neighborhood, every morning, I have the choice of almost a dozen fruit and vegetable vendors, and several options as to where I can by my meat, my fish, my prosciutto.

Yet, with all of these options available every day, Italians will always return to the same vendor. And it is not simply because that one vendor has the best products. If the vendor that one has gone to for years happens to be out of tomatos that day, the customer will not go to another stand that has not run out of tomatos (unless the need is quite desperate), but will instead willingly go without tomatos for that particular day.

It is a small sacrifice on the part of the customer, and consequently a small element of loyalty towards the community that is rarely conceived of in the States anymore. America has forgotten that to truly be a part of a community, human interraction should consist of more than simply the most necessary exchanges. The social quality of our human nature is not simply manifested by our need to surround ourselves with people, but through little acts of loyalty and sacrifice -- even for complete strangers. And it is in this way that Italy demonstrates its richness of culture: by its capacity to bring out the best in human interraction in a task as simple as shopping for vegetables.