Operant Conditioning as Applied to Marketing with a Twist.

Operant Conditioning has been one of the favorites for marketers as it is one of the core principals for improving customer loyalty. 

Lets first look at what Operant conditioning is then we will look into how marketers of today or online platforms of today are using it to improve customer loyalty and reduce customer churn. 

What operant conditioning states that when an accepted behavior is displayed then it needs to be reinforced with positive feedback or outcome. While if the behavior displayed is not acceptable one needs to decrease that behavior by providing a negative stimulus either in form of a punishment or a negative outcome. Quite simple isn't it that is how we usually raise kids, where we punish kids when they do mischief or show an acceptable behavior pattern. 

You Can check out the image below to see how operant conditioning works.

Now, How are the modern e-commerce platforms using it to increase users or customers, well I believe its by providing discounts. Buying online gets you discounts that normal retail stores can't provide. This behavior-based positive stimulus is what has led to humungous growth for both Amazon and Flipkart in India. 

In Case of PayTm or Google pay the positive reinforcements are provided in the form of Cashbacks, for every payment made via Paytm or google pay they provide a cashback which may vary. But by giving a positive reinforcement the utilization factor for these apps or platforms has only increased as more and more people start using these platforms for their daily transactions, and in turn providing these platforms with a treasure trove of data on buying behaviors of millions of users on the platform. 

Even Mobile networks such as Airtel and Jio are utilizing it, why you get free wynk premium and free access to zee5 if you are an Airtel user who uses the MyAirtel app. Similarly, Jio offers similar offers through Jio Music and so forth but only if you install the MyJio app and are a Jio user. All these benefits act as positive reinforcements for users to utilize the said services or app. 

But Operant Conditioning has it's Flaws as well, in cases if you remove the positive reinforcements there is a high possibility of losing customers and users. It's not like smoking where even if you increase the prices of cigarettes the smokers will keep smoking. 

A case for the flaw related to operant conditioning was when PayTm lost almost 80% regular users when they removed the cashback that they were providing on using the PayTm app for local purchases. 

In Case of Flipkart and Amazon, their sales dipped as the extent of discounting available on the said platforms dropped. 

So is Operant Conditioning really useful then?? 

We are yet to explore an area of operant conditioning that is little explored not discounts but rather information. Herein comes the case study of Hubspot, Hubspot also used classical conditioning but with a twist wherein they focused on providing information and insights to marketers regarding digital marketing, especially people who were just starting out as digital marketers. 

The user base they built then engaged with Hubspot on a daily basis just to get information and in the mix they kept on informing people about their services, providing premium research pieces at the expense of providing contact information. This helped Hubspot to build a substantial base of operations. 

There are various other curious and interesting cases of operant conditioning when it comes to marketing if you are interested in discussing it further with me just drop a message in the comments section.

About The Author:- Ruben is an experienced Marketing and Strategy professional with an experience of over 6 years in the field of marketing.