The morning after Thanksgiving in Philadelphia carried a lively, restless energy. We had spent the week with family, sharing meals, stories, and gifts that somehow multiplied in our suitcases. As we packed for our flight home, it became obvious we needed one more bag — a simple, collapsible duffle to hold the overflow of holiday generosity. I volunteered to find one, thinking it would be a quick errand at one store before we headed to the airport.
My first stop at a well-known store began with optimism, but the helpful associate wasn’t able to find the collapsible duffle I needed. Still hopeful, I tried another big retailer, only to be swept into a wave of Black Friday crowds. I hurried through the aisles, scanning rows of bags. Plenty of options, but nothing that collapsed down the way I needed. As the minutes slipped by, frustration grew. What should have been a quick errand was turning into a rushed scavenger hunt with our flight approaching.
Finding the Solution
With time slipping away, I decided on one final stop. REI was on the way, and I hoped they might have something that would work. It felt like my last, slim chance before I would have to admit defeat and cram everything into whatever configuration we could manage.
When I walked into REI, the atmosphere shifted. It was still busy, but calmer and more intentional. People stood discussing upcoming trips, new gear, the next trail they hoped to hike. The store felt less like a frenzy and more like a place where solutions lived.
I approached the first employee I saw and explained what I needed: a collapsible duffle, strong but packable, something that could survive a flight and then vanish into a closet. He nodded immediately and said he knew just the one. Without hesitation, he led me through the store and placed a compact, durable bag in my hands. It folded into itself. It felt sturdy. It was exactly what I had been searching for all morning.
Relieved, I headed to checkout. The cashier asked for my phone number, which I gave without thinking. He typed it in, paused, and looked up.
“You have a store credit,” he said. “For almost exactly the price of this bag.”
I laughed in surprise. After the crowds, the dead ends, the rising worry about the clock, this moment felt like a small, perfectly timed gift. The ideal bag, located in-store in under two minutes, essentially free, revealed by a system that required almost nothing from me.
Instant CLV
In the parking lot, standing there with the duffle in my hand and a little time to spare before the airport, something struck me. REI didn’t feel like just another store in that moment.
It felt thoughtful.
It felt human.
Not because of algorithms or loyalty tricks, but because they surfaced something I had forgotten and offered it back at exactly the right time.
And what made that possible was something surprisingly simple. They had my phone number. They had a system that treated that number as a key to my history with them. And they used that system in a way that created value for me first.
No plastic membership card. No requirement to download an app to track points. No digging through a massive email archive to find a coupon code.
Just: “What’s your phone number?”
And then: “You have a credit. Let’s apply it.”
From a strategy perspective, this hit me hard.
We talk a lot about shareholder value. We build models, track earnings, analyze margins, and debate market share. Customer lifetime value (CLV), meanwhile, is often treated as a secondary metric, a number sitting quietly in a spreadsheet, undervalued and overlooked. Yet in that one experience, REI showed how powerful CLV can be when it is taken seriously. They blended customer value and shareholder value seamlessly, almost effortlessly.
Because here is the key. That nearly free duffle was not a cost to them. It was an investment.
That beautifully simple system turned a slightly stressed customer into a deeply loyal one. I walked in looking for a bag. I walked out feeling emotionally bonded to the brand.
On paper, it was the clearing of a credit. In reality, it was the creation of future revenue.
I found myself thinking: perhaps this is easier for them because they are a co-op. Their customers are their members. Their members are, in a real sense, their shareholders. The boundary between what benefits the customer and what benefits the owner becomes thinner and more permeable.
Adapting to the User
In my research over the past three years into companies trying to adopt CLV, we’ve found that many fail not because of strategy, but because of behavioral resistance. The most successful organizations use a simple but powerful tactic: they reduce the amount of behavior change required.
Instead of trying to persuade employees or customers to adjust how they act, they design systems that make loyalty effortless. When it becomes easy to identify the customer, easy to store and honor their value, and easy to deliver that value without friction, the organization is no longer just improving operations. It is reshaping behavior by design.
It’s doing psychology.
Because emotionally, this is what the system said to me:
- We remember you.
- We owe you something.
- And we are happy to give it to you, especially when you need it most.
That moment changed my behavior.
Next time I need outdoor gear, luggage, or anything in REI’s orbit, I will not start by asking, “Where is the closest store?” I will start by asking, “What does REI have?” They moved, in a single experience, from one of several options to my default choice.
All because of a well-trained salesperson who led me straight to what I needed. A simple, customer-centered system keyed off my phone number. And a credit that could easily have remained hidden, but instead surfaced at the perfect time.
As I drove to the airport with the duffle beside me, I thought about how many companies try to engineer delight with complex loyalty schemes or hyper-personalized ads. And yet what delighted me most that day was incredibly straightforward.
Remember me.
Make it easy for me.
Give me real value, no games.
That is not just customer experience. That is strategy.
And because of it, REI did not simply sell a bag that morning. They earned something far more valuable: the first place in my mind, and likely, a lifetime of future purchases.
Become a master at CLV and shareholder value by visiting Outthinker.com today.