Inertia is associated with a litany of negatives – being lazy, uninterested, slow, taking the easy way out, and so on. It’s positioned as the arch-rival to engagement. Most loyalty models strive for the unquestioned ‘top’ of the pyramid, the emotionally loyal, denigrating the larger segments with names such as ‘The uninvolved’.

But we don’t think that inertia is necessarily a bad thing – there’s a lot to be said for (unemotional) habit. People are governed by heuristics to make their lives easier, so why shake things up and get people into a more conscious mindset if you don’t have to? Conscious mindsets may lead to them reconsidering their habits and moving to other brands.

Inertia is a fact of life…and dare we say it, often a force for good.