Loyalty - an outdated concept?

The last couple of decade have brought many changes to the way we do business and 'process' transactions. Smaller mom & pop operations have been replaced by mega stores or national and global chains. For the consumer, this often lowered the cost of goods, or guaranteed consistency (think Wal-Mart or Starbucks). Over the years though, we've lost the necessity or desire for loyalty. the mom & pops literally banked on their customer's loyalty, and each loyal customer meant ensured success. But the value of loyalty of a single customer is inversely related to the number of customers. If I have just one customer, I'm out of business if they don't come back or don't believe in my product or service enough to spread the word; their loyalty to me is invaluable. As my customer base builds though, the value of any one customer's loyalty is reduced. It's still important to cultivate that loyalty, my business may take a hit if a customer leaves, but I probably won't fail. There gets to be a point though, if the company is big enough that the value associated with any one customer is worthless and there is no benefit to continuing to cultivating loyalty at the individual level.

But will this paradigm hold true? As more sites or outlets become available for the individuals to express their individual opinions to the masses (think google ratings, yelp or angie's list), one customer's opinion can now be amplified. If the corner coffee shop has grown too big to have a tangible value associated with an individual customer's loyalty makes the mistake of treating an individual customer as such, that one customer can now express their sentiment across an entire connected population. What used to mean loosing a single customer and possibly a few of that customer's friends could now with the amplification effect of social media mean the loss of customers that have no actual connection with that original customer. I think it will be interesting to see how this new paradigm changes the way companies which approach customer service and the interaction associated with individual customers.