🫶 It’s a Matter of Trust
🪧 3 Elements of Trust
🐷 Trust Bank
🫶 It’s a Matter of Trust
Trust is an integral part of your branding. If you want your customers to buy, they better trust your brand.
We live with trust every day. It’s a core element of how we make decisions. If something doesn’t feel right our defenses go up. We ask more questions. We look for referrals. We get more analytical and skeptical.
Trust enables decision making to happen smoothly. When we feel good about a brand — when we trust it — it’s a lot easier to make a decision. Our cognitive and emotional states are aligned and support our decision making process.
For that very reason, a key goal for every company is to form trusting relationship with their market: customers, partners, vendors, employees, everyone.
Trust is earned and invested in, and it’s easy to lose. Let’s explore how in the next sections of today’s newsletter.
One Stat to Watch
49%
Reviews build trust! According to a survey by BrightLocal, 49% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.
🪧 3 Components of Trust
Consistency, Confidence, and Goodwill function like a three-legged stool to build brand trust.
Consistency: As humans, we are attuned to spot discrepancies. We appreciate and want consistent, predictable behaviors, and we feel comfortable with people and products when they do as we expect. On the other hand, trust is jeopardized by unexpected behaviors. These inconsistencies trigger fear and skepticism, and cause us to second guess the situation.
Confidence: Confidence is the belief that you will deliver on your promises: You will do what you say you will do. You build confidence through your behaviors. It is formed by the questions you ask, the people and companies you associate with, prior actions, and your demonstrated knowledge. You are judged on your expertise and follow through.
Goodwill: Do you believe a person has your best interests at heart? Do they care? That’s goodwill. It’s a measure of friendliness and concern, and it’s a commitment to do the right thing for your customers. You demonstrate goodwill by how your company stands behind its products and services, and the way you support your customers — in both good and bad times. This isn’t something that can be faked. You are either working for your customers or you’re not.
🐷 Make Deposits in the Trust Bank
Major brand screw-ups are unusual. The real attack on a brand’s trust is far more mundane. Trust is eroded by small breakdowns in service. These breakdowns occur when a company doesn’t meet a customer’s expectations and lets them down.
These problems aren’t big enough to cause customers to revolt or leave, and they are definitely not big enough to make the news. But these are the problems that customers remember, and over time they destroy trust.
Think of growing trust with your customers as making small deposits in the Trust Bank.
Every interaction you have with your market helps to establish trust. Consider these interactions as deposits. Every time you interact with your customers you are demonstrating consistency, building confidence, and establishing goodwill. Each deposit builds on the next, and soon you will have a trusted relationship with your customers.
Building up a large balance of trust is essential because it’s the currency that drives purchase decisions. It gives you permission to introduce new ideas, but it also gives you understanding when mistakes do happen.
Companies that invest in trust grow Sticky Brands.
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