Four ways to improve customer trust

Customer trust is an essential component of a successful business, and can be vital for creating loyalty among your customer base. Losing it can hit the bottom line hard – 53% percent of consumers say they have stopped purchasing from a brand after a loss of trust in the past year.¹

It’s important to remember that trust is earned, not given. Nine out of 10 executives believe their customers trust their organisation — but only a third actually do.²

In its simplest form, customer trust improves when an organisation makes promises and then delivers on them. But that doesn’t mean it’s a simple task. Here are a few strategies that could help your business to succeed.

Customers want to fully understand your business and their relationship with it, so ensure your marketing and communications are clear and concise. Leaders are twice as likely as their customers to believe or strongly believe that their companies show transparency through their actions and communications.³

It’s also a good idea to keep customers informed throughout the entire buying journey. Mistakes happen, and issues within the supply chain may often be unavoidable, but customers will often be more forgiving with enough knowledge of the situation.⁴

Key takeaway: Being clear, honest and open is a good way to build trust, even if you are communicating bad news.

Nearly 90% of today’s customers say they’ll stay loyal to a brand if it shares similar values to their own.⁵ So from a prospect’s very first interaction with your business, they should know what your values are through clear brand messaging that expresses a purpose and resonates with your target consumer base.⁶

But where a lot of businesses fail to build trust is by establishing their purpose through marketing and messaging, and then stopping there. Instead, it’s essential to communicate your purpose and then authentically put it into practice in everything you do.⁷

Key takeaway: Align your values to those of your customers, and back them up with action.

Another way of building trust is to show customers how much you value them by fostering good relationships and showing that you care about their experience.

Good customer service is essential – 96% of customers say they trust a brand more when it is easy to do business with it.⁸ But remember that actions will often count more than words so make sure any communications you send are relevant and ensure you and your employees have the tools to resolve any issues quickly.

Key takeaway: Show your customers you care by tailoring communications to them and giving them practical help if they need it.

Maintaining high standards of security and accountability is essential, particularly when cybercrime is so prevalent – two-thirds of executives consider it to be their most significant threat in the coming year.⁹

But to create and maintain trust, it can be important that consumers feel confident in your abilities. One way to help this is to communicate your capabilities to them, including how your business monitors threats and protects them.¹⁰

You should also make sure they know how much care you put into looking after any sensitive data they provide to you. Make it clear to customers why and how you’re storing their data, and what protections you’ve put in place to stop their information being compromised.¹¹

Key takeaway: Take data security seriously, and build trust with customers by communicating your efforts.