This week we dived into a Campaign Live webinar packed full of golden nuggets on how brands can win consumer trust and keep loyalty alive. Personalisation, experience and transparency were just some of the key takeouts…
- Only 1/3 consumers trust the brands they buy according to 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer. Trust is at an all time low.
- The more brands invest in building trust, the more they stand the receive in revenue, retention and recognition from an engaged audience.
- Trust take years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair
- To be trusted is a greater complement for a brand than to be loved.
- Advertising execs are the least trusted profession in the UK (only 16% of the public believe them to tell the truth)
Belief of brands vs Consumer truth…
19% of brands think customers are likely to stop buying from them after being disappointed.
vs
62% of customers say they are likely to stop buying from them after being disappointed.
20% of brands think customers are likely to switch to a competitor after a bad experience.
vs
62% customers say they are likely to switch to a competitor after a bad experience.
36% of brands think customers want to solve issues quickly and easily REGARDLESS of how pleasant their interaction is with the brand
vs
64% customers disagree saying they want convenient and HIGHLY PERSONALISED experiences from brands when having issues resolved.
The trust and expectation gap
- We now live in an experience economy where the product is just part of the whole experience customers look for when making a purchase
- Expectation in this economy is crucial. You are no longer able to control customer expectations because you’re being compared to so many other brands and products, both in and out of category
- What drives trust? The distance between customer expectation and the deliverables they are actually receiving
- Negative bias – humans subconsciously place more significance on negative events than positive ones (5:1 ratio)
- Counteract this by finding and removing all pain points in your customer experience
- Peak and rule- Humans judge our experiences almost entirely on how they were at their peak and how they were at the end, regardless on the quality of the experience overall. This is the expectation gap.
- Customer experiences need wow factor AND longevity factor, so that customers can keep coming back for the same experience over and over.
- 1. Every product must come with an experience
- 2. To gain trust you must consistently deliver and over-deliver against expectations
- 3. You are loyal to experiences before being loyal to brands
- 4. You must eradicate anything negative in your brand experience before putting budget into engaging and impactful experiences
- Surprise and delight marketing does also have a place in b2b marketing but the experience might be more rational.
Building Loyalty and Trust
- Customer service enquiries should feed into your PR strategy. Put customers first
- What are your customers saying and how can this be used to build brand loyalty on a bigger scale?
- It’s even more important to be seen as transparent and trustworthy for direct to customer brands because there is no other trust associations out there (i.e with retailers)
- Be clear and don’t over hype. Trust can be gained through clarity
- Trust can be gained through context. Remembering the sector and the world in which your business exists is equally as important as the experience and product.
- Trust can be gained through honesty. Honesty is not just about telling the truth but also about not hiding information. Transparency is key
- Influencers and affiliates need to be really clear and honest about the nature of their brand partnerships. Customers are not stupid so best to be clear.