Trust has become a competitive differentiator.
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It doesn’t matter if your business is B2C or B2B, or what type of industry you’re in. If you don’t have your customers’ trust, it will not be long before they find a competitor they can trust. In today’s competitive world, reputation matters. If you lose trust, you have a problem that can be summed up in one word: churn.
Churn usually implies that customers leave and are replaced by new ones. But when trust is broken, replacing lost customers becomes difficult, if not impossible.
Recently, Newsweek released its ranking of the most trustworthy companies in America. The names on the list don’t surprise me. The “Top 10” most trustworthy brands in retail include:
(Note: The study also shows many other categories, from Aerospace to Travel. The retail list was chosen for brand recognition that most readers will recognize and relate to.)
While these companies sell very different products, they all have one thing in common. Customers believe they will consistently do what they promise. And you don’t need to be a large, publicly traded, recognized brand to win in this area. Any company—of any size and in any industry—can build a reputation that customers believe in.
Trust falls into two main areas. The first is integrity, which is all about honesty, ethics and transparency. There are plenty of brands, such as Enron, that collapsed because customers, investors and employees lost trust in how the company operated.
But integrity issues don’t have to rise to the level of Enron to damage trust. Sometimes it’s hidden fees, questionable policies, confusing fine print or practices that make customers feel like they were tricked. Think about the hotel guests who check out and discover an unexpected “resort fee” added to the bill. Technically, it may have been disclosed on the hotel’s website, but it’s buried in fine print that many customers don’t notice.
While a resort fee may not seem as serious as corporate fraud, the result is the same. Lost trust kills business.
The point is that trust, related to ethics, morals and transparency, is not an option. The moment the customer questions the way you operate, it’s game over.
Reliability
The second area of trust is reliability. What causes customers to trust a brand? Reliability. That’s why companies like Costco, Amazon and Chewy continue to win customer loyalty. The general sentiment from their customers is:
Notice the pattern. The word always indicates consistent reliability. And with that said, one sentence sums it up, and it doesn’t need the word always:
“I don’t have to worry.”
There Isn’t a Choice
To get customers to come back, you can’t have integrity without reliability and vice versa. A company may execute flawlessly and appear reliable, but if customers believe the business uses deceptive practices, it doesn’t matter how reliable they are.
Conversely, a company with high integrity that delivers a poor or inconsistent experience will struggle just as much. Customers may like the company, but they still won’t feel confident doing business with them.
The best brands understand that trust requires both integrity and reliability.
Trust is no longer just part of customer service. It has become a competitive differentiator. Customers want to know they are buying from companies that are honest, transparent and dependable. That’s why brands like Costco, Amazon, Chewy and the others on the Newsweek list continue to stand out.
Jan Carlzon, the former president of Scandinavian Airlines, talked about the interactions customers had with the companies they did business with. He referred to those interactions as Moments of Truth. This is where customers formed their impressions. Every interaction either builds confidence or weakens it. Customers, whether they know it or not, are constantly grading the company.
Jennifer Cunningham, editor-in-chief of Newsweek, said it well: “In an era defined by a profound crisis of grievance, a corporation’s integrity is no longer a marketing luxury. It is its most volatile and valuable currency.”
She’s right. Trust is currency. And the companies that earn it will keep their customers. The strategy (and goal) is simple: Create an experience in which customers never have to worry.
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