Losing trust can be expensive.

Have you heard about the company Peloton, which lost $1.5 billion due to a single advertisement?

The company’s stocks fell when customer sentiment was harmed. Even with celebrities as brand advocates, the damage to the brand’s reputation could not be averted.

We will look at how to build customer trust and its importance in shaping your business.

Before we list them out, we need to cover the basics.

Feel free to jump ahead to the list of strategies!

• Six Effective Ways to Build Customer Trust

Off we go!

Importance of Customer Trust

So, why is trust so important?

Customers have more options than you can even imagine. If they choose you and end up staying with you, it is only with the belief that you will provide them with good products and superior customer service. Otherwise, it is easy for them to find a different vendor. It will hardly take the click of a few buttons for them to find another service provider.

People trust a brand for a lot of reasons. It starts from how you treat them, the quality of your products, and the ratings and reviews you get regularly.

Did You Know? 
31% of customers say that trustworthiness is the most important attribute they look for in a brand.

Trust is important, and customers use it as a barometer. Here’s how it helps:

• Customer Retention and Loyalty: Buyers who trust a brand are more likely to stay, even in the face of mistakes. They’ll be more inclined to make repeat purchases, boosting brand loyalty.
• Marketing Strategy: Happy customers are the best brand advocates. This serves as a powerful marketing tool. For instance, positive reviews, recommendations, and, most importantly, word of mouth act as the best marketing strategies. It builds brand credibility and attracts more customers.
• Competitive Edge: Trust is a big advantage! Brands that invest in building long-lasting relationships with their audience base will stay at the forefront.
• Reputation: Having a positive brand image makes a brand credible and helps attract more customers. Plus, trustworthy businesses get more customer engagement, loyalty, and advocacy.

Businesses should do everything in their power to instill trust in their customers. It should be from their content, marketing strategies, sales scripts- everything. You can be apart from the crowd only by providing an exceptional experience to your customers.

Pro Tip!

It is important to engage with your audience at all times. Rolling out feedback surveys at crucial touchpoints is one of the best ways to keep in touch. But again, traditional long surveys bore us all and end up abandoned in one of your spam folders!

That’s where SurveySparrow’s conversational surveys mark a change! They make it feel like you’re chatting with your customers and then surprise you with 40% more responses. Track them, visualize them on the executive dashboard, and make informed decisions.

Here’s a survey template to test it out! (Feel free to customize it. If you like it, 1000+ pre-designed ones are waiting for you!)

Customer Feedback Survey Template

Preview Template

Use This Template

Now, let’s move on to some practical steps.

How to Build Customer Trust: Six Effective Ways

Customer trust and Retention are interconnected. You can retain your customers only if you keep them satisfied. Otherwise, no CRM or loyalty program is going to help you.

Every client is essential. If you don’t treat everyone with the same respect, you will be disappointed because of the repercussions.

But you don’t have to worry. Now is always a good time to start. Here are six steps you must follow to earn a customer’s trust right away:

1. Provide Excellent Service

Exceptional customer service shows care, commitment, and accountability.

Your competitors should discuss the kind of customer service that you provide during their meetings. That is the type of impact it should have. If you can achieve that level of sophistication, then you are gold in the eyes of the customer. It has a huge impact on loyalty and retention.

But what should be done? 

• Cultivate a Culture of Excellence:  You must create a culture where your employees provide the best service without instructing them. It is only feasible to lay a foundation and build a culture like that. Such high standards are possible when management gives its employees the freedom to decide what is right.
• Comprehensive Training for All Employees: Train your team of agents, customer support agents and everyone else in the company, to know that customers should be cared for.
• Diverse Communication Channels: Offer your customers a variety of channels to get access to you. Customers should not feel that one channel provides better service whenever they reach out to you from different channels. Why? Maybe because channel A is convenient for your customer while channel B is not.
• Assurance of Problem Resolution: Whenever customers reach out to you, they believe their problems will be solved. If there is no assurance like that, your customers will always feel confused and indeed will look out for better service. Encourage your employees to see each customer problem as unique and offer them solutions that way.

2. Strong Value Proposition

Building trust is not a one-day job.

• Recognize the Time Investment: This is integral to your business. If you look at some of the most influential brands in the world, you will find that their priority is always customers. They would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the customers happy. Their focus is on building a positive experience.

Read More: 15 Tips for Fostering Positive Customer Experience

• Implementing Ambitious Service Plans: It would be best to give your customers reasons why they should choose you over anyone else. A strong product and a good customer service strategy are the only ways you can get into the hearts of your customers. It isn’t easy, but you can do it with a solid plan.
• Use Marketing and Communication Strategies: Ensure that your messaging strategy is on point, there are no inconsistencies across different channels, and everything promised to the customer happens accordingly.
• Go the Extra Mile to Listen: Respond to their feedback, create open communication channels to show loyalty, and build lasting trust-based relationships.

3. Use social media effectively

One of the biggest advantages of being active on social media is that customers will keep viewing your content often. This will increase brand visibility and help with top-of-the-mind recall.

• Increasing Brand Visibility for Customer Acquisition: Once you have more visibility for your brand, it will eventually translate into more followers, who will be more open to becoming your customers. The more people see your brand, the higher the chances they will think of it when looking for a similar product.
• Use Social Media as a Channel: Establish clear communication channels through which customers can contact you. Not everyone would be comfortable using email, but they are more likely to have used Facebook.
• Enhance Accessibility for Older Customers: Imagine the surprise of an elderly customer when they know they can quickly solve their queries by logging into Facebook (something they do regularly) instead of going through an IVR or a series of emails that might be unfamiliar territory.

The key is to be active on social media sites and come across as an authority. Customers want to spend their money on businesses that know what they do. Social media is an excellent place to spread your knowledge about what you know and how your product solves their problems. It also allows you to show live examples of businesses benefiting from it.

It can also be used to post regular content for prospective customers who are in different stages of the funnel.

4. Focus on Quality of Service

If there is one way to be the darling of your customers, it is to surprise them with your service. They should be shocked at the level of exceptional service that you offer.

Brands like Amazon, Zappos, etc., are shining examples of businesses that delight customers in ways that might be completely new for other businesses worldwide. The level of promise and service that they provide is almost unparalleled among the normal business folks.

• Timely Response or Delivery: Suppose your customer orders a product, and you promise it will be available at their doorstep in a week. Imagine the customer’s delight if they find that they will get the product delivered on the 2nd day. Customers do not trust businesses easily these days. That’s because customers feel like they have been lied to a lot.
• Be Transparent: Customers who feel manipulated will move away from the brand. They are less likely to trust the brand and will also communicate their feelings to their friends and family.
• Manage Expectations: Set clear customer expectations and consistently meet or exceed them. Consistency in delivering above-average experiences builds trust over time!

5. Communicate Effectively

No consumer has ever complained that a business was always available for them.

• Be proactive: Finding brands that care for the customer is a boon. Anytime you want to convey something to your customers, ensure you communicate it immediately.
  Do not wait for your customers to come to you with questions, especially when an obvious solution that could have been communicated much earlier is already available.
• Be Open About Your Flaws: At any point, if you feel that you have wronged your customer, do not worry. Tell them openly about it. They will be happy to hear from you and are more likely to forgive. The same might not be the case if they were to hear about your folly from someone else.
• Swift Resolution: When anything goes wrong, immediately acknowledge it and promise your customers that you will make amends to better the situation.
• Be Accessible: When you communicate regularly with your customers, they will feel you are always available. That’s a really good thing for your customers to think about you. This means they will trust you more.

People feel comfortable when they know they can reach out to you at any time. Ensure that customers can reach out to you through different channels. Give them a dedicated account manager who will handle their needs if possible.

6. Get feedback from your customers

Customers are happy to share their feelings about your brand, the service provided, and if they would be returning for more. The best way to do that is by regularly sending them surveys using SurveySparrow, which allows you to get their feedback.

Allow the option for your customers to share their opinions regularly. There is no one else better to offer you insights about your product.

Important questions to ask

1. Are you satisfied with the solution that we offer?
2. Do you think you are getting the kind of support that you expected from us after becoming our customer?
3. Where do you think we can be better?
4. What are the additional features that you are looking for?
5. How can we improve our service?
6. On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with the experience at our company?

Apart from asking these questions, it should be in a format where the customers can add their opinions.

Once you get feedback, ensure that you close the loop by taking follow-ups. Customers who know their opinions are valued are more likely to trust you.

Read More: What is feedback Looping?

Once you have made changes based on the feedback from your customers, let them know that you have made the recommended changes.

They will also be more likely to respond to you the next time. You gain customer trust and loyalty through such an action. Once you have that combination, your business will flourish.

We have already discussed the importance of a conversational survey in collecting feedback. It is equally important to manage and keep an eye on reviews.  SurveySparrow’s Reputation Management will help eliminate negative feedback and create a dedicated workflow. You can assign and automate real-time actions with Ticket Management. Sentiment analysis makes the process of separating the comments easier!

Why don’t you give it a try? Take it for a free spin.

Bonus Tips for Gaining Customer Trust

1. Ensure a smooth transaction: The customers should not feel they are taking more time than necessary to get things done. Try to reduce friction as much as possible. Ensure that anything that a customer needs, right from an upgrade or a new plan or closure of an account- each of these things happens seamlessly.
2. Do not use clickbait. A decade ago, clickbait might have worked, but it was even an irritating norm. But if you were to employ clickbait tactics now, your customers would shun you. It is frowned upon by everyone. Only businesses that aren’t honest and lack integrity use clickbait tactics these days.
3. Cultivate relationships with your customers. Your customer should not be just another number, no matter how many of them you have. Treat them like an individual. Give them the respect they deserve, even if they are not paying customers. Take care of their problems. Go out of your way to solve it.
4. Offer a customer loyalty program. A loyalty program is a great place to start if you want to gain trust, improve retention rates, and add new customers regularly through referrals. Offer incentives for customers to be a part of your loyalty program. There are different loyalty programs. Determine which ones your customers will appreciate and use.

Read More: 7 Customer Loyalty Programs to Keep Your Customers Happy

Conclusion

For a customer, the only reason they would be purchasing over and over from the same brand is their trust in them. If you want long-term customers, you should be able to command that kind of trust. Having trusting customers will make all the difference for your business.

You don’t have to do anything devious to make your customers trust you. The six points outlined above are enough for your customers to love your brand.

Be as open with your customers as possible. Once your customers believe that there are no ulterior motives in your messaging or marketing strategy, they will be open to your offering.

A solid customer success team puts you in a position where your customers will always feel satisfied. Truth is the cornerstone of every relationship, and you must come across as a truthful brand to its customers.

Mathew Maniyamkott

Guest Blogger at SurveySparrow

Regular contributor to various magazines. Passionate about entrepreneurship, startups, marketing, and productivity.