Building trust is not easy. It takes effort, it takes time, and it also takes a few tricks up your sleeve to earn customer trust. In the customer success industry, building trust is extremely important.
The trust between a customer and a company is just as significant as it is for any other relationship. When you genuinely connect with your clients, you can create multi-dimensional brand loyalty. This connection helps in winning trust and forms the foundation of a customer-vendor relationship.
But why is trust important in a business? And how do we build trust in business relationships? Or more importantly, how do we earn customers’ trust? Below we’ll answer these important questions by sharing tips for earning that trust.
Customer trust: Six tips for earning it
To help you understand how to earn trust you must take specific steps in that direction. Below, we lay out six key tactics to earn the trust of our customers. Follow these and you’ll gain brand trust and loyalty. You’ll also see marked revenue growth.
- Begin with active listening
- Provide multiple feedback channels
- Keep your processes transparent
- Deliver world-class customer service
- Connect on a personal level
- Under promise and over deliver
An Edelman report suggests that about one-third (33%) of American consumers trust brands because they are struggling financially. So, they can’t afford to waste money on a bad purchase.
Trust is an issue that’s keeping chief marketing officers (CMOs) awake at night. It significantly impacts large purchase decisions, particularly for B2B businesses. There are loads of reasons why consumer trust is important.
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Begin with active listening
If you truly want to start building trust with customers, you need to take initial steps to start earning it. If you wish to enhance client trust you must start listening to them and giving them a voice. Doing so makes it easy to trust you.
One of the best ways to facilitate that is by actively listening to your customers. It improves concrete insights into the customer experience. Additionally, it explores customer successes and missed opportunities. Most importantly, it benefits the customer.
When you give customers a voice, you will almost certainly increase your customer retention rates. Plus, you increase the probability of generating new upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
Provide multiple feedback channels
Customers want reassurance that the brands they purchase from value their opinions and needs. A great way to display this is to regularly request feedback and inputs through surveys and direct communication. Moreover, customer surveys should offer customers a channel through which they can provide suggestions for product or service enhancements.
The benefits of customer feedback are invaluable. Top-performing SaaS companies understand the vital role that customer feedback plays. Therefore, they prioritize providing customers with feedback channels, which can build customer trust in the business. Accept all of it with positivity – regardless of how positive, negative, prompted, or unprompted it might be.
Keep your processes transparent
To ensure trust from your clients, it’s important, to be honest about what they can expect from your company. This should start right from their first interaction with your brand. In short, never offer misleading information to your customers.
Instead, transmit clarity right from the outset. Be candid about your payment schemes, fees, or any other legal policies which you deem could impact the prospective buyers in the future. Simply put, every customer should know exactly what to expect before signing a contract or placing an order.
Deliver world-class customer support
The level of customer service you offer significantly impacts customer stickiness. You need to have a dedicated support system that sets high standards for your business and delivers on them. It’s also advantageous to provide multiple support channels and make them easily accessible on your site.
Avoid using a one-size-fits-all approach to customer support. Simply train support staff thoroughly on how to deliver world-class support. Personalize the customer support experience. Provide customers with dedicated support reps. In other words, your goal should be to offer efficient, consistent support with a personal touch.
Connect on a personal level
Billboard and print ads don’t work like they used to. Digital tactics started replaing traditional brand promotion over a decade ago. Many consumers today look for a memorable experience instead. They seek out values like authenticity and sincerity in a brand.
A great way to connect with your customers and deliver a stellar customer experience is to produce engaging, entertaining content. Moreover, meaningful content that delivers unique value will resonate with customers and improve your brand reputation. Moreover, forming better relationships with customers builds brand loyalty and reduces customer churn.
Under promise and over deliver
You make a promise to customers with every advertisement, promotion, deal, new product, and service you launch. This is even true for the content you produce. As long as you deliver on those promises, you enhance your “trust quotient.” When you meet your customers’ expectations—both online and offline—you increase retention and loyalty.
Final take
Trust is an essential building block of a healthy customer base. It’s essential for retaining long-term customers and can drive your company’s success. Earning that trust isn’t that difficult.
Offer best-in-class customer service, give customers a voice, and listen to and act on their concerns and needs. Be transparent and don’t forget to personalize the customer experience.
Prioritize the needs of your customers and ensure they realize that. When you accomplish this goal, you’ll establish trust and increase customer retention. And that leads to sustainable revenue growth and a healthy business.
Kaustubh Sangam is a Customer Success Analyst with 2 years of experience. Committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences and driving business growth. Proficient in leveraging data analysis to optimize customer success strategies.
Published August 13, 2020, Updated June 07, 2023
