6 tips to build and keep customer trust (Infographic)

Image by Gerd Altmann from

By Chi Whitley

Success in small business is largely dependent upon whether customers trust the business. Customers have become more wary, and are actively seeking reasons not to trust businesses. However, once you foster an emotional bond with your customers, it will increase a customer’s lifetime value. This article outlines six useful steps in building and keeping trusting customer relationships. Check out the infographic at the bottom of the page for useful customer trust building strategies.

– Offer excellent customer service

Customer service involves the guidance and support that a business provides to its customers. This support deals with making it easier for the customers to use the product or service, or in a customer’s interactions with the company. As customer service is an important part of the customer journey, it’s important to offer good-quality service. The customer service will also reflect on the company.

To make customers comfortable and put them at ease, customer service should aim to allow customers to commit very little—if any—effort. Customer service should show a profound understanding of the company’s product, high emotional intelligence and clear communication, and attentiveness to the business’ customers.

– Be consistent

Consistency is key in customer interactions. If one customer’s interaction varies from experience to experience, it can create a confusing image of the business. If a customer has a negative experience, they can share it with others, which can create a negative perception.
To build consistency across customer interactions, businesses should aim to standardize their customer service. Creating guides and policies for interactions can help streamline and standardize the process. Companies can use CX technology to get feedback to refine these standards and practices.

– Be transparent

Transparency is another key attribute that businesses can use to build trusting relationships with their customers. It can help companies stand out from their competitors.

Delivery and data are the two most important areas when it comes to transparency. In delivery, businesses should be honest about their delivery abilities, avoid false promises, and let customers know the cost as early as possible. Data collection can be extremely useful, but customers are advocating for transparent policies when it comes to data use.

– Publicize core values

Core values have become much bigger parts of customers’ consideration when they’re looking for places to give their business. However, they won’t know about the efforts a business makes to prioritize its values unless those efforts are publicized. Companies can publicize their efforts on social media or their website.

Common core values include supporting causes, and partnerships with NGOs or non-profits. Causes to support can be social or environmental issues. Businesses should also encourage their employees to share the company culture and benefits on social media, like LinkedIn.

– Request feedback

Customer feedback is essential in building trust with customers. It allows customers to feel as though they are participating in the business. It also allows businesses to improve their processes, and retain customers by closing the customer feedback loop.

The best way to collect customer feedback is through customer surveys. This is often done through customer survey emails. A customer effort survey collects data on the ease of customer interaction with the business. The easier it is to interact with a business, the more likely the customer is to return. Customer satisfaction surveys measure how satisfied customers are with the business product or service, and net promoter surveys gauge how likely a customer is to promote your business.

– Share online reviews

Reviews are a large component in whether or not the customer will give their business to a company. They impact trust early on in a relationship, so it’s important to have reviews that are accessible and easy to read. Reviews help maintain transparency with clients. If a business has positive reviews of a product or service, it can be displayed on social media.

– Regaining trust

If a business breaks a customer’s trust, it can be difficult to regain. However, there are ways to regain customer trust. The company should apologize for their mistakes (and any damage they may have caused), create a discussion about the issues, and create actionable plans on how to prevent the mistake from happening again. Building and maintaining trust is the easy part—it’s the rebuilding that’s difficult.

 

___________
Chi Whitley is a content marketing that writes SEO-backed articles for both B2C and B2B clients. Chi lives in Austin, TX, and when he’s not brainstorming ideas or publishing content, he’s hiking or playing frisbee with his dog, Augie.

Leave a Reply

The Self-Employment Survival Guide can help you succeed. Learn all about it here.

Self-Employment Survival Guide book cover