Building Brand Trust

How to build trust in your brand?

Building a trusted brand is simply a case of building a quality relationship with all those stakeholders that have input into what your brand becomes - Customers, Employees, Management and Suppliers

To create long term relationships that generate long term sales you need three elements. The customer needs to know you, like you and trust you.

It's not too difficult to be found and even liked. But like saying 'yes' to a marriage proposal, a customer isn't going to become a life long client or advocate for your business until they've learned to trust you.

The same can be said for your business brand. You can advertise and be known, present a pretty face and list of attractive features that people may like, but how do you generate that long-term trust.

Whether a brand or a personal relationship the formula is the same: you build trust through keeping your word and delivering on expectations.

It may surprise you that the most important word in that sentence is 'expectations'; knowing what your customers expect is half the battle.

Have you ever thought that something was obvious until a customer complained? Have you ever 'assumed'? We all know where assumptions get us.

How many times have you had a misunderstanding with a customer who thought they were purchasing 'A' when you'd promised 'B'?

There's no point blaming the customer in this scenario. Every time we blame others we lose control of the situation. "But it's their fault" never earned us a new customer.

I'll offer you a better alternative: review where the miscommunication happened and see if we can take control and improve the situation. See if we can prevent it from happening again or even improve our communication so that we add even more clarity to the customer experience.

Setting expectations and delivering is the key to building trust and life long clientele.

Don't advertise what we think they want. Advertise what we can deliver very well. Play to your business's strengths. Let it be itself and don't pretend it's something it's not. Find a market that you can serve very well and then use language that communicates your messages easily to them. If your business aspires to be more than it is right now, focus on actions and spend less time on a false veneer. Think of it as personal development for your business.

Build trust early, build trust often.

Look for little ways early in the customer lifecycle to earn trust. Look for little ways early to set expectations and deliver for your clients. Think of it as placing coins into the relationship piggy bank. Every time you ask something of your client, you'll be taking a withdrawal. So the more coins you add early the further ahead you be.

Best of all, if you manage to fill the piggy bank your coins will spill over and turn into natural referrals, earning you more customers.

Trust takes time, consideration and energy. Of Know, Like and Trust, it's the hardest to achieve. But in the long run, trust will earn you a brands lifetime of loyal customers.

The cost of acquiring new clients has never been more expensive. Businesses are spending fortunes focusing on refilling their sales funnels as they lose customers through a lack of trust and a perceived apathy (clients don't know that we care). It's time to focus on your existing clientele. It's time to focus on keeping customers. It's time to focus on building trust and building a solid base on which to build our business brands in the years ahead.