The final topic in our exploration of customers for life is one that has assumed global importance. The question of trust. Our fascination in the topic is nothing new. Edelman’s annual trust barometer is now in its nineteenth year, surveying more than 33,000 respondents across 27 countries.
It offers some instructive insights around employee trust. Given many customers are also employees, I’d argue our basic human behaviour remains constant between those roles. In which case, the barometer verifies some of the dynamics we have already explored around customer loyalty.
Employees who have trust in their employer are far more likely to engage in beneficial actions on their behalf:
They will advocate for the organization (a 39-point trust advantage)
Are more engaged (33 points)
Remain far more loyal (38 points) and committed (31 points) than their more sceptical counterparts
This is exactly how we described the way customers behave when brands make them feel good. Except in this case the catalyst is trust. This makes sense. As relationships expand and deepen, so does trust. However, a breach of trust will often damage if not kill off a relationship.
So what can diminish the relationship between organisations and their customers?
It seems that a lack of authenticity and transparency erodes trust. In a world of fake news and apparently rigged elections, customers expect more from the brands they invest an emotional connection with. Of course, the right kind of leadership can steer an organisation’s culture towards the mindset and behaviours needed to regain that trust. But these stats suggest it remains all too rarely activated.
The Emotional Impact Of Data Breaches
There are other challenges around trust I want to touch on. These centre on the current global epidemic of data breaches. They are getting bigger, hackers are getting smarter and the amount of compromised data is unfortunately growing.
So far in 2019, 1.46 billion consumer and employee profiles have been breached every month on average across the world. Some of the largest examples include:
- The Indian government leaving a healthcare database exposed on web (12.5 million)
- Facebook’s third-party apps exposing users’ personal data (540 million)
- A security researcher uncovering exposed personal data from Iranian ride-hailing app (6,772,269)
As we know, data breaches are the fuel for fraud. Once that happens customer reaction is severe. At that point it is experienced as a breach of trust.
40% of global customers affected by fraud will blame the brand according to Pindrop’s 2019 Voice Intelligence Report
It’s a common reaction. Research by PCI Pal found 41% of British consumers said they would stop spending with a business forever once trust is lost. US consumers are only marginally more forgiving.
This also plays into a broader concern that typically older consumers have around how brands are able to track their digital footprints and increasingly use smart algorithms to predict their behaviour. Often this is done for the supposed benefits of personalisation.
If we return to some of the earlier insights about what accounted for poor service experiences, there is certainly a case to be made around using customer data intelligently to reduce effort and increase relevance.
The key issue of course is permission. Hopefully GDPR will help establish new standards around how customer data is harvested, traded and used. It breaches customer trust when done covertly. Have brands really moved on?
There is a steady rising tide of awareness around how social networks and others have misused individual’s personal data. Looking ahead, organisations will be well served by being transparent about how they use customer data and how customers themselves can retain ownership and control.
Here are some suggestions around maintaining strong levels of trust between you and your customers
- Keep asking customers what they are trusting you will get right. This could be around the right response on key social or ethical issues. It could be on the use and security of their personal data. It could be on how you contract with them and support their ongoing success.
- Make it easy for customers to give you authentic feedback rather than what you want to hear. Make it clear what you have heard and be seen to act so customers can trust your intentions to improve
- Be willing to apologise when mistakes are made. During service emergencies, be brave enough to stay in communication even when there are no updates
- Explain why you want to keep them as customers. Then back up your intent with actions
- Trust grows stronger when both parties regularly engage. If customers for life are your ambition invest in the relationship
- Develop a customer charter on how their data is used. Explain what is needed to personalise their engagement experiences with you. Given them meaningful choices around whether they want that. Trust is a two way street
Final Thoughts
Great customer experience, on top of great products and services, is a powerful combination that will still win and retain many customers. The challenge is that expectations of what that experience needs to be is in a constant state of flux. Customers learn fast in a connected world and have an appetite for being rocked by freshly imagined experiences.
That said, getting the basics right matters just as much. Customer engagement sits at the crossroads of many customer journeys. CX leadership will never win customers for life if all they do is act as a dustpan and brush for the rest of the organisation. Instead they can help focus the priorities and work together with colleagues to fix things and design experiences that make customers feel good.
Customer experience is about delivering both functional and emotional outcomes. Both are needed to persuade customers to stay. Branding has always recognised the power of an emotional bond with customers. In today’s world it is no longer enough for a brand to simply promise. It’s all about translating that into something that is emotionally memorable to customers and delivers them the right outcomes with minimum effort in the least time.
It’s a combination that will still require humans in the mix regardless how smart AI becomes. In fact, the most useful role AI plays is to remove the distractions so that person to person contact can be fully enjoyed when and as needed.
Sometimes only the human touch works, and digital customer service should always remember how important this remains for all generations. A preference for engaging by text rather than voice is always secondary. Other times, sitting in a queue or having to wait for opening hours is not a desirable experience. Customers expect to be autonomous. It’s part of a digital lifestyle.
Things get even better if things are fixed before customers even knew they had a need. This is the power of predictive engagement which only becomes more powerful and frequent as machine learning unearths those opportunities.
Going forward we will see a blend of human and digital labour working together to deliver customer outcomes. This will optimise efficiencies and effectiveness.
However, as we move further into new and exciting ways of engaging with customers, we need to remember what it takes to start and maintain relationships. The spark that makes the difference occurs when trust is strong and the customer knows the brand really does have their best interests at heart. You cannot fake that commitment to caring for customers.
In conclusion, I hope you have enjoyed exploring what it takes to keep customers for life and have plenty of new ideas to test out.
