Cheese, Gromit… But Where To Get It From?
9 Lessons On How To Build Consumer Trust

Consumer trust is a hard one to build.

We’ve all been there. Drawn to a website or brand to buy things in hope of better prices. 

But this website is not normal. It looks dodgy, it’s not secure; oh, but the prices are so good. 

You want to make a purchase but you simply can’t. Something doesn’t feel right. What could it be? That’s right, you simply can’t trust them.

From the idea that you might be scammed to receiving a bootleg product, it is hard to immediately trust a new provider. 

This makes the idea of consumer trust a pivotal one. So how can we make a lack of trust a thing of the past?

This guide has been devised to show you how consumers can be made to feel at home with your brand or product. 

Your brand and or product is special, it is why we offer an equally specialised service at Shape The Market with social media marketing. 

If you feel interested, do not hesitate to contact us!

Consumer trust is a hard thing to establish. It’s hard to gain and above all, easy to lose.

A reason why this is is because of what has happened in the past.

Consumers remember past experiences.

From Amazon selling out of date perishable food in late 2019, to the very same company also selling away personal information… Naturally, consumers have become skeptical.

With digital rights under siege, it is not surprising Pew Research has found that 50% of Americans do not trust social media or government sites.

Rightly so.

3.2 billion files leaked to a consumer’s left and their right, shady corporations giving away private information as a sales point, it all helps to make consumers naturally skeptical of larger corporations.

Imagine the mentality of consumers trying something entirely new, if they are unable to trust their typical providers.

It leaves very little margin for error as the digital barrier of consumers is raised.

Much of what was conceived about trust and consumerism came to a head in 2019 with the Edelman Report.

It brought attention to a well-known hunch that consumer trust was being lost in mainstream consumerism.

The survey consisted of 16,000 people from 8 countries and revealed that only 34% of consumers trust most of the brands they buy from or use.

It further revealed that 81% believe that brand trust is a deal-breaker or a deciding factor when they’re considering a purchase.

So why mention this report?

It shows that consumers are cognitive of the fact that trust is a factor when they make a purchase.

This makes trust important to consider how best to establish when expanding your consumer base.

Magnus Carlson would be seriously impressed with our mindful skills here.

While we are not decrypting chess moves or trying to get into our opponent’s minds, the mindset behind a consumer always resembles something to be decoded.

Edelman reports this theory exactly.

So how exactly does this translate into consumer habits?

It means they look for authenticity in what they buy.

90% of consumers said that authenticity is important when deciding which brands they like and support. This is an increase from 86% in 2017.

What’s more, marketers are fairly in-touch with this idea.

83% of marketers say that authenticity is very important to their brands, and 61% believe that authenticity is the most important component of impactful content.

However, whilst marketers talk about the talk, do they walk the walk?

According to Stackla, 51% of consumers believe that less than half of brands create content that resonates as authentic.

Yet, 92% of marketers believe most or all of the content their brand creates resonates as authentic with consumers.

Marketers are more bark than bite.

While this is no love story like Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare would be proud of the story of the consumers.

According to the PWC, the two main things which influence consumers to a particular retailer are brand at 35% and the location at 31%.

It is interesting to note what turns consumers off.

In particular, it is the age of surveillance looming over the shoulders of consumers which can impact how they feel.

Only 34% of consumers agree that they are happy for a retailer to identify when they are nearby, to send personalised offers via a mobile device.

42% of consumers expect a retailer to keep them up to date.

And only 41% of consumers are comfortable with a retailer to monitor shopping patterns and purchases to tailor offers specifically to them.

With the majority of consumers being averse to the idea of being monitored, it shows that consumers are skeptical of being tracked.

Can anyone find me somebody to love?

This is the question many consumers find themselves asking.

So what can we do to make sure that consumers feel at home?

Read on the find out.

Repeating yourself on a business to consumer interaction might feel like an experience out of Groundhog Day, with little point or purpose.

However, nothing could be further from the truth.

According to research conducted by McKinsey & Company, 30% of consumers trust banks that scored high in delivering consistent customer experiences.

Marketing can also deliver a similar experience.

Southwest Airlines, for example, has consistently projected itself as a cheap, straight to the point airline. Their messages remain the same and thus they present themselves as a reliable and consistent brand.

By continuously marketing this way and delivering on that promise, customer trust is earned. The general trend is that when a promise is delivered, customers build up consumer trust.

Being able to evoke a feeling with your product is powerful.

The Values Institute’s “Most Trustworthy Brands” research found that emotional connection is an increasingly important part of brand trust.

Brands that scored highest in establishing emotional connections with customers had high customer loyalty, which also indicates high with customer satisfaction and trust.

But how to achieve this? Well, this connection can be established by humanising your company.

In The Values Institute’s 2014 survey, Costco was identified as one of most trusted brands.

From paying employees well at around $20 per hour to allowing Thanksgiving Day off, it showed consumers particular care is taken over their employees.

By treating employees as people rather than mindless machines, consumers are able to see your employees as individuals.

This allows them to connect not only through the product, but also with the effort behind the service being delivered.

Marketing can equally deliver an emotionally led experience.

For example, emotions were at the centre of Evian’s “Live Young” campaign, which involved installing a pink playground to cheer up London commuters.

Emotion is useful in allowing consumers to empathise and create connection to both your brand and company.

And whilst it can’t compensate for quality or price, emotion can be a way in establishing consumer trust for a brand.

Who, what, when, where, are questions we all relish in asking.

What makes them more effective is when they are asked in person.

We have all been in that situation. At a conference, mingling and looking for people to spread your ideas to.

Out there, in that sea of people, is a potential consumer.

By being seen in public, it gives the consumer an image of you in reality.

Apart from this idea that being seen makes you trustworthy, in a Nielsen study, 84% of respondents said they relied on “recommendations from someone I know”.

This allowed them to determine whether advertising and brand messages were trustworthy. They weren’t. It showed that 96% of consumers do not trust ads.

By having endorsements through word-of-mouth, it will further make consumers feel as if you are trustable.

Going onto websites that self-promote is cringy and off-putting.

A study called “The Trust Factor” indicates that customers want brands to provide information that’s helpful, but not overly promotional.

Of the 1,500 Americans surveyed, 71% said they trusted brands that provided useful information without trying to sell them something.

This means providing quality content is a must for building trust.

Analyse your product or service to see its purpose and publicise it as such.

I can only imagine the thought process going through the heads of Wallace and Gromit.

Cheese Gromit, we need cheese!

Oh no, not that kind, I don’t trust them. 

Be the company a friendly Wallace and Gromit would want to buy from.

From making your experiences consistent with delivering on trust-worthy and refreshing content, trust is an idea that is well within your grasp of establishing.

The world and the commerce which functions within it is changing. While transactions used to appear quite 2D, now they’ve changed. They’re jumping right out at you!

As such, transactions have to be safe, accessible and look deliverable.

With the emergence of programmes designed to scam consumers, we must be aware of why we are adapting to this standard.

Consumers feel their money is becoming more valuable, and ever scarcer amid the virus.

We must make consumers feel at home again and develop a trust complex.

If you ever need help in social media marketing, contact Shape the Market and allow us to take you forward!