Consumer Psychology, Brand Trust
What Do Your Customers Want?
5 Tips to Improve Brand Trust.
Valentine’s Day just past. What did you do to increase sales revenues this year? According to National Retail Federation, Valentine’s Day spending in 2021 is $21.8 Billion US dollars (Inman, 2021). It is a great to use this to prepare for the next hallmark holiday sales. That is, Mother’s Day. The question now remains: how to increase sales on hallmark holidays? The following is excerpt taken from my blog post.
What Do Customers Want When They Shop?
Before we dive into it, we need to find out what makes customer buy. What do customer want when they shop? You may be selling accounting services, banking services, dog food, clothing, skin care, organic food, shoes, bridal makeup services, jewelry, holiday packages, etc. Have you thought about what does the customer actually buy? Customers shop because they trust the brand. To be clear, people buy because they trust the company or brand. Price, convenience, location, material, practicality they are all important. What is the most important of all is the brand trust? You may have a physical product that customers can take home with. Or it is an experience customer are buying (for example, holiday packages or a meal in a restaurant. Or it is something your pet enjoys (say, dog spa or specialty dog treat). It can be impulse purchase as well. Customer must trust your band first. Then, they will consider making purchases. Trust is the driving force. It makes people repeatedly to shop at the store. Now, let’s talk about brand trust.
What is brand trust? According to Loomly blogg, the definition of brand trust is “Brand trust reflects a consumer’s expectation that a brand’s product, service, or corporate behavior, matches the promises the company has made” (Loomly, n.d.). Think about your favorite department store. It has newly released model of your favorite coffee machines. And you need a new one. Wouldn’t you get one from them as soon as you can? It is your favorite store, and you know you can always get a refund or exchange if necessary. So, you go pick one up after your work. This is a simplified answer of brand trust. I hope you get my message.
Let’s focus on small size business for now. Traditional Brick-and-mortar stores have a big advantage over large department stores. That is: they provide personalize shopping experience. Forbes magazine also pointed out this in a 2018 article (Hyken, 2018) This human interaction cannot be duplicated on online shopping. My personal rule is: DO NOT sell anything that is not suitable for customers. Yes, it is tempting to have close a large sale. These days, online review is powerful. Bad review can throw off good reviews even readers had prior positive experience (Valdimar Sigurdsson, 2021). And that will bring down your brand trust.
This human interaction is a big advantage for brick-and-mortar store. A professionally trained salesperson plays an important role in these businesses. Researcher Fauzia Jabeen et al (Fauzia Jabeen, 2022) in their research of Food Delivery Platform confirmed this. What they found is consist with what my message here. That is: constant betrayal (i.e., not keeping the promises) decreases brand loyalty fast. This is one of the reason people still go to stores in the future, according to Forbe’s senior contributor Blake Morgan (Morgan, 2019). A good salesperson will know how to handle such situations. They play a vital role. Now we see providing good customer experience is important. What happens when trust is not there? This uncertainty is a big killer for brand trust.
Uncertainty Kills Trust?!
Is uncertainty this bad in ruining your brand trust? If so, how do we remove such uncertainty? (please refers to my post for complete detail)
In my post, I mentioned I offered my manager’s card to customers. Why did I offer my manager’s card instead of my card? The reason is two-fold. First, it removes all the uncertainty. Knowledge leads to expertise. And expertise leads to trust. Secondly, I am offering trustworthy resources. Again, both leads to trust. More, when I suggested presenting the ring the way it is. Simple because we don’t know will the ring fits the giftee. If it is a good fit, then it saves the resizing fee for customers. Why not? Last, I offered store refund and return policy. I make it clear. Once again, this thoughtful act leads to brand trust. I know it sounds redundant. Hope this help. Oh, the result? The gentleman came back two weeks later to purchase the ring. I was not there but I saw his name on the service envelop. This strategy works. Always give more than what your customer asked for. That will make customer trust you. V-Day is over. However, there are about 8 major hallmark holidays a year. Hope this blog post helps.
Thanks for reading.
Happy selling!
Summaries:
1. What is customer buying? What do customers want when they shop? They are buying brand trust.
2. The best way to build brand trust is honesty. It works and it is zero cost
3. Uncertainty kills trust. How do you remove uncertainty? Provide extra professional knowledge always help.
4. How to build brand trust? It is like a cake. You need to build it layer by layer. First give generic benefits, secondly give benefits that only applies to certain members. Always mention refund and return policy if your company offers that.
5. Always thank customers at the end. It always works.
*This story is originally published in www.mentorowl.com
References
Fauzia Jabeen, A. D. (2022). I love you, but you let me down! How hate and retaliation damage . Retrieved from Technological Forecasting & Social Change : www.elsevier.com/locate/techfore
Frances x. Frei, A. M. (2020, May). Begin with Trust. Retrieved from Havard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2020/05/begin-with-trust
Hyken, S. (2018, Aug 5). What Customers Want And Expect. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2018/08/05/what-customers-want-and-expect/?sh=7314afef7701
Inman, D. (2021, Jan 28). Valentine’s Day Spending to Total $21.8 Billion. Retrieved from National Retail Federation : https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/valentines-day-spending-total-218-billion
Loomly. (n.d.). Brand Trust: How to Build and Protect Your Most Important Asset in 2020. Retrieved from Loomly: https://blog.loomly.com/brand-trust/
Morgan, B. (2019, 10 17). 15 Reasons Customers Will Still Go To Stores In The Future. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/10/17/15-reasons-customers-will-still-go-to-stores-in-the-future/?sh=1ffd4add5b3b
Valdimar Sigurdsson, N. M. (2021, Aug 7). Social media: Where customers air their troubles — How to respond to them? Retrieved from Journal of Innovation: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-innovation-and-knowledge
