The anticipated brand loss has a much
more hard hitting impact when customers
cry foul over fine print, than if told the
pros and cons from the get-go, and
allowed to make an informed decision.
Customer communication is a key
principle
of
customer
experience
excellence, and service excellence drives
brand loyalty. Building a dynamic brand
on customer trust involves disclosure,
transparency, and keeping communication
open. Simple.
Broken Trust Restoration
The third pillar involves restoration of
broken trust. The assertion by Murphy's
Law that "whatever can go wrong, will go
wrong” is true, because brands are built on
the backs of the people within the brand
that constitute the organization, and to
err is human.
Customers do not lose trust in brands
that make mistakes or face service failure
situations. Trust gets broken when the
brand’s reaction to the mal happening
does not inspire trust. When brands
are not quick to acknowledge customer
feedback, and to assure customers that
they are listening, then as sure as nature
abhors a vacuum, so does non response
to customer feedback. Where the hollow
will be filled with all manner of reasons
to point fingers at the brand as trying to
Keeping promises elicits delight, and
exceeding customer expectations elicits
even more delight. Delighted customers
keep coming and tell others about their
delight with the brand without prompt-
ing. There’s no magic to it, there’s no
mysterious solution. Building a dynam-
ic brand on customer trust involves de-
livering on customer promises. Simple.
shortchange the customer.
Response to brand mishaps requires
urgent and committed attention, and
to continuously update the affected
customer(s) on the next steps. All
customers want is to know that they
are being taken seriously, and that their
complaints matter. Very often brands
break customer trust by somehow finding
a way to blame and discredit them, and
to angle away the negative attention from
the brand to the complaining customer.
This is not to say that there are customers
who are not wrong or mistaken or
downright out to fleece brands. Far
from it… Customers are oftentimes
wrong. But as the current dictates of
customer experience excellence provide,
the customer may not be right, but that
doesn’t in any way override their right
to be handled with courtesy, dignity, and
respect.
Restoring customer trust is an exercise
in patience and courting the customer
to regain the lost mileage. Consistency
in communication and providing an
opportunity for the customer to be part of
the solution in as far as is possible, will
go a long way to bridging the trust divide.
Brands that have experienced a major
crash have had customers stand by them
for as long as they have seen the brand
making every effort to make good.
Building a dynamic brand on customer
trust involves extending confidence to
customers that when things go wrong, the
brand will make every effort to make it
right again. Simple.
Building a dynamic brand on customer
trust is achievable and strongly attaches
itself to the design and execution of
internal and external communication
to commit to and inculcate a culture of
trust. Brands in their endeavors to meet
their strategic objectives and deliver on
their brand promises, need to ensure that
integrity is not just a nice-to-have-value
pasted on the wall for everyone to see,
but to have it run through the fiber of the
brand’s core being.
The sham of institutions in both the
public and private sector being exposed
for embezzling customer resources,
The currency of cus-
tomer trust is price-
less, and serves to
have brands navigate
both choppy and
calm waters during
the brand life cycle,
to emerge stronger.
The converse is true
in that, a breach
of customer trust
shakes the very foun-
dations upon which
brands are built, and
can take a lifetime of
brand reassurance to
regain brand value.
misusing customer funds, and short
changing customers at large, whilst
professing to espouse professionalism and
integrity as organizational values - vide
their very publicly displayed customer
service charters, quality policy statements
and mission and vision statements in
their reception areas - is a situation to be
decried.
Lessons need to be learned that there is no
way a brand can go wrong if it is built on
customer trust. Customers drive business
and customers that trust a business will be
customers for life. It is really that simple.
Carolyne Gathuru is the founder and
director of strategy at LifeSkills
Consulting. She has several years of
experience in customer experience
strategy development and training.
You can commune with her on
this or related issues via mail at:
[email protected].
The interesting thing is that customers who
have been through a brand malfunction,
and have been well handled, convert to
loyal customers by virtue of having faith
in the restored process, or resolved crisis.
Your Marketing
& Sales Masters
EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING
MERCHANDISING
PROMOTIONAL STAFF
OUTSOURCED SALES TEAM
DIGITAL MARKETING
38 MAL29/19 ISSUE
+254 716 320 697
+254 739 376 555
[email protected]
www.goldsky.marketing