Skip to main content

Trust in Crisis - Customer Experience is the Way Out

Trust
FreeImages.com/Arjun Kartha
Trust is eroding.
Not only in governments and media as we could clearly observe but also in independent organizations like NGOs and businesses. And in business leaders, experts, even into the famed ‘people like me’.
According to the recently published 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer NGOs and businesses are barely not distrusted. Especially businesses are now on the brink of distrust. They are often seen as part of the problem: While Automation may be good on a society level there are vital job concerns for individuals. Wealth distribution becomes increasingly unequal. While societies improve economically this is not felt on an individual level.
In fact, amongst those who think that the current social-economic system is failing only NGOs are not actively distrusted.
On the other hand amongst those who are uncertain about the current system businesses are the most trusted entities.
So there is a way!
Source: Edelman Trust Barometer 2017

A Focus on Customer Experience Guides on the Way

The trust barometer lists as the 5 most important actions that businesses can take:
·      Treat your employees well
·      Offer high-quality products/services
·      Listen to your customers
·      Pay your fair share of taxes
·      Engage into ethical business best practices
Although one doesn’t need to fully agree with these findings, which are partly overlapping, the points have two things in common: They are key ingredients of a positive brand image and of good customer experience. These five points are also about company values and the culture lived by the company – as opposed to the one that is written down.
A positive brand image is a result of good customer experience. And here is how it helps.

Treat Your Employees Well

There is little doubt that employees are the ones who are providing customer experiences, be it on the shop floor, in a sales or marketing capacity, or in customer service. Even in back office capabilities – following the thought that a business’s reason for existing is fulfilling customers’ needs. A highly motivated employee is far more likely to give good experiences than an unmotivated one. Employees that have clear responsibility, authority, and accountability, who are recognized for their good work, feel paid well for their efforts, compared to other people, and have the tools at hand that help them doing their job tend to be more motivated. Employees who feel forced to create phony bank accounts, will do so, making only the employees responsible does not help – and employees are the most trusted people within a company. So it pays off to keep them engaged and invested into the company.

Offer High-Quality Products and Services

I do not fully agree to this one and would prefer to speak about value. The quality must be high enough to meet customers’ expectations and of the value that they intend to get out of what the company offers. So the key is quality in relation to price. Customers want to get a solution to an issue at hand. Be it preparing the next meal, getting from A to B, or implementing and running an enterprise software system. A customer’s positive assessment of the value of a solution, well after the transaction(!), makes for a good experience.

Listen To Your Customers

Continuing on the thought that customers do want a solution for an issue at hand and that a business’s purpose is to provide good solutions, it is important to not only focus on ‘completing the transaction’. Instead companies need to consider how their customers are behaving, what they are doing and saying – pre- and post transaction. And this consideration needs to lead to adaptations to products/solutions, and services as adequate to fulfill both, the customers’ and the business’s needs. Customers get their value only after the transaction, by leveraging the solutions and services. This requires constant interaction. Positive interactions and the perception of creating sufficient value out of the earlier expense are the ground for good customer experiences.

Pay Your Fair Share of Taxes

People are sensitive to companies’ business practices. Paying taxes is part of these, and paying a ‘fair share of taxes’ is regarded as a commitment to the society that a company is part of. Not paying taxes by using international loopholes is considered greedy, and might also lead to dead capital that cannot be used to full advantage to provide an improved customer experience.
And it leaves a bad taste with the customers, especially when combined with record-breaking profit announcements. Look at discussions about Apple, Google, and Facebook, and many more. Not everything that is (or appears to be) legal is also legitimate.

Engage Into Ethical Business Best Practices

This one is similar to, but far broader than, the tax topic. It also covers sustainability, paying fair prices to suppliers, not abusing market power, and delivering up to promise. Company culture, too. One can consider topics as diverse as privacy, destruction of rain forests, water rights, acknowledging IP, phony bank accounts, or defeat devices in automobiles, and many more here. A part of the brand image (and value) still lies in ‘a company like me’.  And many people prefer to make business with companies that exhibit ‘moral behaviour’ and not greed.

My Take


The Trust Barometer clearly shows that people want to be valued, e.g. exhibited by fairness, correct information and solutions to their needs at fair prices. Providing customers with a consistently good experience throughout the customer liftetime is the best way of demonstrating this value. Looking at relative levels of trust companies that understand this and implement an outside-in approach to serving their customers stand good chances being more successful than businesses that continue an inside-out model.

Comments

Last Year's Top 5 Popular Posts

Zoho - How a technology company reimagines business software

The News   On May 4, 2023, Zoho held its Zoholics conference in Austin, TX which included a media and analyst track in addition to the customer track. After all, Zoholics is a customer event. During this event, about 80 participants of the former track had ample opportunity to learn about and discuss the latest news at Zoho. We also had the opportunity to listen to - and question - a panel of customers who gave candid answers about their journey with Zoho and challenges they faced. Of course there was plenty of room for mingling and networking with Zoho executives and, of course, with analysts and customers. In addition to the breaks between the tracks, there was a pre-evening reception, a dinner on the event day and a casual brunch at the Zoho farm just outside of Austin.  As usual for Zoho, the sessions were less about feeding us with PowerPoint (or Zoho Show, to be precise. Why would Zoho not use a Zoho product?) but about giving good information and a genuine interest in getting fe

Don't mess with Zoho - A Zohoday 2022 recap

After spending two days in Austin, TX, attending the ZohoDay 2022, it is time for a little recap of this interesting event.  We were 99 analysts and 24 customers and plenty of knowledgeable Zoho personnel. The incredible Sandra Lo and her team organized the event around open and transparent communication. So, there was plenty of access for us to customers and the Zoho team.  Which was very important, as already the keynote session by founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu was quite hardcore. Vembu talked about how strategy and culture need to be one, how culture needs to be the root of strategy, and how Zoho implements this. The Zoho strategy lies on three main pillars ·       Transnational localism, a unique concept that in its essence is about embedding a company into a local community by not only selling into it but also by investing into it. This investment is e.g., by offering high paying jobs in areas where these are scarce, by fostering local education, but also by own local sourcing in

SugarCRM explains how the third wave of CRM adds value

The news On October 4 and 5, 2023, SugarCRM held its Connected event followed by an analyst summit in London. The first day – Connected – was targeted mostly at customers while the second day focused on analysts.  The event started off with an intense speech by Katherine Grainger, DBE , a British rowing champion. Her core messages were about team bonding, the importance of communication, continuous improvement, and perseverance (well, at least that’s my take). This was followed by information about what is new in the software and, more importantly, a customer panel.  The main sponsor, Mobileforce , placed some words about the partnership. In addition, the analysts had 1:1s with customers, partners, and Sugar executives. The second day was filled with information targeted at analysts. CEO Craig Charlton and his executive team shared about financial status, strategy and more in-depth product news. Sugar being a privately held, VC backed company, the financials are of course under NDA, s

Relevance, reliability, responsibility are key for AI – the SAP way

The News A lot is going on in the SAPverse during October and the early days of November 2023. First, SAP conducted its CXLive event with CX-related announcements, then the company reported good Q3/2023 figures, a new version of its CX software that includes new generative AI capabilities got released and lastly, it executed its SAP TechEd event with a good number of AI-, BTP-, and ERP related announcements. As this is quite a lot, I covered the CX world in a previous post and will cover the TechEd related news in this post.  So, what is new at SAP TechEd ? For one, it is enough to fill a 17-page pre-event news guide that SAP sent out. SAP certainly is able to stack up the news for major events. I took the liberty to ask ChatGPT for a summary of the document, which I slightly edited afterwards. Here we are: AI and Development Environments: ·       SAP introduces SAP Build Code with generative AI, improving application development and testing, while new AI capabilities are integrate

The Generative AI Game of Thrones - Is OpenAI toast?

The News This has been an exciting weekend for the generative AI industry. On Friday November 17, OpenAI announced that the company fired its figurehead CEO Sam Altmann and appointed Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati as interims CEO in a surprise move. The press release states that Altmann “ was not consistently candid in his communications with the board .” Surprised was apparently not only Sam Altmann, but also the till then chairman of the board Greg Brockman who first stepped down from this position and subsequently quit OpenAI. Investors, notably Microsoft, found themselves blindsided, too – or flat footed depending on the individual point of view. Satya Nadella was compelled to state that Microsoft stays committed to the partnership with OpenAI in a blog post that got updated on November 19, 11:55 pm. All hell broke loose. Microsoft shares took a significant hit. A number of additional senior OpenAI personnel quit. Both, Altman and Brockman, voiced the idea of founding anoth