>Learn How to Improve Consumers’ Trust in Your Brand
Many political observers have declared the end of bi-partisanship, as the political right and left seem further apart than ever before in the history of the country. Yet there is one area where both parties agree, it is time to rein in the big tech players. Ironically, in a new poll of the 15 most trusted brands in the world, we find a lot of tech represented – including some of the Big Tech players. Is Congress out of step with the American people? And how important is “trust” to a company or brand anyway?
See the most trusted brands & how to improve yours…
In the 2021 version of an ongoing annual survey on brand trust from researcher Morning Consult, the top 15 most trusted brands in the world were identified. Ironically, tech was well represented on this list, including Big Tech players such as Google and Microsoft, even though the U.S. Congress is preparing to issue, on a bi-partisan basis, strong new regulations to rein them in.
This would seem to suggest that perhaps the politicians were a bit out of step with the American public, as far as how they view big tech. Clearly, Americans trust big-tech, as least as far as this survey is involved, while politicians clearly do not.
The Top 15 Most Trusted Brands in 2021
After an extensive global survey, Morning Consult identified the 15 most trusted brands globally. It struck me that the world of tech was well represented in this poll, to an extent I haven’t seen before. And the Big Tech brands are, well, big in this listing with Google, Microsoft, and Amazon rated at #1, #3, and #5 respectively.
In addition to the Big Tech, we also find more traditional consumer tech brands, such as Sony (#6) and Samsung (#10) both in the top ten as well. There are also several, I’ll call them tech-adjacent brands, including PayPal, YouTube, Netflix, and Disney. All-in-all, 9 of the top 15 are tech or tech-related brands…a tremendous showing, I’d say.
The Role of Brand Trust, Here and Around the World
The survey, which is conducted yearly by Morning Consult, is a huge undertaking with surveys taken around the globe. This year, more than 330,000 people were surveyed in no fewer than 15 countries around the world to learn their thoughts on the brands they trust, and what consumers would do were they to lose their trust in a brand.
Trust is a currency that a brand cannot live without”
Morning Consult, CATALYZING CONSUMER TRUST IN A CHANGED WORLD
Morning Consult says that their survey clearly shows that “…the role trust plays in boosting a brand’s reputation, customer loyalty and the bottom line has never been more critical. Consumers are considerably more likely to seek out, pay more for, buy more of, recommend, and even forgive a brand if they trust it.” If your business believes in long-term customer relationships, then you need to recognize that all relationships – even a commercial one – is, to a very large degree, based on trust.
Building a Trustful Relationship with Customers is Hard
The researchers say that as the world begins to emerge from their COVID-impacted past 16 months or so, what consumers value is changing. As a result, their survey shows that “A thirst for trust will define the new era of consumer spending and brand relationships.”
Building trust in a business relationship is hard, but the survey suggests the stakes are high with a big impact if your company should lose it with your customers. Were that to happen, the survey shows that fully a third of your customers will walk – dropping your brand to move on to a competitor (33%). Another 56% may continue on with your brand, but they will begin to use your competitor’s products more so than in the past. Only 11% will stick by you and make no changes.
How Important is Trust in the Eyes of Your Customers?
So just how important is trust in a brand to your customers? Almost 9 out of 10 consumers say they will buy more of your products – and they will buy them more often – if they trust your brand (88%). Almost 3 out of 4 are “Willing to pay more” for goods from a brand they trust (73%). And finally, 90% of consumers say that if they trust your brand, they are more likely to recommend [you] to family members AND they are more likely to recommend [you] to their friends compared to other brands.
The survey is long and detailed and goes much further than we need to contemplate here. But it provided a good summary of its findings showing which areas companies need to focus on to vector their customer relationships on the path of increasing trust with their brands. You can see these factors in the quote below, I have added the highlights for the elements I particularly found compelling.
The Pragmatic and Emotional Elements That Define Customer Trust
Top drivers of both purchasing consideration of and trust in a brand are predominantly functional, relating to value, protecting customers’ data and quality, but more social and emotional qualities like treating customers and employees well as well as honesty and transparency in business practices are also important to majorities of global consumers.”
Morning Consult, 2021 Most Trusted Brands survey
Learn more about Morning Consult at their website where you can sign up to see more on their 2021 Most Trusted Brands Survey: morningconsult.com.
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