How To Build Customer Trust & Loyalty

Marcus Lemonis is famous for doing handshake deals, insisting “When you shake somebody’s hand, it’s gotta mean something.” The way Marcus sees it, you’re making a promise. The customer promises to fork over some money and you promise to deliver. Once you’ve both held up your end of the bargain, you’ve formed a bond. Great work. You’re establishing a track record. The customer knows they can come back to you again and again because you’ve already nailed it. You’ve formed a win / win relationship. That’s what running a great business is all about. This article teaches you how to create these win / win relationships, earn customer trust and loyalty, and help both you and your customer thrive.

If you want to see the importance of customer trust, first let’s see what it’s like to lose it. Do you remember when Samsung’s S7 phone came out in 2016? The phone debuted to rave reviews, but soon after it hit the market, pictures started to surface of those phones catching fire. Samsung was able to trace it back to a battery issue and recall 2.5 million phones. But in a sense, the damage had already been done. They’d lost customer trust. Put yourself in the shoes of someone buying a phone. You expect a lot from this thing, including crystal-clear service, fast internet, and a high quality camera. You also expect that it won’t burst into flames. Customer trust eroded and the crisis cost Samsung a whopping $5.3 billion. They’ve since rebounded, but Samsung’s failure to deliver a safe and reliable product cost them big time.

In other words, that increase was all through trust. So, now that it’s pretty clear that customer trust pays off financially, let’s unpack the specifics.

When you have a loyal customer base, you’ll start to see a few things happen and all of them are great. First, you can spend less money acquiring customers who are already on board. Next, you’ll be making more money off of each relationship through repeat business. Lastly, people are talking now more than ever. You’ve already seen people on Instagram sharing pictures of their food. No matter how you feel about that, it’s emblematic of a larger trend. Our oversharing culture means 49% of customers are willing to talk about a great experience online. So, give your loyal customers an interaction worth sharing and they just might tell the world.

By this point, you know you want customer trust. But as Marcus says, “If you don’t work for it, why do you think you deserve it?” That’s just his way of reminding you that nothing happens unless you make it happen. So, let’s take a look at seven ways you can earn customer trust. Because once you boil it down to a process, it’s way easier than you might think.

When you’re running a small business, “no surprises” is a great motto. Wells Fargo probably should’ve taken that to heart, because as you might remember, they got caught opening millions of bank accounts in customers’ names without their permission. In some cases, Wells Fargo even forged customer signatures and secretly enrolled them in automatic bill-pay programs. Not only was this an egregious lack of transparency, but a crime, as the S.E.C. classified the whole thing as fraud. Many customers lost trust in Wells Fargo, then took it one step further and participated in lawsuits against the once-trusted bank. Those lawsuits would ultimately cost over $3 billion in settlements, and of course, even more through the loss of business. So, when you’re thinking about transparency, think of it from two angles. Make sure customers are getting exactly what they want and none of what they don’t.

Others even called it the worst pizza they’d ever tasted. Domino’s put it all out in the open, acknowledged the problem, and explained how they’d fix it. This extremely bold move earned back customer trust, signaled the arrival of a “New Domino’s,” and ushered in a new day of profitability.

Marcus always says, “Businesses are based on relationships and relationships are based on people.” So, remember never to treat your customers like ATM machines. Always treat the customer, and their time, with respect. Have you ever peppered customers with too many emails? Have you ever tried to upsell them with a product that didn’t really fit? Are you waking them up with a newsletter that goes out at 3 A.M.? If you’ve done any of those things, don’t be hard on yourself. It’s okay.

A really important part of meeting a customer’s expectations is creating those expectations. When Marcus worked with a family-run furniture company in Florida, he realized the customer service interactions could’ve done a better job of that.

When it comes to over-delivering, the online shoe-retailer Zappos basically wrote the book.

You just saw customer service as an example of over-delivering, but it’s also important to look at it through the lens of customer trust. Think about all the things that can possibly go wrong during a customer interaction. Did they get the wrong order? What if the order never showed up at all? Was the order not quite up to snuff? In each of these situations, you’re at a crossroads. Their opinion of you is hanging in the balance and can go one of two ways. You’re either going to create a pretty bummed-out customer who’s not exactly itching to order from you again. Or you’re going to solidify customer trust by sending an important message; “You’ll definitely get what you want, either the first time, or after we make it right.” Make sure you take that second approach, because it’s like Marcus has said: “People make mistakes. I know I do. It’s how you resolve it that matters most.”

Think about examples of communication in your own life. Would you rather be ghosted after a date? Or would you rather have at least some idea of where you stand? Your dialogue with customers is pretty similar. Are you making sure to loop them in? Do a walk-through of your ordering process and make sure customers know what’s going on every step of the way. Are they informed after their order has been received?