How Businesses Fail to Keep Customers’ Trust

We all know that trust is something easily broken and difficult to repair. This covers most all areas of life including friendships, coach/player relationships, boss/employee relationships, and even the relationship between a company and their customers.

Neustar and the Ponemon Institute conducted a study of more than 750 US adults called, “What Erodes Trust in Digital Brands” to discover ways trust is being lost and how it could be regained.

The first area that causes customers to lose trust is content.

·        91% of adults surveyed say  they don’t trust websites with errors

·        55% don’t like when ads interfere with content

Second, the study shows performance can lose a customers’ trust.

·        88% of adults surveyed distrust websites that frequently go down

·        67% feel uneasy about websites that take too long to load

·        78% worry about the websites security if the performance is slow

·        40% are most concerned with slow performance during checkout

The final area where trust is commonly lost is in the security.

·        63% of adults surveyed don’t trust websites of companies that have experienced a data breach

o   33% say it takes 6 months to rebuild trust after data breach

o   24% never regain trust

·        55% don’t trust websites that don’t have security safeguards

·        22% don’t like the ability to stop being  tracked

·        19% don’t like websites that request too much personal information

·        10% don’t like the inability to delete/edit information already provided

Luckily, there are some ways companies can attempt to gain back trust after it has been lost. First, companies need to make sure the problem does not happen again. Customers will appreciate immediate action to ensure a better experience in the future. Make sure the company is focused on customer satisfaction and that they listen to the desires of customers.

I’m sure we’ve all experienced situations in life where trust has been lost and takes some real effort to regain it. The same applies to businesses. If trust is lost, it might be a long journey to gain back.