Trust. Did you know that 30% of customer loyalty is determined by a customer's feeling of trust? According to Ipsos Canada, trust is more important than brand (13%) and price (14%) in determining customer loyalty.
Sunday night I watched The Nature of Things, which had a documentary on medical errors. According to their research, the way to prevent medical mistakes is to tell the truth and learn from our mistakes. Patients want honesty, information and apologies, not lawsuits.
Business gurus call this behaviour "transparency". Don Tapscot and David Ticoll, in The Naked Corporatation show how transparency or lack of it can profoundly impact consumers' trust.
We are entering an extraordinary age of transparency, where businesses must for the first time make themselves clearly visible to shareholders, customers, employees, partners, and society. Financial data, employee grievances, internal memos, environmental disasters, product weaknesses, international protests, scandals and policies, good news and bad; all can be seen by anyone who knows where to look.
Lesson Learned: Tell the truth when you screw up, admit it, apologize and fix it. Honesty and openess can build your business, and let you sleep at night.
Comments