Knowing how to build trust with customers is one of the most important steps you can take to grow your business. 58% of U.S. customers indicate that a company’s reputation is a top consideration when investing in a product or service. This shows just how much impact trust can have on your bottom line.
A strong, positive reputation helps you attract new customers and retain existing ones. But it doesn’t stop there. You need to continuously prove your reliability through transparent communication, consistent service, and responsiveness to feedback.
Let’s see how to build trust with customers from the start, maintain it over time, and even repair it if it’s been damaged. With these practical tips, you’ll be able to create stronger, more enduring relationships with your customers.
The core of long-term success in any business is trust. When customers trust your brand, they’re more likely to return for future purchases, increasing their lifetime value. Trust also reduces customer churn, as clients are more likely to stick with brands they believe in.
Another major benefit of customer trust is its role in generating referrals. Customers who trust your brand become your most powerful advocates, encouraging others to try your product or services.
Building trust also means minimizing risk in the eyes of the customer. When customers know that you’ll deliver quality consistently, they are more likely to stick with your brand over time.
Loyalty is often driven by familiarity or the satisfaction customers get from your products or services.
Trust reflects a customer’s belief in your reliability, honesty, and commitment to delivering value. When trust is present, customers feel more confident in recommending your brand to others, turning loyalty into active advocacy.
🤝 A customer may stay loyal to your business for convenience but switch to a competitor if something goes wrong. However, trust is the foundation that makes loyalty sustainable, building deeper connections and resilience in the relationship.
To build customer trust, focus on being open, consistent, and reliable. Here are some strategies that we use to build trust with our clients.
Open, honest communication is critical in business-to-business (B2B) relationships. When you’re transparent, clients feel informed and valued, leading to stronger, more reliable partnerships.
OpenAI sets a strong example of transparent communication by being upfront about GPT-4’s limitations. Sharing its strengths, weaknesses, and evaluation data allows users to approach the technology with clear expectations.
Image source: openai.com
Consistently offering value establishes trust and credibility with customers, creating a sense of reliability. As they come to expect reliable service from you, their confidence in your brand increases.
Overpromising can backfire, leading to disappointment and damaged trust. Instead, focus on underpromising and overdelivering to surprise customers with positive outcomes.
88% of customers in 2024 saw customer service as more essential than ever, a rise from 83% in the prior years. Your customers want to feel heard and understood, especially when they’re facing issues or frustrations.
Frank Sondors, founder at Salesforge, reinforces this idea:
“At our company, we’ve found that offering real-time support during critical moments, such as onboarding or resolving technical issues, has been an integral factor of our strategy. This sees to it that customers feel valued and supported right when they need it most, which naturally builds confidence in your brand.
When you address concerns immediately, it often prevents small issues from snowballing into larger frustrations, creating a smoother experience overall. For example, implementing live chat during onboarding cut our response time by 42.6%, which improved customer satisfaction scores by 25% over six months.”
When you humanize your brand, you give it a personality people can connect with. It’s about moving away from just selling a product or service to sharing the real stories, values, and people that make your brand what it is.
Stripe shares stories from real businesses using authentic, relatable examples. These examples highlight specific results, like faster payments or easier global expansion, that businesses achieved through Stripe. This strategy reassures potential customers that Stripe is a dependable partner.
Image source: stripe.com
Trust is built when customers feel their feedback matters. Listening and responding appropriately can deepen the relationship.
Recognizing the need for flexible, spontaneous collaboration, Slack introduced Huddles in 2021. It quickly became the platform’s fastest-adopted feature, achieving a 95% customer satisfaction rate.
When users later asked for more music options, Slack responded with the Huddles Jukebox, offering a variety of new tunes. Acting on customer feedback and keeping them informed helped Slack further strengthen trust in its brand.
Image source: wired.com
Your customers expect their personal information to be kept safe. Personal data protection is one of the top concerns for 83% of clients when it comes to trusting a company.
If you’re looking to understand how to build trust with customers online, it all starts with clear communication and genuine engagement. The following four strategies will help you create a trustworthy online presence that keeps customers coming back.
Your website is one of the first things people notice about your brand. Make sure it gives off a good impression.
To gain trust on social media, authenticity is key. Don’t just post promotional content — be transparent and engage in real conversations.
Here’s how you can make your brand feel more relatable online.
As previously mentioned, customers are more likely to trust your brand when they see proof of your security and reliability. Adding these elements shows you take their confidence seriously.
Consider the following practical ways to use trust signals.
Parker Gilbert, CEO at Numeric, backs this up:
“As far as building trust online goes, social proof is the gold standard. If you have customers who can give you G2 reviews or reviews on other third-party platforms, that’s always ideal.
We’ve also seen really good signals just from being super consistent with our LinkedIn presence. Not only do people find out about our product from there, but we’ve had people say that we seem “big” because we have a dedicated LinkedIn presence.”
Learning how to build trust with customers online involves offering content that is useful and relevant to them. Here’s how to approach this correctly.
Jessica Andrews, VP of marketing at Copper, shared how to fully leverage the power of content:
“One way we encourage our clients to build trust with their customers is to proactively share useful content. We recommend setting up a Google Alert for their customer’s industry keywords and being ready to send them news articles, podcasts, or other content that’s relevant to them. When you talk about subjects beyond the product or service you’re selling, it helps build a personal relationship.”
When you openly admit your mistakes, you show customers that you are responsible and willing to improve. Rebuilding trust starts with the following key actions:
If you’re wondering how to gain trust back, admitting your mistakes is a good place to start. Here’s why it matters.
After hackers attacked Okta, the company initially downplayed the situation, stating the breach impacted just 1% of its customers. However, it later emerged that the breach was larger, with the entire support system’s database compromised. Sensitive data, including the names and emails of high-profile clients like Zoom, FedEx, and Peloton, was stolen.
Okta informed its users about the extent of the breach via an official letter. It openly acknowledged the full scope of the attack, including the theft of information from high-profile clients. Rather than downplaying the situation further, Okta made it clear that it was taking immediate corrective actions to secure its systems and prevent similar incidents.
Speaking of corrective actions, once you’ve admitted your mistake, it’s time to act fast and show you’re committed to fixing it. Focus on making visible changes with these actions.
Indeed, mistakes can be a chance to improve and regain trust. Use them as an opportunity to identify what went wrong, improve your processes, and prevent the issue from happening again. Take these actions to rebuild customer trust.
Rebuilding trust with clients includes providing continuous updates on your improvement actions. These are two strategies for successful follow-ups.
Knowing how to build trust with customers is an ongoing process that requires consistent action. Trust forms the foundation of strong, long-term relationships, and it takes time to earn and maintain.
Each interaction with your customers is an opportunity to reinforce or erode that trust. Consistently being transparent, reliable, and responsive helps build a solid foundation that secures loyalty and drives growth.
Now that you’ve learned the steps for building trust with customers, it’s time to assess your current approach. Are you delivering on promises? Are you communicating openly with customers?
Use the tips we provided to improve your approach, address any weaknesses, and strengthen connections. Always remember the words of Ernesto Pramasetya, co-founder at GiantFocal:
“Trust is like a bank account — you need to make regular deposits through consistent positive interactions before you can afford to make any withdrawals.”
Iustina is a curious copywriter with an analytical mind and a demonstrated history in the advertising industry. She likes mixing words with data and is passionate about human behavior. When she's not at her work desk, you'll probably find her enjoying refreshing tea flavors, spilling stories on paper, or binge-watching true-crime documentaries.
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