Why Trust Matters

In The Customer Blog, consultant Maz Iqbal asks: Why does trust matter so much to customers?

"We human beings do not like to be faced with uncertainty, vulnerability or risk," he says. "These three factors take an emotional toll on us. We prefer to work on 'autopilot,' which is simply another way of saying that we prefer to trust."

Trust functions in business relationships as the customer's "safety net," Iqbal says.

“In situations of perceived risk or vulnerability, trust has the role of a safety net, helping the customer to make a decision by minimizing uncertainty and risk."

Trust depends on three qualities: competence, integrity and benevolence.

"Customer trust is based on the expectations that the service provider can be relied on to deliver its promises, care for customer needs and demonstrate competence,” Iqbal says.

But those qualities are only part of the picture.

Trust also rests on an organization's reputation for good citizenship.

"Customers look for indicators like responsiveness, flexibility, willingness to compromise and act beyond the profit motive. This is where being known as a company that values both social good and profit matters."

How about your organization? Do customers trust you?

I'll bet they don't. To learn why, read my special report, Path of Persuasion.

Won't Get Fooled Again

Writing for Branding Strategy Insider, J. Walker Smith says the recession has taught consumers a harsh lesson.

"Consumers have concluded that the real trouble came not from those they didn’t trust to begin with, but from the very ones they were relying on to watch their backs," he writes.

Discovering they've been hornswaggled by bankers and brokers has them left them angry.

"As this crisis has unfolded, consumers believe that every new revelation has added yet more proof that the game wasn’t fair."

"Fairness" is the consumer's new mantra, Smith believes. 

"Consumers want to be treated equitably. They don’t want their interests betrayed by the furtive self-interests of the companies and brands with which they do business.  They want an exchange that is true to what it professes to be, and they want companies and brands willing to bear their share of the responsibility and sacrifice."

Quilt Quotes

 

Journalists call semi-fabricated quotes "quilt quotes." 

As the name suggests, quilt quotes comprise sayings that have been assembled from separately spoken or written texts. I prefer the even more colorful term used by video producers: "Frankenbites." 

Quilt quotes, unless intended to distort a speaker's message, aren't the worst of writers' sins. But often the original statements are far more interesting than the fabrication. 

Here's a case in point. 

Last week, I visited one of the Occupy DC camps. (Side note: Critics of the Occupy movement should consider doing the same. You won't find a more patriotic gathering outside an American Legion picnic.) 

DC, of course, has a thing for memorials, particularly inscribed ones, and the Occupants have turned their camp into a memorial of sorts. The sidewalks are—literally—covered with placards. While a few feature anonymous sayings, most are like the one above. 

I was so taken with Thomas Jefferson's words, I had to look them up. I quickly discovered that Jefferson never quite said them. 

The first two sentences come from a section of his Notes on Virginia, written in 1781. In the passage where they appear, Jefferson argues for securing freedom of worship in a bill of rights before the Revolutionary War ends and America's leaders turn "corrupt" and its followers "careless." 

The third sentence comes from an 1816 letter Jefferson wrote to his farming buddy George Logan). Jefferson actually wrote: "I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." 

The "example" Jefferson meant was Great Britain. 

Spending by the British government on foreign wars was so out of control at the time, Jefferson felt certain it would bring "the ruin of its people," especially the "hereditary aristocracy" responsible for those wars. He didn't want to see Americans make the same mistake.

The Capitalist Manifesto

"A manifesto about the end of the mass market," Seth Godin's latest book, We Are All Weird, asks you to accept that "weird is the new normal."

Weird isn't a function of physiognomy (think Charles Stratton or Joseph Merrick). Nor is it a state of being self-styled (think Oscar Wilde or Paul Reubens).

Weird is simply a new way—the new way—to behave as a consumer:

• To be weird is to demand a vast choice of products. Products so highly customized they appeal only to members of your tiny "tribe" of fellow weirdos. (Like Chia Obama, pictured above, which appeals to hard-core Democrats with a love of indoor gardening and The Mod Squad.) Demanding choice is, in fact, the essence of weird.

• To be weird is to demand luxury. Only the rich can afford vast choice.  The rich can choose, for example, not merely among "31 flavors," but strawberry basil ice cream, candied bacon ice cream or goat cheese ice cream. The poor can only choose between chocolate and vanilla, if they're lucky.

The good news: everywhere you look, wealth keeps increasing (despite gaping income disparity).

Right now, Godin writes, "There are 10 million households with a net worth of over a million dollars. And there are millions (perhaps a billion people) who make enough money from their day job that they're able to pursue something they enjoy with their spare time. More and more often, the thing they enjoy is something weird."

Godin's advice? If you're marketing a product to the wealthy, it'd better be weird.

Influence is in Inverse Proportion to Distance

Consultant Alan Weiss devoted his Monday Morning Memo this week to the primacy of meeting people face to face.


"Influence is in inverse proportion to distance," he writes.


Weiss's point: If you really want to win friends and influence people, you need to get out of your cubbyhole and press the flesh.


Face-to-face enthuses and charms others.


"Yet so many in business default to email instead of personal contact.  No one has ever charmed me with an email."


Coincidentally, commentator Chris Matthews this weekend took up the same theme.


Matthews thinks the Obama Administration's failure to lead can be blamed on "little kids" who favor emails over getting out of the the White House to attend events.


My own word to the wise: Don't Tweet. Meet.