The difference between trust and … trust
Trust comes in many flavours, and in a developed market economy trust should in the best of worlds be an unambiguous concept. It isn’t. The most obvious difference between ‘trust’ and ‘trust’ in a developed market economy is the one you find in the number of connections or degrees between you as a consumer and the product/provider.
1st degree trust can be defined as direct contact with the provider. You know the provider, and you trust them. This makes you buy their product.
2nd degree trust is contact via referral. You know the referrer and you trust him/her, hence you trust the provider. This makes you buy their product. Not as willingly as a 1st degree, but a buy is a buy.
But a regulated market economy put forth more complex trust scenarios since you may also get additional sets of 1st degrees, which is what we at nielsenandcompany.com calls the marketer’s wet dream. The most common example is when the provider needs to follow a set of rules and regulations that confirm the quality of the goods you buy, rules and regulations that the customer is aware of - rules and regulations that reinforce the actual sales of the goods. If you when using this 1st degree trust as a provider, you will get a doubled 1st degree trust. But if you end up in a critical situation, this may become a double-edged sword.
In Sweden we have an interesting sequence dealing with minced meat where a provider’s representatives have created new best before-dates in order to sell out-dated minced meat one more day. The sequence consists of stressful, extraordinary as well as critical situations since now the customers don’t trust the provider (1st degree) due to the fact that they’ve actually broken the law (broken their second 1st degree).
In order to deal with this, the company in question started out blaming it all on their processes and not on the behaviour of their management and their employees. Major mistake, because they by doing so didn’t address both sides of the double-edged sword. The sword in this case consists of rules/regulations and behaviour non-supportive of the rules/regulations as well as non-supportive of the company brand.
In this case, it all boils down to behaviour.
If you erase your trust with your customer due to behaviour, you need to rebuild trust with new behaviour. Forget all you’ve read about communication strategies, repeated corrected behaviour is what it takes. When repeated behaviour has been established, you can start communicating it e.g. by engaging your advertising agency or you PR-agency.
For more info from a multi-disciplinary consultancy on how to solve it, feel free to contact us.