Having a trustworthy brand is an important business asset, more so in the construction industry, where the success of large building projects hinges on collaboration among contracting parties and suppliers.
Trust is currency in the world of construction, both in the awarding of new contracts but also amongst consumers in making supplier-based decisions.
Marketing Charts reports on a series of key data that demonstrates the value of brand trustworthiness to a business. The report includes insights on how trustworthiness helps develop long-term strategic consumer relationships, inspires brand loyalty and makes buyers more receptive to a business’s marketing materials.
But what makes a brand trustworthy?
Business trustworthiness is not something that is easily earned.
A business must take a number of steps along their road to success to help forge strong customer relationships and prove that they are a brand worthy of trust.
What Does It Mean To Be A Trusted Brand?
Trust in a brand is about confidence — confidence that you will do what you say you’re going to do. In a world full of empty promises and overselling, customers have learned that a healthy sense of cynicism helps protect them against bad deals and scam artists.
In this world, your brand is guilty until proven innocent.
Thus, it’s your job to prove that you can and will consistently deliver on the marketing and sales offers you make. With this idea in mind, what qualities can you develop to help persuade audiences that your brand is trustworthy?
What Makes A Brand Trustworthy?
Transparency
Being open and honest about your activities, even if that means owning up to mistakes, helps build trust in a very fundamental way: it means that — good or bad — customers will always be aware of what’s going on in your company. If a client knows you’ll tell them when something goes wrong in a construction project, they’ll believe what you say when things are going right. Ways to show transparency are open financial reporting, clear working policies and associations with regulatory bodies appropriate to your industry.
Clarity
Clarity breeds trustworthiness because it helps buyers become certain of what they’re getting. If your offers aren’t clear, then you may deliver something unexpected or unwanted to your buyer. If you ensure you build total clarity in your service/product opportunity, buyers can start to trust that they’ll get what they pay for and that they’ll know exactly what that is before they commit to buying.
Authenticity
Authenticity helps you show that you’re the right business for the customer. By being authentic with your marketing materials and community engagement, you can create a believable brand voice. Failure to act authentically — instead, pretending to know things you don’t, for example — can very quickly deter customers and damage trust, particularly amongst those customers who know about your market.
Adaptiveness
Being adaptive might not have been on your radar as a significant trust factor, but it plays an important role in helping engage customers and encourage buyers to work with you. Markets change all the time, and if buyers invest their loyalty in you, they want to know you can change with trends and continue to offer them what they need. Being adaptive shows you’re ready to meet changing expectations and that you will not get left behind by competitors.
Added Value
Added value — value that goes above the industry norm — shows customers that you’re dedicated to your success and are willing to go the extra mile for theirs too. This is a great way to build trust. One way to add extra value is to get your business assessed, accredited and verified by independent experts like CHAS. This shows your buyers you’ve got a product worth taking notice of and that you’ve put effort into making it as good as it can be.
Social Proof
While marketing materials can be honest and transparent while being also exciting and appealing, that doesn’t mean they’ll be believable to buyers. Just because you’re truthful, that doesn’t mean people will take you at your word. What’s more believable is the word of other buyers telling customers that your brand really does offer what you say it does. Known as social proofing, this practice helps buyers give confidence because they hear about the great things you do from somebody that isn’t you.
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How To Become A Trustworthy Brand
Don’t Keep Secrets
The moment you are caught in a lie, your trust will dissolve. Whether that’s a very direct lie (such as covering up a delay on a building project) or misleading a client (for example, by implying you have specialist knowledge such as asbestos handling), secrets should be avoided in favour of transparency. If transparency hurts your business short term, you must embrace it. Costs can be recovered and contracts revisited, but it’s nearly impossible to rebuild a relationship once the customer knows you willingly kept relevant information from them.
Make An Effort To Create Clarity
Believing your message is clear and it actually being clear are two different things. To ensure you’re getting your point across and being clear and transparent in your offers, it’s a good idea to have an internal and external review process for elements like sales language and website copy. By investing your time in making sure your brand message is clear before you start selling, you reduce the risk of confusing your customers and improve your chance of building a trustworthy buying experience.
Be Honest In Your Expertise
To be authentic, you need to be real, and sometimes that means being honest about what you don’t know. When trying to impress clients and customers, there is a temptation to show extensive knowledge.
However, that can backfire if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Misleading clients by implying that you’re an expert in, say, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems not only betrays your client’s trust, but can derail a project’s progress
Bottom line? Stick to what you know, be authentic in your specific area of expertise, and people will trust that you know what you’re doing when it comes to your unique offer.
Adapt To Change And Criticism
To secure a trustworthy business persona, it’s a good idea to work on your ability to adapt to both market change and criticism and integrate this ability into your business strategy.
Often, adaptability comes down to developing a workplace culture that is accepting of change and promotes a willingness to be flexible with products and deliverables. Construction project timelines can be prone to change (see the HS2, for example). By being agile and adaptive to change, you can give clients the peace of mind knowing they can count on you even during times of instability.
Show What You’re Worth
A powerful way to show your business adds value to consumers is to demonstrate your worth through systems like accreditation schemes and awards. These show that independent bodies have assessed your business and deemed them worthy of their support, whether it’s through winning a prize or confirming that your activities meet certain quality and working standards.
Showcase Reviews And Testimonials
Reviews, testimonials and case studies are vital forms of social proof. They help demonstrate to customers and partners that others have used your business and been happy with the results. These should feature pride of place on your public-facing properties, such as your website and marketing materials.
Accreditation: Giving Others A Reason To Trust Your Business
Accreditation is one of the most valuable trust signals you can build for a simple reason:
If you’ve gained accreditation, you not only show that you are compliant with important policies and regulations within your industry but also that an independent authority has assessed your enterprise and deemed it good enough to stake its own reputation on.
The better and more comprehensive the accreditation, the better this looks for your customers.
As accreditation experts, CHAS can help your business achieve valuable accreditation and build your trustworthiness. We offer a range of industry-leading accreditations for contractors, including health and safety accreditation and the Common Assessment Standard.
Reach out to our team today and request a callback to learn more about what we can do for your business.
