We recently explored the ways AI-powered search is changing how prospective buyers discover and evaluate your company and its products (and you’ve probably seen a lot of articles on this topic!). Now, with access to more information, those buyers are asking: can we trust your company?
As more people share and discuss experiences with you online, they make it easier to spot companies that pay lip service to their values. To gain customers’ trust, you must back up messages with consistent actions and proof points that independent media and analysts can verify. That’s how awareness and credibility translate into buyer confidence and purchasing decisions.
Building Buyer Trust
A single campaign or declaration of values can’t create trust in your company. Buyers build their perception through evidence gathered over time. Every customer review, editorial article, analyst report, leadership action, kept product promise and crisis response acts as a proof point that creates an overall picture.
Assess buyer trust in your company by asking:
- What are media and analysts reporting about your company?
- What are customers saying about your products, services, and support?
- Do leaders’ actions reflect company values?
- How does your company respond during a crisis?
Use AI tools to research opinions, monitor sentiment, create alerts for emerging issues, and identify where you are strengthening or eroding trust.
How to build trust
Here are some practical ways to strengthen trust signals:
Act consistently:
- Ensure products and solutions perform as expected: Customers lose trust when reality does not match expectations (see the Volkswagen ‘Clean Diesel’ campaign).
- Deliver on your commitments: Any company can experience roadmap delays, but repeated delays cause customers to doubt the validity of future claims.
- Avoid U-turns: Halting service support or discontinuing products is sometimes necessary, but your company can maintain trust by helping customers transition smoothly. The Broadcom acquisition of VMware showed how blindsided customers can vote with their money.
These actions don’t just shape customer experiences. They also give journalists and analysts evidence to assess your company, challenge its claims and report on progress. Independent coverage can reinforce trust when it reflects how your company delivers on promises or undermine it when your actions contradict your messages.
Align with trusted insiders and industry sources
Forrester research found that B2B buyers trust information from co-workers and management (82%), existing vendors (79%) and independent experts (66% to 72%). To build buyer trust, identify the people and sources your target audience relies on and include them in your PR strategy. Customer advocates, industry experts and analysts can provide independent perspectives that validate your claims, while media coverage can highlight whether your company lives up to its promises.
Prioritize customer needs
Prioritize customers as well as profit to help your company build trust. Following years of criticism, Microsoft, under Satya Nadella’s leadership, listened to customers’ needs and invested heavily in cybersecurity. It also committed to greater transparency and launched the ‘Secure Future Initiative’ in November 2023.
Ensure your leaders walk the talk
Leaders influence trust by backing up your company messages with their actions. We previously discussed clothing firm Patagonia in our Brand Credibility article, and it’s also a strong example of how value-driven leadership can build trust. During her 12 years at the firm (including seven as CEO and president), Rose Marcario’s commitment to sustainability shone through as she led Patagonia through a period of significant growth.
Conversely, some oil companies faced criticism for creating a disconnect between public commitments on climate action and behind-the-scenes activities. An investigation found evidence that some had understood the link between fossil fuels and climate change for decades while working to undermine public understanding of those impacts.
Be transparent (particularly when things go wrong)
Buyers understand that no company is perfect, but your company’s response to a crisis can either undermine or help rebuild trust. CrowdStrike offers a case study in damage limitation. When an update caused worldwide outages, its share price dropped and some customers sued. However, less than a year later, the company reported it had retained 97% of customers and its share price had rallied. By taking accountability and being transparent as it swiftly addressed issues, CrowdStrike demonstrated how a company can begin to rebuild trust after a major failure.
Support Trusted Human Interactions
Relationship-building, both in marketing and sales, remains vital as more buyers use AI. Gartner research found that 67% of buyers prefer no sales rep, and 70% prefer a completely digital, self-service buying experience. However, separate research found that 69% of B2B buyers prefer to validate AI-generated insights with sales reps.
This shifts the role of sales reps from being the primary source of information to becoming a source of validation and confidence. Organizations should enable reps to engage where they can add the greatest value.
How Brands Can Build Trust in an AI-Driven World
Buyers don’t weigh proof points equally and you can’t always know which signals will influence them. Consistency across the board is therefore essential to building and reinforcing trust.
- Back up your claims with evidence so that journalists and analysts can independently assess your company and report on whether it delivers on its promises.
- Establish customer-led communities where customers can share experiences, exchange advice and solve problems together.
- Craft content that demonstrates a clear understanding of how to solve customer challenges, supported by third-party evidence.
- Align leadership actions with company values.
- Be transparent and accountable, particularly when mistakes happen.
- Acknowledge the changing role of sales teams and support customers with the insights and resources needed to build confidence.
AI hasn’t changed what makes companies trustworthy. Buyers assess trust through a range of signals, from customer reviews, media coverage and analyst assessments to the actions of leaders and your company itself. But AI has made it easier for buyers to gather and compare proof points from multiple sources before they purchase. As AI continues to reshape how buyers discover and evaluate your company, trust will remain vital in influencing their decisions.
We’ve spent 27 years helping technology companies build Awareness,
Credibility and Trust. Talk to us to understand how we can strengthen your brand’s standing with buyers, journalists, analysts and users of increasingly AI-powered search.
Keep an eye out for future PR Vibes®, where we’ll investigate practical ways companies can strengthen brand awareness, credibility and trust.
