Building Brand Trust Through Digital Experience
Moses Gunarman
Senior Art Director
Senior Art Director
8 MINS READ
A brand lives and dies by its customer’s trust.
While that may sound a bit dramatic, just a few bad experiences can quickly break trust and significantly impact the bottom line. As many of us can attest, it's challenging to regain trust once it’s been lost. But before we discuss building customer trust, let’s define what a brand is and explain why trust matters.
TLDR
Brand trust is a measure of customers' confidence in interacting with a brand. It can potentially lead to conversions, encourage loyalty, and inspire advocacy. As people rely on digital products, there are 4 ways we can build and maintain trust in designing digital experiences:
- Use design elements consistent with the brand
Inconsistency leads to confusion and mistrust - Convey messages humanely and honestly
People trust people, not some faceless organisations - Create an attractive and professional-looking design
A well-made design shows that the brand knows what they’re doing - Put the needs of the customer first
Customer-centred design leads to a seamless and great experience.
What is a brand, really?
Typically, a brand is a product or a company’s unique look, including its logo, colours, shapes/patterns, and fonts.
The basics are important, but there's so much more to consider. It's about how the brand makes us feel at every interaction. This includes the store's ambience, customer service, the brand's values, functionality, and aesthetic appeal - especially in the digital age across websites, social media, and multimedia platforms.
Every aspect of the customer experience contributes to a brand's trustworthiness. A brand that excels in all these areas will always stand out among its competitors.
The basics are important, but there's so much more to consider. It's about how the brand makes us feel at every interaction. This includes the store's ambience, customer service, the brand's values, functionality, and aesthetic appeal - especially in the digital age across websites, social media, and multimedia platforms.
Every aspect of the customer experience contributes to a brand's trustworthiness. A brand that excels in all these areas will always stand out among its competitors.
Trust is important
Trust in a brand (or brand trust) measures customers' confidence in interacting with a brand, its ability to consistently deliver on its promises, and not be taken advantage of when vulnerable.
Trust leads to conversions
When customers trust a brand, they are convinced that they can deliver solutions to their problems and help them decide to buy their products/ services. According to a 2022 research report by Salsify, 46% of consumers are willing to pay more to buy from a trusted brand. PwC’s 2021 ‘Trust in US Business Survey’ revealed that 71% of respondents would buy less from a business that lost their trust.
Trust encourages retention/loyalty
Customers prefer to stick with trusted brands rather than expose themselves to more risk by experimenting with other brands. According to qualtrics.com, 65% of consumers have switched brand loyalties because the customer experience didn’t match what they had been promised by the brand’s image.
Trust inspires advocacy
When people trust a brand, they’re more willing to advocate for it. They’re also more likely to speak positively about them and post positive reviews across social platforms. Nielsen studies say that 92% of people will automatically trust recommendations from peers, while 79% trust reviews from people they don’t know.
In summary, the more your customers trust you, the more they’ll be willing to advocate for your company, choose you over your competitors and embrace your products in the future.
How can we build and maintain trust with digital experiences?
As mentioned above, a brand can be vast and consist of many touchpoints. Here, we’re focusing on how to build and maintain trust in a digital product.
Use design elements that are consistent with the brand.
We trust things that stay the same. Consistency creates a cohesive and memorable image that consumers come to recognise and trust over time. It shows that the brand is not some fickle business that will change at the drop of a hat just to make more profit. Being inconsistent can often lead to confusion and mistrust, making understanding the brand's motives challenging.
These are the design elements to consider:
These are the design elements to consider:
- Fonts
- Colour
- Imagery
- Animations
- Micro-interactions
- Layout & Spacing
- Iconography
Convey messages humanly and honestly
Storytelling has played a significant role throughout human history. It’s always been a means of building emotional connections with one another. How we tell those stories determines how well the story will be received. The tone of voice (TOV) is the way we tell the story to our customers, and it’s the soul of the brand.
Besides having a TOV that fits the brand, to gain trust, the way they communicate with customers should be honest and human. People trust other people, not some faceless organisation. Building brand trust involves convincing customers that the company is human. So, it’s also important to give it a personality that people resonate with.
Being a good human brand means being honest, and people appreciate honesty, especially when things don’t go smoothly. 94% of customers say they’ll be more loyal to a brand that offers transparency. Therefore, don’t hide or exaggerate anything.
Besides having a TOV that fits the brand, to gain trust, the way they communicate with customers should be honest and human. People trust other people, not some faceless organisation. Building brand trust involves convincing customers that the company is human. So, it’s also important to give it a personality that people resonate with.
Being a good human brand means being honest, and people appreciate honesty, especially when things don’t go smoothly. 94% of customers say they’ll be more loyal to a brand that offers transparency. Therefore, don’t hide or exaggerate anything.
From greetings to error messages, in being honest and human, we must consider the language at every touchpoint with customers. Are they filled with jargon that no one understands? Are they explaining things clearly and honestly?
Create an attractive and professional-looking design
People are naturally drawn to beautiful, well-crafted items. An appealing, professional product can evoke positive emotions and demonstrate the brand's competence and competitiveness.
Customers form 75% of their judgement of a website’s credibility purely on its aesthetics. Furthermore, an aesthetically appealing product will make customers more forgiving of minor issues with usability. Therefore, use high-quality images, delightful animations, and well-spaced layouts to make products stand out and create a memorable experience, which leads to brand loyalty.
Understand and put the needs of the customer first
Every time a product successfully meets the customer's needs with minimal friction and in a seamless manner, it creates a positive experience. However, if it is frustrating or confusing, it becomes negative in an instant!
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, 87% of consumers interviewed cited their experience with a product as a reason for trusting a brand. 88% of online buyers say they will not return to a website after a negative experience.
So, the key to creating a seamless and useful user experience is to put the customer’s needs at the centre of the design process. And this should start by understanding our customers.
- Who are they?
- What are their needs?
- What are the pain points?
Once those key questions are clear, we’re free to design a product or service that addresses the needs and provides the right solution to their pain points. When done well, this will create a great experience, as the customer feels that they have been listened to and that the product/service understands them, cares, and does the job they want it to do, easily.
What it means for Toyota
Based on an analysis of 13 vehicle manufacturer brands we did in 2022, only three of the brands (Mazda, Tesla, Rivian) managed to have a cohesive design across their interfaces. It’s safe to say that consistency is one of the industry's weak points, and this is a threat when we see the rise of Tesla and BYD, which build their digital products alongside their vehicles.
We’ve always been known for creating amazing reliable vehicles that people love and trust. In today’s world, it’s more important than ever that our digital products (websites, apps, in-vehicle screens) act as an extension of those highly-regarded products and ensure that they don’t undermine this hard-earned trust, but contribute to building and maintaining it.
To do this, we MUST create attractive digital interfaces to the same high standard and care as our vehicles, humanly communicate the same brand with a warm tone, and always put customers’ needs first.
Written by
Moses Gunarman
Senior Art Director
With over a decade of experience in various multi-national branding, interactive and marketing agencies, Moses brings extensive knowledge and passion for cutting-edge trends, technology and human touch to TXD. Moses is always eager to experiment with new customer-focused experiences that fit the brand with an attitude of "Explore More, Worry Less."
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