How to Repair Trust With Your Customers

We all make mistakes. Sometimes, brands and businesses make mistakes too, and this can damage trust with customers. If this happens, what can you do? Let’s take a look at how to repair trust with your customers.

How to Repair Trust With Your Customers

There are a lot of things that can damage trust with your customers. Maybe a product had an issue or didn’t meet expectations. Maybe someone in the company made an offensive statement, or a post on social media didn’t go over very well. If you’ve lost followers, received complaints, or noticed a lot of negativity surrounding your brand, you’re probably wondering about how to do some damage control.

When repairing trust with your customers, it’s important to keep a few things in mind. First, the measures that you’ll have to take to repair trust with your customers will be relative to the mistake that was made. Second, it’s important to approach your response with sincerity, patience, and care. If you’re feeling angry, embarrassed, or reproachful, it’s probably helpful to work through these feelings first. Talking through the incident with a friend or therapist can help you approach the next steps with a clearer head.

Be Honest and Transparent

The first step to repair trust with your customers is to be honest and transparent about what happened. Likely, the details about the issue are already known, and providing some clarification will prevent rumors and speculation. Often, others’ assumptions are worse than reality. Explaining the situation, taking responsibility, and explaining that you will be rectifying the situation is the first step to repair trust with your customers.

Make a Sincere Apology

Making an apology often goes hand-in-hand with taking responsibility and explaining the situation. To make a sincere apology, it’s important to do a few things:

State Your Mistake: In the previous step, we discussed the importance of being honest and transparent about your mistake, and owning up to it. This is important to acknowledge; if you can’t acknowledge your mistake, it’s hard for your audience to believe that you regret it or that you’ll fix it.
Show Remorse: This is a seemingly simple, but often difficult part of making amends; saying that you’re sorry. State that you regret what happened. Be earnest, genuine, and avoid statements like “I”m sorry you were offended” or excuses like, “we regret this unavoidable situation.”
Explain How You’ll Make Amends: The last and very important part of an effective apology is to state how you’ll do better in the future. An apology doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t accompany any action. Consider how you’ll fix this problem and do better, and tell your customers what you’ll do.

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Fix the Problem

The next step to make an apology and repair trust with your customers is to state how you’ll fix the problem that occurred. Consider how your customers have been hurt by the issue, as well as the problem that occurred. Consider how you can stop the problem from happening again, and how you can repair the damage or harm done to customers.

This might include something simple, like providing discounts or refunds for a faulty product. It might mean providing better moderation on social media channels to avoid cruel or offensive content. Depending on the issue, consider what remedies might stop the problem from occurring again, and might also help to repair the damage.

Talk with Customers

Once you’ve been transparent about what happened, made a genuine apology, and made an effort to fix the problem, it’s important that your customers know about this. You might provide regular updates about how you’re solving the problem, or simply get the word out about discounts or refunds you’re providing. You might also participate in a charity or event that’s related to the event.

For example, if the issue was related to cyberbullying, you might sponsor a walk or another event supporting anti-cyberbullying causes. Or, if your brand was hurt by a faulty product, you might hold an event to provide a replacement product or give customers discounts.

Getting the message out and talking to customers might also include making posts online several times over a longer period of time, talking to customers in-person, sending emails, making a notice on your website, or something else.

Create Positivity

After an incident that was bad for your brand, it’s important to create positivity around your business again. Depending on the severity of the issue, this might take a few months or several years. There are many ways to start to change the discourse around your brand.

Testimonials: As you talk with customers, look for good experiences, and see if you can gather testimonials. Video testimonials are particularly helpful here, as they’re generally more impactful and convincing.
Charity: As previously mentioned, charity work can be a good way to reorient the feelings around your brand. Be careful about seeming disingenuous; try to focus on doing good work, rather than undoing a mistake.
New Events: A new event or happening can re-orient customers’ attention and help to leave a bad incident behind. If you’re sponsoring an event, releasing a new product, doing research, opening a new store, or something else, this can be a good way to generate positive attention.

These are just a few of the ways that you can start to rebuild trust with customers after a mistake or incident. Remember to work carefully, and keep your customers in mind, not your bottom line. With patience, care, and a bit of luck, you’ll be able to build your brand back even better than before.