’Who do you trust?’ is apparently a very straightforward question in the physical world, but much more complex, and less well understood, online. We may never quite catch ourselves sizing up somebody we meet for the first time, but we do take account of their appearance, manners, and vocabulary, among many other factors.
We measure people and places against expectations and form opinions about them.
Successful Web sites are often personable, tactile and responsive, and these characteristics run consistently throughout an organization.
This is much easier for the pure Web-based organization to achieve as it does not have to manage the integration, refocusing or reskilling tasks that face an existing company.
every interaction – and each interaction has the potential to destroy this trust entirely.
• The need to be personable.The Web site should fit customer expec- tations, and is unlikely to succeed by adopting corporate arro- gance or self-importance as a persona. However it is defined, being personable is a prerequisite in a service-driven culture.
• The need to be tactile.The tactile company will reinforce customer expectations by meeting or exceeding their preconceptions about how tasks are delivered. Customers should feelthat the company works in the same way, regardless of the medium in which they have made their contact.
• The need to be responsive. Customers must feel that the companies with which they choose to work will be responsive to their needs. This should not only encompass the sense of confidence that requested tasks will be completed, but also that unnecessary ones will be halted. This might include ensuring that, once customers have telephoned an organi- zation to give an update on their account status, subsequent computer-generated e-mail or letter correspondence, which is now unnecessary as a result of their telephone call, will be stopped. Automatically.
Delivering trust by managing these three criteria is not the remit of any single part of an organization. Rather, it should be achieved through careful management of the organization’s culture.
Personable
Creative
Expectations
Responsive
Organizational Technical Tactile
Figure 3.1 Customers expect organizations to deliver their service consistently
Moreover, trust can only be delivered if cultural aspirations are supported by the technical infrastructure. As digital networks develop from electronic media into the physical environment, the technical infrastructure will have to support the delivery of trust in converged environments. If the technical infrastructure develops from the virtual to the physical contact point, then the organization must be capable of equal degrees of responsiveness in each channel.
No technical development is ever likely to be optimized unless the organizational implications are taken into account. In turn, organi- zational development allows a responsive company to be personable at the same time.
Digital customers will progressively expect this level of inte- gration between physical and virtual channels. Naturally they will trust companies which better meet their expectations.
The barriers to meeting customer expectations are not high, but regularly prove insurmountable for organizations that do not define them. A combination of resource management, integration, and training will successfully provide an organization with the skills to meet its customers’ trust expectations. It is likely that an organization failing to meet all three criteria outlined above would also be found, sooner or later, not to merit its customers’ trust.
Personable
Integration Skills
Responsive Tra
ining Resource
Tactile
Figure 3.2 Organizational skills will develop continually to meet customer expectations, as customers become acclimatized to
online channels
A company that wishes to bring its brand to life online, and to have its offline organization live up to the expectations created online, faces three distinct skills challenges: technical, creative and organi- zational. The technical challenge should not be the quest to deliver a stable, reliable, online channel but, rather, mastering the tech- nology so that it delivers the channel with the tactile quality appro- priate to the brand. This is a distinct skill from the creative qualities – both visual and verbal – that are needed to make an online channel look personable. Significant organizational skills are also needed to make an organization responsive in line with an online customer’s expectations.
Companies seeking to deliver personable, tactile and responsive brands will attempt to balance technical resources, human training needs, and a successful integration of technological and physical customer contact points. It is inevitable that these three elements will never work in perfect harmony. Companies should expect that there will be some tension between the resources available, the company’s ability to make full use of those technical resources, and the integration between the physical and online world, and tech- nical and human resources. This tension is not a failing: it is a sign of progress.
Digital brands extend from intended to unintended communications
Customers become ‘loyal’ to organizations that they can trust to behave in a particular way. In a call centre, operators can be trained, monitored, and retrained to deliver service with a corporate voice. Online, trusted organizations behave consistently, in an expected way, even though their customers may follow unex- pected communications paths. Error messages, unsubscribe e-mails and messages in response to unauthorized attempted access to restricted site areas are all handled with a consistent, friendly tone.
Branded retailing is immediately comforting and trusted, even for the smallest of shops
Here’s a small shop (yes, it exists in real life) that reproduces itself online. The Teddington Cheese masters the greatest of challenges – transferring a brand personality from the shop to the online shop – and does so with ease. There’s a cheery welcome: it remembers your favourite purchases, and where you’d like them delivered. It is easy to find your way around, even if you are a first time visitor. The tempting ‘counter display’ changes a little, and often. Even if customers have never visited the ‘real’ shop, they would recognize it as soon as setting foot inside.
Figure 3.3 Motley Fool’s 404 error message is entirely in keeping with its personality