Trust is hard to earn, easy to lose, and quite difficult to regain after it’s lost. I know this from experience on both sides.
Last week I wrote about a crowdfunding project whose creator lost the trust of many backers after requiring significant additional payments well after the campaign ended. A few people asked a great question in the comments: How do you regain trust after losing it?
I thought about this question and also posed it to Stonemaier Ambassadors and viewers of yesterday’s Facebook livestream. Below are 10 potential ways to regain trust after losing it, roughly in chronological order :
- Apologize, plan for action, and actually act: I really like the way one ambassador said this: “Own up to your mistakes in a way that doesn’t put the blame on others.” It takes courage to offer a real, genuine apology. Whenever I make a mistake, I try my best to share a plan for improvement, and I follow up on that plan with regular updates.
- Fix the current mistake without being asked: Being proactive can make a huge difference for trust. One viewer yesterday mentioned how there were some issues with the Xbox 360 at some point: “It was very stressful to be working in video game retail at that time. The thing that solved trust was when Microsoft just told stores they could take any returns on the console and get them a new one the moment they walked in the store.”
- Over-the-top customer service: I really like this ambassador’s perspective: “It helps significantly if the resolution is beyond what my original expectation was. This doesn’t have to mean more stuff, but it does mean more care.” Remember, this isn’t just about fixing the mistake right now–it’s about regaining trust so you have the opportunity to continue to serve the customer in the future.
- Communication: So many of the examples I heard about a loss of trust came from a simple lack of communication. I know it’s hard to share bad news, especially when something in your personal life is impacting your ability to move forward with a project. But that’s when transparent communication matters most. I think it can actually help both creators and backers to post consistently, as it gets you in the habit of finding something to say and it gives backers something to look forward to each month.
- Put yourself in their shoes: Empathy is the foundation of trust. When I have unhappy customers, I try to let down my guard, listen to their needs, and find a way to serve them the way they want (or need) to be served. An ambassador offered a nice story about the power of empathy: “Universal Studios Orlando didn’t get my family’s hotel room ready at a reasonable time. We were tired from a red eye flight, I called ahead to see if they would have an early check-in, and the employee said they would. I waited until after the normal check-in time and still no room was available. I was patient, but tired. Luckily a kind manager went out of her way and went above and beyond to upgrade our room and get us checked in right away. Not only did she solve our problem, she made our whole vacation an upgraded experience. Now Universal Orlando is a regular vacation spot for us.”
- Implement measures to prevent the same type of mistake in the future: After releasing multiple projects with typos and errors, we implemented a much more robust oversight process to significantly reduce the chances of such errors appearing in the future. Similarly, after Tapestry we started working with a data analyst to identify asymmetric imbalances from within the hundreds of playtest reports we receive before we go to print.
- Hire the right people (and/or improve the company culture): I heard numerous examples of trust being lost because of a certain person or people. One viewer mentioned how they had several really poor experiences at their local game store, but when they returned years later, the new staff was incredibly welcoming and helpful. Within a few minutes, their trust in the store was renewed.
- Stop putting risk on others for a while: If you’ve lost trust as a crowdfunder, for your next product (after you’ve delivered all previous outstanding rewards), just make the product and release it. Show people that you are capable of making a product using your resources instead of theirs.
- Focus on what you’re best known for: One of the first answers I heard about this question was in regards to Monolith. After losing the trust of some backers/customers, Monolith addressed the issues (hiring a professional to redo their rulebooks), and they focused on their most successful brands for a while instead of releasing new products. I think this is a really clever approach to regaining trust. Mayday Games did something similar, focusing on sleeves and Crokinole boards, products they’re good at consistently making and delivering.
- Give people an open door to give you a second chance: One of the hardest things about regaining trust is actually having the opportunity to regain it. For example, can you think of a YouTube channel that you once enjoyed and then unsubscribed after they did something that really rubbed you the wrong way? After you unsubscribed, it’s extremely rare that you’ll see anything they post in the future. Maybe that’s good, but maybe they’ve turned a new leaf and you don’t even know. This puts the impetus on the creator to keep trying and to give people a reason to try again. One option to consider from a sales perspective is to offer a 100% money-back guarantee–again, take the risk away from the customer.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and examples in the comments. Please focus on how trust is regained, not how it’s lost–I’m looking for a constructive conversation here.
Also read:
***
If you gain value from the 100 articles Jamey publishes on this blog each year, please consider championing this content! You can also listen to posts like this in the audio version of the blog.
6 Comments on “10 Ways to Regain Trust After Losing It”
Leave a Comment
If you ask a question about a specific card or ability, please type the exact text in your comment to help facilitate a speedy and precise answer.
Your comment may take a few minutes to publish. Antagonistic, rude, or degrading comments will be removed. Thank you.
If you have to ask backers for extra money, but then are fortunate enough to recover and still be able to keep going as a company, the absolute best thing you can do to recover trust is *give that money back to your backers*.
This never gets mentioned, like it’s not even an option. It absolutely is. Yes, it’s quite an administrative task but it certainly can be done.
There are companies right now out there doing brilliantly and winning awards and having new printings of their game, who went the route of demanding a ransom. It’s worrying to me that “give the money back” never even seems to be a consideration.
Oh, No 4 – Communication hit home. I’ve had a few Kickstarters where they’ve lost my trust due to lack of communication, and others where although things have taken a long time (well beyond the original estimate), the communication is frequent enough that I’m kept satisfied.
One of the first projects I backed was in 2012 for a Sci-Fi video movie/mini-series. It’s now 11 years later and although they’ve not yet delivered physical rewards (rumoured to be shipping soon), there’s been a lot of updates on the project over the years, with large amounts of enthusiasm from the creators. The original movie is done, and they’ve shot another 4 in the series (post production not yet complete) as well as other side things, and have done well to engage fans the whole way through – even if it’s been over a decade and the first project hasn’t technically been fulfilled yet.
On the other hand, I backed a different project for a documentary, shot at a convention. Initially things were good, and the footage was shot, but about six months after the convention, communication went silent, and queries on the progess went unanswered for more than 2 years. Eventually they did release the doco (and it was fine), but that creator lost my trust by just going silent and not actually letting the backers know what was going on.
This came at a fortuitous time for me as I have a friend who has violated my trust and I am trying to figure out how to deal with it. Long story short, he took a Facebook post of mine from several years ago about a serious topic that I had put a lot of thought and effort into and posted it as his own. I don’t know how to related that to a business scenario, but most of your ideas here apply equally well to personal interactions with some alterations in verbiage. He originally apologized to me privately and took down the post, when I indicated that a public apology would go further with me, he then did that too, along with crediting me as the original author of the post. I don’t feel like people have the right to hold your feet to the fire infinitely or to be excessive in their requirements to you, but if someone indicates a way for you to repair a negative situation and it doesn’t feel like an excessive demand, then it only makes sense to do it. If you try to make amends and the other party feels like it’s not enough, then you have to decide if you feel like to original effort SHOULD have been enough. If it’s not going to harm you to do more or if it MAY harm you a bit, but you think you can weather it, then it makes sense to just do what the person is asking. In my case it did harm him to admit his error publicly, but I didn’t think it was an excessive demand and sometimes you just have to take your lumps and move on.
I’m sorry that happened to you, Marc, and I think you approached a tough situation in a productive way.
Crowdfunders in general are now facing this through no fault of their own. So many failed projects/companies in the last couple years are casting a shadow of doubt over the whole of crowdsourcing. (Poketto, Mythic, Steeped Games, Holy Grail Games, Grimlord Games, Inside the Box… the list grows every week it seems)
Even larger companies need to take some extra steps to prove that they can deliver somewhere within the customary year delay.
This is great stuff, applicable to all areas of business (and life, for that matter).
Nicely done.