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Cultivating trust is the best growth strategy
Why customer trust, not flashy marketing, is the key to building experiences that win.
Drew Burdick
April 27, 2025
TL;DR - Focus on building trust with your customers and you’ll see results 😉
I had a great conversation about the importance of trust in marketing and customer experience recently with Jenn Grabenstetter. She’s an amazing marketer, great friend, and former client who became a teammate while I was at Slalom.
We talked about how trust drives customer experience and is becoming soooo important now because of AI. I’ve been chewing on the convo the past few weeks and wanted to know more, so I spent time digging in to see how companies are investing in trust as part of their growth strategy and how it’s influencing customer decisions.
What I found confirmed what Jenn and I discussed. Trust is no longer just a feel-good value. It’s really becoming a serious competitive advantage. And the companies that get it right are growing faster, keeping customers longer, and building teams that actually want to show up and do the thing every day.
Here are some of the key takeaways from that conversation and my research.
1. Trust isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s your competitive edge.
Jenn put it simply, “In B2B and B2C, you grow by earning trust.”
A recent PwC survey confirmed it. 93% of business leaders say building and maintaining trust improves the bottom line. The report goes on to say, “In building trust, the basics matter. Consumers say protecting their data (79%), quickly responding to and resolving their concerns (74%) and delivering a consistent and reliable customer experience (73%) are very important to earning their trust.”
Trust matters more now than ever. According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, a majority of people think trusting a brand is more important today than it was even a few years ago.
In other words, trust isn’t a soft skill. It’s the hard reality of why people stay or leave.
Putting this into action:
Map your customer journey and look for broken promises.
Stop with the buzzwords and BS. Say what you mean and do what you say.
Measure trust with a simple question: “Do you trust us?” Then listen.
2. Trust grows when you obsess over the customer.
Jenn and I talked a little bit about healthcare and how trust there is everything. It’s not just about getting the right treatment. It’s about feeling seen and cared for. That applies everywhere. Whether you’re in tech, retail, or B2B services, trust grows when your customers know you’re on their side. PWC’s 2024 Trust Survey shows trust-centered companies are more profitable. Why? Because customers trust brands that care enough to listen, adapt, and deliver.
Putting this into action:
Set up customer listening tools and use AI to summarize and act on insights.
Empower your team to solve problems fast, without needing 10 layers of approval.
Show customers what you’ve changed because of their feedback.
3. Consistency plus transparency equals trust.
Trust isn’t about big moments. It’s about being consistent. Doing what you said you’d do. And when you screw up, you own it. Jenn and I talked about brands like Patagonia. They’re not perfect. But they’re transparent. And that builds loyalty.
Putting this into action:
Keep your promises simple. And then ACTUALLY keep them.
When something breaks, tell your customers what you’re doing about it.
Make transparency a habit, not a one-time thing.
4. Trust is designed into every experience.
Trust isn’t just the brand/marketing team’s job. It’s built at every touchpoint. From your website’s load time to how your support team replies. Every moment is a chance to build (or break) trust. Trust-first design means you’re thinking about what the customer feels at every step.
Putting this into action:
Walk through your customer journey and find the friction points.
Ask yourself are your policies/processes built for the customer, or just for your company?
Train your team to evaluate everything through a trust lens. Role play scenarios, embed into onboarding, and beat the drum constantly.
5. It starts inside. Your team has to believe first.
Trust starts with your people. If your team doesn’t trust leadership, your customers will feel it. Harvard Business Review found that high-trust companies outperform low-trust ones by 286% in shareholder return. That’s not a typo. Teams that trust each other move faster, serve customers better, and build stronger experiences.
Putting this into action:
Ask your team if they trust leadership.. and why or why not.
Be radically transparent with your team. The more they know, the more they’ll own.
Build shared values that your team actually believes in.
6. Trust drives loyalty more than price or product.
This one surprised me. According to a report from Accenture, 66% of customers switch brands not because of price or product, but because they feel unappreciated.
Let that sink in.
You can have the best product in the world, but if your customers don’t trust that you value them, they’ll leave.
Putting this into action:
Build moments of appreciation into your customer experience.
Go beyond surveys. Have real conversations with your customers.
Reward loyalty with more than discounts. Give them access, input, or recognition.
7. Trust is built in micro-moments.
One of the most interesting things I found was from a study by Salesforce. It said that 80% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.
And what shapes experience? The little moments.
Jenn and I talked about how trust isn’t a big “event.” It’s built in the everyday. The email that’s clear and helpful. The billing issue that gets resolved fast. The friendly support call.
Putting this into action:
Regularly audit your customer touch points. Where can you make it easier, faster, or more human?
Use AI to personalize, but don’t lose the human tone.
Surprise customers with a helpful moment they didn’t expect.
Wrapping up
Trust isn’t a side project. It’s the foundation for everything.
After my conversation with Jenn and doing more research, I’m completely convinced. If you want to build great experiences that last, you have to build trust first. Customers don’t just want value. They want to believe that you’re in it with them. And that’s the kind of business I want to build.
I’ll leave you with these 3 simple ways to get started:
Pick one moment in your customer journey to improve trust this week.
Talk to your team about trust. Where are you strong? Where are you weak?
Share one story of trust in your next team meeting. Break it down. Make it real and applicable.
Onward & upward,
Drew
P.s. Want a guide to finding the right problems, aligning your team, and building experiences that create trust and are powered by AI? Download the AI North Star Playbook. It’ll help you go from vision to execution faster, with trust at the core.