Building Customer Trust and Experience is Key to Profitability in 2021 

In early 2021, Success Through Trust conducted an online survey with 172 business owners and leaders across North America. Seventy one percent (71%) of the respondents were business owners and leaders, the other respondents included managers, front line and customer facing people. Seventy three percent (73%) of the respondents were Canadian and include responses from every single province; 19% from 15 states in the USA and 8% were from Europe, Africa and Asia. 

These results are from the ‘Blueprint for 2021: Business Outlook’, a report that identifies key business priorities that will help privately held and family run businesses succeed in 2021.  

Survey Highlights  

• Two thirds of respondents (66%) believe customers are the number one priority to focus on in order to achieve success in 2021 and weather the COVID 19 business environment
• Sixty percent (60%) of business owners are investing in the customer experience in 2021 
• Ninety percent (90%) of business owners feel optimistic about the state of business 

The survey revealed a number of strategies likely to be adopted to achieve profitability in 2021.  They include reducing costs (61%), investing in the customer experience (60%), identifying new  business opportunities (57%), launching new sales and distribution strategies (51%) and  investing in training to strengthen relationships of trust with customers (47%).  

Survey sponsor, and President, Success Through Trust, Natalie Doyle Oldfield, said, “Ninety four  percent of all survey respondents said customer trust is extremely important in this business environment. Yet, 58 per cent do not have a clear idea of what steps to take to achieve this.”  “In 2021, businesses need to operationalize trust in the customer experience. It is not the time  to wait, retrench or cut back. Companies that balance online interaction with personal  interaction will win in 2021,” said Doyle Oldfield. 

There are a number of companies that stand out as customer focused trust leaders. Kohltech Windows and Entrance Systems (Kohltech), one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies is one  them.  

Kohltech works with Success Through Trust to build and measure customer trust and improve customer experiences. CEO Kevin Pelley, said, “It is important to us that everyone at Kohltech  be focused on providing extraordinary customer experiences and have strong customer  relationships. Natalie Doyle Oldfield has helped us to understand our customers better and  build our business. We worked with her to develop a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and to  train our team to consistently build trust and deliver extraordinary experiences. This training  was invaluable when COVID-19 hit. We immediately reached out to customers to listen to their  challenges and as a result we gained an understanding of their needs and were able to pivot and create a new tempered safety glass barrier for them called, Kohltech Shield. This allowed them to have safe interactions with their customers. In 2021, finding ways to build trust when  you can’t always meet in person continues to be a priority for us.”  

Success Through Trust has designed an evidence-based framework including the Trust Building Model to help companies operationalize trust across their business. To download the Blueprint  for 2021: Business Outlook visit: Success Through Trust