Brands Can Build Trust With Stories of Good Will [Infographic]
Consumers exposed to stories of brands doing good things are more likely to view the brand in a positive light and might even become a brand advocate.
Recent research has shown us that emotion, social shares and virality are all closely interconnected. A new infographic from Buzzstream and digital marketing agency Fractl shows us a different side of the emotion-social equation: how brands can build trust when stories of their goodwill go viral.
Companies often go out of their way to set things right for a customer even when they don’t have to. Amazon, for example, refunded a customer’s purchase when that purchase was lost by the postal service. While not strictly necessary, this did generate goodwill among customers.
In light of this event, and others from The Ritz-Carlton, Lego, game developers Bungie, and UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, Buzzstream and Fractl surveyed 900 users. Some of these users either were exposed to positive customer support stories, like the one above, while other users were not.
In the group that had not been exposed to the stories of goodwill, 29 percent of respondents perceived the five listed companies as “very good” while 42 percent were more neutral in their opinion. In the group that had been exposed, 37 percent perceived the companies as “very good”, and only 33 percent held neutral opinions.
When asked if they would make purchases from these brands, the groups had an even wider variance. Only 18 percent were “very likely” to make a purchase if they had not seen the positive stories. 37 percent of the group that had seen the stories rated themselves as “very likely” to make a purchase.
The “very unlikely” to purchase group was six percent smaller if they had seen the stories, and “extremely unlikely” dropped to just one percent. Survey participants were also 36 percent more likely to buy from brands with viral customer support stories, and 2.4 times more likely to endorse a brand if they’re exposed to those stories.
For more information on customer opinions, or to read the other examples of company goodwill, view the infographic below.
Study by Fractl and BuzzStream.
