With so much data being held and transferred digitally, gaining trust from users for products, services or even certification, has become vital for organizations.
Digital trust instils confidence in users, customers, clients and stakeholders alike. It stands as an assurance, safeguarding not only their data but also their financial interests.
This confidence can significantly enhance your ability to attract and retain customers, potentially providing you with a distinct competitive edge over organizations that neglect to invest in building trust in their products and services.
The dangers of being perceived as untrustworthy
Losing trust or being perceived as fundamentally untrustworthy can have negative repercussions for your organization. These outcomes could include possible financial losses, reduced user engagement, potential customer decline, and lasting reputational harm.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal and Facebook (now Meta)’s association with it is an excellent example of how a significant breach of trust can lead to a loss of credibility and user confidence.
The social media giant lost approximately $134 billion in market value when #DeleteFacebook trended on Twitter (now X). Meta recovered its losses over time but rebuilding user trust can take much longer.
How to establish and nurture lasting trust
When it comes to building trust, your organization stands to benefit if you have well-established safety measures in place.
Initiatives like content moderation and fraud prevention provide a solid foundation, offering a chance to shape safe online environments that your users will genuinely enjoy engaging with.
Upholding a 'trustworthy by design' mindset and approach is another effective way to build digital trust.
Trustworthy by design is a practical guide to fostering organizational trust. It places trust as the top priority throughout every phase of your product or service development and release.
With this approach, questions around user confidence, potential drawbacks and benefits are continually asked and addressed throughout development rather than post-release.
Another approach is to create pillars or 'dimensions' to guide best practices and decision-making around trust.
The Deloitte Insights newsletter recommends using transparency and accessibility, ethics and responsibility, privacy and control, and security and reliability as pillars to live by. A matching policy framework also helps to prioritize user confidence in a product or service.
3 winning ways to provide authentication
Providing authentication is one of the quickest ways to build trust. Whether for a supply chain, product, or process, authentication can be achieved in several ways:
Proven Sustainability: Gain the trust of your users, customers and clients by verifying and authenticating carbon emissions metrics. This substantiates the green credentials of your project, fostering confidence in its environmental impact.
Remote Auditing: Auditing any location worldwide is now effortlessly achievable. With consistent results, remote auditing streamlines the process, reinforcing trust through transparent evaluations.
Blockchain Certification: Harness the power of blockchain for seamless certification. Provide access to relevant certification through links or QR codes, offering a quick and efficient experience for both certificate holders and external verifiers.
By implementing these approaches and methods, your organization can assure its stakeholders that trust is a priority.
