Insights

Loyalty Thinking: Let’s Start With Trust

Article
3 MIN READ
Jan 20, 2025

Matt Gould
Chief Commerce Officer

Summary

Building trust is the foundation of customer loyalty.

Matt Gould, Chief Commerce Officer at Apply Digital, highlights three essential pillars for success: delivering consistent quality, combining AI with human empathy for personalized customer care, and embracing a strong social conscience.

These strategies not only foster lasting relationships but also align with modern customer expectations, helping businesses drive loyalty and achieve sustainable growth in today’s competitive market.

Loyalty Thinking: Let’s Start With Trust

Building customer loyalty starts with trust. It’s the foundation that ensures your brand becomes a trusted partner in your customer’s journey. According to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, 88% of consumers consider trust a top factor in their purchasing decisions. Quality and value rank slightly higher, but trust remains critical.

Though it might seem nebulous, brand trust is a firm metric that customers use to judge whether they should choose to give your brand their loyalty. But as they say, trust arrives by foot and leaves on horseback — slow to establish, and quick to be lost.

So for those looking to build it with their customers, here are three key elements to consider.

Three key elements to building trust

1. Quality: the foundation of trust

Trust begins with delivering consistent quality. In today’s competitive market, quality is not just about a product’s functionality or durability — it’s about the entire experience. Customers value how they feel about a product before, during, and after purchase.

Today’s consumers hold brands to higher standards. With online reviews and comparison tools, expectations for quality are greater than ever. Research highlights that 73% of consumers prioritize the quality of the brand experience almost as much as product quality and price. To win loyalty, brands must meet these rising expectations at every interaction.

2. Customer care: human-focused personalisation

Over 90% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer care, and when it comes to delivering it — personalisation is key. Today, technologies like AI plays a pivotal role in this, however, while technology can enhance efficiency, human involvement remains critical. Empathy — something only humans can provide — remains the cornerstone of exceptional customer care. Customers want to feel understood, valued, and supported. And that requires balancing technological advancements with human touchpoints. John Lewis is a prime example of a brand that seamlessly combines AI-powered personalisation with human-powered empathy. Using AI to continuously renew their famous price pledge and anticipate the wants and needs of their customers, they’re able to provide tailored options to a highly diverse customer base. Additionally, their shared ownership model, where employees are treated as partners, fosters a culture of care and accountability. This approach ensures that employees not only possess deep product knowledge but have more time to focus on delivering unbiased, trustworthy advice. So while AI works in the background to improve their experience, the takeaway for John Lewis’s customers is their commitment to reliable, personalized, genuine, and most importantly, human customer care.

3. Strong social conscience: doing good is good business

A strong social conscience is no longer optional. Customers want brands to act transparently and address social and environmental challenges. Yet, 62% of consumers doubt brands’ commitments to sustainability.

Companies that integrate sustainable practices and communicate their impact clearly can earn greater loyalty. Brands with deeply embedded sustainability strategies outperform peers by 21% in profitability and positive societal outcomes. When customers see their purchases contributing to meaningful change, they’re more likely to trust and stay loyal.

Trust isn’t a one-time achievement — it’s an ongoing journey that drives retention, revenue, and long-term success.

Matt Gould Chief Commerce Officer

Final thoughts: building trust with purpose

With customer expectations increasingly leaning toward personalized, sustainable, and engaging rewards, recent research from Talon.One shows that 79% of businesses are looking to revamp their loyalty programs in the coming months — and trust is the cornerstone of loyalty. Achieving it requires a focus on three pillars: delivering quality, offering empathetic customer care, and embracing a strong social conscience. Together, these elements create emotional, financial, and safety-driven value for customers.

To build trust-driven loyalty programs, start with clear, measurable goals and align operations to support them. Use technology as an enabler, not a substitute, and maintain a focus on trust across all touchpoints. Trust isn’t a one-time achievement — it’s an ongoing journey that drives retention, revenue, and long-term success.

To see how we do this in action, check out our article Experience as Strategy: Apply Digital’s Holistic Playbook for Success from Chief Strategy Officer Lauren Milne where she explores how this holistic approach to strategies like this — both as a philosophy and discipline — is fundamental to how we work internally and with clients.