Don Peppers: Customer Relationship Management and Marketing Expert, Keynote Speaker

Summary

The speaker discusses the growing power of customers in the age of transparency and technology. As interactions increase, trust becomes crucial for businesses. Customers now expect not only competence but also proactive trustworthiness, where companies prioritize their interests. The speaker introduces the concept of 'Trustability,' emphasizing the need for businesses to act with empathy and transparency. Examples like Amazon, JetBlue, and USAA illustrate how proactive trust can foster customer loyalty. In the modern age, trust is essential for efficient interactions and business success, transforming traditional marketing practices.

Takeaways

• 🔑 Customers have increasing power to push back, but this shift offers new opportunities for businesses that adapt.
• 🤝 Trust has always been important, but it's now essential for companies to focus on competence and good intentions.
• ⚙️ Moore's Law has made technology much more powerful, leading to faster interactions and greater transparency.
• 📱 We interact a thousand times more today than 20 years ago, and this trend will continue, demanding more trust in these interactions.
• 🔍 Trust helps filter information and is critical in an age of transparency, where secrets are harder to keep.
• 👥 Consumers trust recommendations from friends and even strangers far more than advertisements, which they view as biased.
• 🕵️ Transparency rewards good products and punishes bad ones quickly, as shown by the rapid downfall of the movie *Bruno* due to negative reviews.
• 💡 Companies must move toward proactive trustworthiness, or 'trustability,' where they protect customers' interests even without being asked.
• 📚 Amazon and other companies like USAA and JetBlue demonstrate trustability by proactively helping customers avoid mistakes or compensating them for issues.
• 💬 Empathy, treating customers how you would want to be treated, is the ultimate form of customer insight and key to building extreme trust.

Q & A

What is the main message of the speaker in this transcript?

The main message is that customer power is increasing, but this does not signal the end of marketing. Instead, it presents a new opportunity for businesses to adapt to a more transparent and trust-based environment. Companies that proactively protect customers' interests will thrive in this new era.

What are the two key components of trust according to the speaker?

The two key components of trust are competence (the ability to do things right) and good intentions (doing the right thing). Trust is built when customers believe a company can deliver quality products and services while genuinely looking out for their interests.

How does Moore's Law relate to the increase in customer power?

Moore's Law, which states that computing power doubles roughly every 18 to 24 months, has enabled more frequent and rapid customer interactions. This increase in interactions requires higher levels of trust and transparency from businesses, as customers now have more tools and platforms to share their experiences.

Why is trust so important in today's digital world?

Trust is crucial because it helps filter the overwhelming amount of information customers receive. With transparency becoming the norm, trustworthy interactions are more efficient, and businesses that lack trustworthiness risk being exposed quickly by word of mouth or online reviews.

How does transparency impact businesses?

Transparency acts like a disinfectant for businesses. It rewards companies that offer good products and punishes those that don't. In an age where information spreads rapidly, businesses can no longer hide behind traditional marketing tactics—they must be genuinely trustworthy to succeed.

Can you give an example of how transparency hurt a business in the transcript?

The example of the movie 'Bruno' is provided, where negative feedback spread quickly via social media, causing a 40% drop in box office receipts the day after the movie's release. This demonstrates how transparency and rapid communication can significantly impact a business or product's success.

What is 'Trustability' according to the speaker?

Trustability refers to proactive trustworthiness, where businesses not only avoid cheating or misleading customers but actively look out for their interests. It involves doing the right thing for customers even when it may not directly benefit the business.

How does Amazon demonstrate trustability?

Amazon demonstrates trustability by reminding customers when they attempt to purchase a book they’ve already bought. This proactive approach helps customers avoid unnecessary purchases, even though Amazon could profit from selling the same product again.

What role does empathy play in building trust according to the speaker?

Empathy is seen as the ultimate form of customer insight. It involves treating customers the way the business would want to be treated if it were in the customer's shoes. Companies like USAA have built strong trust by consistently applying this principle.

What does the speaker predict about the future of marketing practices?

The speaker predicts that previously acceptable marketing practices will soon become 'untrustable' as customer expectations for trustability rise. Marketing will need to evolve to focus more on proactive, transparent, and trust-driven strategies to meet these new demands.

Outlines

00:00

💡 The Rise of Empowered Customers

This paragraph introduces the growing power of customers, who now push back against marketing. While some worry it's the end of marketing, the speaker views it as a new opportunity for first movers in a world of empowered consumers. Trust has always been essential, involving both competence (ability to do the job) and good intentions (doing the right thing). These elements are vital in today's increasingly interconnected world, where technology has amplified the speed and volume of interactions.

05:03

🔍 Transparency and Trust in a Connected World

As technology advances and interactions multiply, trust has become even more crucial. People filter information based on trust, making it essential for marketers. The paragraph highlights how transparency has grown, making it harder for businesses to hide negative actions. Consumers now rely on recommendations from friends and strangers more than they trust advertising, which they perceive as self-serving. Trustworthiness is becoming critical as information spreads rapidly in this age of transparency.

10:05

📉 The Power of Word of Mouth and Transparency

The speaker discusses how transparency can make or break a product or business. They use the example of the movie *Bruno*, which suffered a dramatic drop in box office receipts due to negative tweets and texts from viewers. Transparency rewards good products but punishes bad ones, with negative experiences quickly becoming permanent online. The expectation of trustworthiness is evolving, and consumers now expect businesses to actively protect their interests.

Keywords

💡Customer Empowerment

Customer empowerment refers to the growing ability of customers to influence businesses and push back against marketing tactics. In the video, this concept highlights how customers now have more power due to technological advancements and increased connectivity. The speaker emphasizes that this shift isn't a threat to marketing but an opportunity for businesses to engage with more proactive trust-building strategies.

💡Trust

Trust is the foundation of successful customer-business relationships. It includes two primary elements: competence and good intentions. The speaker notes that customers evaluate businesses based on their ability to deliver quality products (competence) and whether they act in the customer's best interest (good intentions). Trust is central to customer interactions and has become more critical with increasing transparency in the digital age.

💡Moore's Law

Moore's Law, originally describing the exponential growth in computing power, is referenced to illustrate how rapidly technology evolves. The speaker explains that computing power is increasing at a rate of doubling every 18-24 months, leading to a more interconnected world where people interact a thousand times more than before. This increased interaction amplifies the need for businesses to build trust.

💡Transparency

Transparency is the ease with which information can be shared and accessed, particularly in the digital age. The speaker argues that transparency acts as a 'disinfectant' for business, rewarding good products and punishing bad ones. The example of the movie 'Bruno' illustrates how transparency and word of mouth can quickly affect consumer behavior, as negative feedback spread rapidly through social media, causing a sharp decline in box office receipts.

💡Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is the organic spread of information, opinions, or feedback from consumers to others. In the video, the speaker explains how word of mouth, especially through social media, can significantly impact a business. Positive word of mouth rewards trustworthy companies, while negative reviews can destroy reputations quickly, as seen in the example of the 'Bruno' movie.

💡Proactive Trustworthiness

Proactive trustworthiness, or 'Trustability,' is a new standard where businesses not only refrain from cheating customers but actively look out for their best interests. The speaker uses examples like Amazon reminding customers if they've already purchased a book, demonstrating that companies can build deeper trust by being proactive rather than reactive in customer interactions.

💡Competence

Competence refers to a business’s ability to reliably deliver products or services that meet customer expectations in terms of quality, timing, and price. This is one of the two key components of trust. In the video, the speaker emphasizes that customers trust businesses that are competent enough to fulfill their promises and deliver value.

💡Good Intentions

Good intentions, the second key component of trust, refer to the belief that a business acts in the customer's best interest. The speaker suggests that trust is not only about delivering good products but also about businesses showing that they genuinely care about their customers' well-being. Companies like USAA demonstrate good intentions by proactively treating their customers fairly and with empathy.

💡Empathy

Empathy, described as a deeply human instinct, is crucial for building trust in customer relationships. The speaker highlights how empathy is the ultimate form of customer insight, suggesting that businesses should treat customers the way they would want to be treated themselves. USAA is used as an example of a company that practices empathy by understanding and serving its military family customers with care and fairness.

💡Extreme Trust

Extreme trust is the concept of businesses going beyond basic trust to demonstrate 'Trustability'—the proactive protection of customer interests. The speaker introduces this idea as a necessary adaptation to the digital age, where transparency demands that businesses not only act ethically but also anticipate customer needs and prevent issues before they arise, as seen in examples from companies like JetBlue and USAA.

Highlights

Customers are increasingly empowered, pushing back more, but this creates opportunities rather than threats for first movers in the new environment.

Trust has always been important, involving two key elements: competence (ability to do the job) and good intentions (doing the right thing).

With the rapid growth of technology, interactions have skyrocketed, requiring businesses to build more trust as interactions become more frequent and transparent.

Trust makes interactions efficient by filtering out information that comes from untrustworthy sources, and transparency is becoming critical in today's world.

Transparency rewards good products and punishes bad ones. Bad products or practices can be exposed quickly, leading to significant consequences.

Word-of-mouth has gained new power through social media and technology, as seen with the example of the movie 'Bruno,' where box office receipts dropped dramatically due to negative reviews spreading fast.

The internet makes it nearly impossible to hide bad practices. Once negative information is out, it stays out, making it essential for businesses to prioritize trust.

Consumers now expect a new level of trustworthiness, where businesses must proactively watch out for their interests—referred to as 'Trustability.'

Amazon practices proactive trust by reminding customers if they are about to purchase something they have already bought, showing how they prioritize customer trust over short-term profit.

JetBlue's proactive approach to customer service, like issuing automatic refunds for delays without requiring extra steps from customers, exemplifies extreme trust.

USAA has built a brand around trust by treating customers the way the company would want to be treated, becoming the most trusted financial services company.

Empathy is the key to extreme trust and is the ultimate form of customer insight, enabling companies to treat customers fairly and build long-lasting relationships.

The principle of reciprocity, or treating customers as you would like to be treated, is becoming essential for businesses to maintain trust in an increasingly transparent world.

The age of big data allows businesses to gather deep customer insights, but trust and empathy are what truly strengthen customer relationships in a transparent market.

Previously acceptable marketing practices will soon become unacceptable and untrustworthy as customer expectations for proactive trustworthiness rise.

Transcripts

uh what I'm gonna talk about today is

the fact that we all we're all aware of

this we're all aware of this increasing

power that customers have the fact that

customers increasingly are able to push

back and they do and and and some of you

are probably worried about this a lot of

a lot of people think this is the

beginning of the end for marketing but I

don't think so I think it's the

beginning of a new beginning I think

there's a tremendous opportunity that

exists out here for first movers in a

new environment of empowered customers

and that's what I'm going to try to

explain that's what we try to explain in

our book extreme trust first start with

the fact that Trust has always been

important you know it's always been

important to have your customers trust

and if you if you really had to boil

down the elements of trust if you think

about what it really means well there

are a couple of elements first Trust

involves competence do you think that

somebody is competent to do their job to

deliver the product on time to you to

will it be a quality product is it at a

reasonable price those are all the

elements of competence but also the

second requirement is good intentions do

you think the person has good intentions

or here's a baby being thrown up by his

dad is the dad competent enough to catch

the baby and doesn't want to catch the

baby those are the two questions go

through the the babies mind right

competence and good intentions could be

thought of as doing things right and

doing the right thing so Trust is always

been important then along comes Moore's

Law every 20 years

computers get a thousand times faster

and more powerful there's more computer

power in your mobile phone than was

available to the entire NASA

organization in 1969 when they put a man

on the moon computers are incredibly

powerful today there and there's and

they're not slowing down they're getting

more and more powerful at a rate of

about twice as much every 18 to 24

months there's a coral

Reeta Moore's law sometimes known as

zuckerberg slaw every 20 years we

interact a thousand times as much with

other people now you think about your

life twenty years ago before cell phones

before Facebook before status updates

Twitter okay before LinkedIn a lot of

you didn't have email twenty years ago

you probably interact about a thousand

times as much today as you did twenty

years ago and your children will enact a

thousand times as much as you do twenty

years from now

now here's the thing here's the thing

one of the most important components of

any interaction is Trust trust the more

we interact the more trust we demand for

several reasons first trust makes

interactions efficient think about it

when you when you turn on your computer

in the morning and you see 50 inbound

messages in your inbox what's the first

thing you do delete a bunch right mostly

the ones that are coming in from people

not that you don't trust him so much but

that you know that they're trying to

sell you something it's in their

interests not in your interest right

they're not watching out for you they're

watching out for themselves they want to

get your attention please please wait do

you delete delete Li you filter

information with with trust you filter

that information that's how we decide

what to pay attention to

can we trust it and Trust generates

transparent interaction generates

transparency whether it's Arab Spring or

WikiLeaks the world is more trance it's

more expensive today to keep a secret

than it ever has been

anything anyone in the world can know

today everyone in the world can know

tomorrow so Trust is really really

critical because if you're not

trustworthy

word is going to get out words gonna get

out we are in the age of transparency a

Forrester study found that 83 percent of

consumers trust what their friends tell

them more than half of consumers trust

the recommendations and opinions of

total strangers whose reviews of

actually read online only about 14% of

people trust advertising why would that

be it's not because advertisers lie but

advertisers messages are biased in their

favor

the reason an advertiser or a direct

marketer or any business is willing to

pay money to put a message in front of

consumer is not in general not to

improve the consumers life but to

improve the advertisers bottom line

consumers aren't stupid they know this

that's why they don't they get

information from advertisers they get

information from marketers you know and

they expect that information to be true

but they don't trust them they don't

trust because advertising is in the

advertisers interest not in your

interests and we've all sort of grown up

with this but the situation is changing

situation is changing transparency is

like a disinfectant for business it's

going to clean things up

but first it's things like health

there's a lot of businesses gonna get

stung by Transparency I'll give you some

examples later in my talk

transparency rewards good products and

it mercilessly punishes bad ones do you

remember the movie Bruno anybody see

that movie

I love Sacha Baron Cohen's movie

generally okay but this was a bad movie

this was really a bad movie and in an

unprecedented action people left this

movie tweeting and texting their friends

to save their money box office receipts

were down 40% the day following the

release of the movie this never happened

before in Hollywood the day after the

release of the movie box office receipts

plummeted for the mouth word of mouth is

a is a vicious thing it was death by

tweet screw up today the news is gonna

be permanent as Linda Kaplan Thaler said

you can't undo GLE yourself once you're

there it's in a permanent record or as

somebody said a little more

picturesquely dude you can't take

something bad off the internet that's

like trying to take pee out of us

swimming pool once the pees in the pool

you can't get it out so Martha Rodgers

and I think that they that that because

of the rapid increase in technology for

interacting because people are

interacting so much more today than

before that there's a new standard of

trust that's going to be expected of

businesses consumers are going to hold

businesses to a new standard of

trustworthiness it's no longer enough

simply to refrain from stealing from

your customers or cheating them instead

consumers are going to expect you to

proactively watch out for their

interests they're gonna expect proactive

trustworthiness or what more than I call

Trust ability Trust ability proactive

trustworthiness

vattic that a business will go out of

its way to protect a customer's interest

there's lots of examples of this lots of

examples of it but if you had to boil

down the definition of trust ability it

is doing things right and doing the

right thing proactively let me give you

some examples Amazon great example ever

try to buy a book on Amazon that you

already bought from them one time before

they sell it to you they remind you hey

you already bought this book once you

sure you want to buy it again see they

could make a profit by selling you the

book it actually be more profitable than

just let you make them as your mistakes

not their mistake not cheating you if

they sell you the book that you're

buying by mistake

but they're using their database which

is probably better than your database to

remind you that you already have the

book iTunes does the same thing USAA the

direct writing insurance company they've

made a fortune as an insurance company

that has historically specialized in

serving military families and in in auto

property and health insurance okay and

and they constantly are watching out for

their members in any way USAA members

out here okay we'll see tell that

everybody else at the table what the

great company er JetBlue the other thing

I want a JetBlue flight it's

six hours late it's everybody is

terribly inconvenience on JetBlue it's

very very bad and we're all upset when

we get into the destination and as we're

leaving a plane we're handed in notice

the notice says we're terribly sorry

about the delay our fault it was

mechanical as part of our customer Bill

of Rights we're gonna give you a full

refund for your ticket either in true

blue points or in money and you do not

have to do anything to claim the refund

we will automatically either send you

the refund or put it in your flight bank

how many times have you been subject to

a refund in an airline and they say yeah

to claim this refund just go on our

website enter the ticket number of the

confirmation number you know wave a

chicken in a bag over your head three

times so JetBlue is being proactive

about protecting customers interests

extreme trust comes from empathy empathy

is a human impulse it's a natural human

instinct at USAA the way they became the

icon of customer service and by the way

USAA is the most trusted financial

services brand in the world and the next

one is like 10 or 15 points below it

okay so by far the most trusted

financial services brain USAA got there

by practicing a very simple thing for 40

years for 40 years the mantra at USAA is

we treat the customer the way you'd like

to be treated if you were the customer

that does not mean that we give products

away in a loss it doesn't mean that we

cut our throats to serve the customer it

means that we give the customer a fair

deal we treat the customer the way he'd

like to be treated if if if I were the

customer the way I like to be treated

that's USAA empathy is a deeply human

instinct it's deeply human probably the

most human and if you think about it for

a company empathy empathy is the

ultimate form of customer insight we're

at the Direct Marketing Association

we're all about customer insight in the

world of big data customer insight is

what you get from having all this

information the unstructured information

about social sentiments

that's all to develop customer insight

don't you want to know what it feels

like to be the customer well apply the

principle of reciprocity treat the

customer the way you'd like to be

treated if you really were the customer

because of rising customer expectations

with respect to trust ability previously

acceptable marketing marketing practices

will soon become untrustable