Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000

Chapter 1 The Credibility of the Commons and the Core Credibility Drivers In his famous treatise "The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett Hardin demonstrates the fundamental conflict between individual interests and the common good. Hardin describes how, when a plot of land is commonly available to all the farmers in a village, one farmer after another brings his livestock to graze, blind to the inevitable consequence of depleting the land through overgrazing. Writes Hardin: Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another. . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit--in a world that is limited. In the twenty-first century, consumers' attention, and trust, is like that commons--a limited resource that is easily depleted. In today's world of high-speed broadband and commercial-free TiVo, consumers have less attention and patience for advertising and marketing than ever before. Ad saturation, deceptive messaging, and mismanaged expectations contribute to consumers' dwindling trust in companies. So businesses must work even harder to maintain market share, reinforce brand messages, and communicate new ideas, in order to preserve their competitive advantage--in other words, get more use out of the commons than the other farmers. But when businesses simply spend ad dollars to buy awareness without developing strategies to cultivate credibility and earn trust, they will run into trouble. For there no longer exists a top-down relationship between businesses and consumers; while marketers used to have control over the message and could count on the masses to follow along whether they liked it or not, today, the consumer is the boss. In a speech given in October 2006, Charlotte Otto, global external relations officer for Procter & Gamble, said we are delusional if we think that, as communications practitioners, we can "control" the message or "manage the medium." "Now more than ever," she said, "consumers own our brands. Consumers own our messages. Consumers own the conversation about how, where, and if they invite our brands into their lives." Which brings us back to credibility. Credibility may not be on your balance sheet, but it's the best asset you've got. Credibility is the only valid currency in this vast and noisy marketplace. So what exactly constitutes credibility, and how do you learn how to harness it? Credibility in today's marketing environment is the product of six core drivers. Most of them are interrelated, but they require different strategies and tactics to fully realize. These critical credibility drivers are 1. Trust 2. Authenticity 3. Transparency 4. Listening 5. Responsiveness 6. Affirmation 1. Trust Trust is perhaps the most critical driver of credibility. Trust implies confidence, dependability, and faith in a company or product. It is achieved through honest, ethical, straightforward, consistent, and predictable business practices. Unfortunately, trust is a diminishing resource for today's businesses. As a 2004 study by Intelliseek and Forrester Research found, consumers trust other consumers far more than they trust companies or brands, and they consistently distrust marketing techniques used by brands. This finding was recently reaffirmed in a 2007 Nielsen globalBlackshaw, Pete is the author of 'Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000' with ISBN 9780385522724 and ISBN 038552272X.