How to build trust in your brand to boost app downloads

Trust is a powerful force and something you’ll need to harness in order to maximise the number of downloads logged for your business app. We’ve all heard the saying that trust has to be earned but, it can be hard to know where to start when today’s consumers and app users are so heavily influenced by reviews and social media.

Whether an app user trusts your brand or not can make all the difference in whether they choose to add your app to their device, or continue scrolling the app store for alternative offerings. Of course, creating a good level of trust can also be beneficial to your bottom line, as consumers who trust your brand are more likely to make more bookings and buy products from you.

Here’s a quick outline of how you can get started boosting trust in your brand ahead of releasing your new business app.

Step 1: find out what people are already saying about you

If you aren’t already monitoring reviews and social media to find out what sentiment exists towards your brand, now is the time to do so. Study your app store reviews, Google My Business reviews and feedback received on platforms such as TrustPilot. Look for common themes. Do you often get praised for great customer service? Or hear that your postage is too slow frequently? Pick out things that recur most often and place them in a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ column.

Step 2: study where people are talking about you

Knowing where your customers go to share their feelings about you is important, as these are the places where you’ll later deploy your trust building tactics. For many modern consumers, social media is often a starting point but you can narrow that down to specific platforms. Think about where your customers hang out online – which blogs do they read? Which news channels?

Step 3: look for gaps in your reputation management

Now that you know what people are saying and where they are saying it, can you identify any reputation gaps? Have you noticed for example that you haven’t been responding to reviews on a certain review platform? Have you stopped investing in local PR and therefore are leaving the door wide open for a competitor to get a favourable right up instead? These are areas that you can focus on moving forwards.

Step 4: Create a plan of action

Fostering trust takes a lot of work but, by this stage you know what your current level of brand trust is, where you can strengthen perceptions and where you have gaps. Bring those all together into a plan of action which highlights what you want people to say about you, where you need to improve perceptions and where you need to make operational changes (such as swapping to a new delivery service).

In your plan highlight specifically what you need to do to further develop trust. Do you need to shout more about your green credentials for example? Do you need to assign a dedicated person to request reviews and deal with feedback?

Good luck!