Trust Building: the Most Important Tactics to Keep Consumers “Sticky”

Trust building: The most important tactics to keep consumers “sticky”

The article mainly talks about what makes consumers “sticky.” Sticky customers, defined in the article, are consumers who tend to follow through on an intended purchase, buy the product repeatedly, and recommended it to others (Spenner and Freeman 4). It also discusses three most effective tactics to stick consumers: aiding navigation, building trust, and making it easier for consumers to weigh options. Of the three tactics, I hold that building trust is the most important strategy to make the consumers “sticky”.

Everyday people are facing a large variety of goods produced by different companies. The tactic of aiding navigation provides an efficient path for customers to buy by minimizing the numbers of information sources consumers must touch, which aiding navigation helps consumers move confidently toward a purchase (Spenner and Freeman 5). The tactic of making it easier for consumers to weigh options helps consumers evaluate choices from numerous brands and makes consumers feel confident about their choices. Marketers usually offer tools that allow consumers to weigh their options by identifying the features that are most relevant to them (Spenner and Freeman 7).

Although the strategy of aiding navigation, making the weighing of options easier are very important in making consumers “sticky”, it is building trust of consumers on products that determines whether marketers can finally make the costumers sticky. The tactic of building trust helps consumers trust one product by providing trustworthy sources of its information and recommendations. For example, the “haul video” (many girls upload YouTube videos of themselves talking about their purchase) makes it easier for customers to discover and use one product. To make consumers trust one product’s information instead of its brand, marketers need not only to recommends information about features and benefits of products but also to offers...