Fourteen Lectures on Consumer Psychology

Chapter 13 Trust and a Good Public Image
In the face of sales promotion, consumers will have an instinctive rejection psychology. Building consumers’ trust in salesmen and products is the basis for sales. Trust is a consumption habit that lives in consumers’ minds. It is stable and fragile at the same time. At the point of deceit, it will collapse in an instant.Repeating and keeping consumers happy can go a long way in helping you maintain consumer trust.

People have different degrees of trust in different commodities.For a product that has been on the market for a long time, even if it is the first purchase, consumers have unlimited trust in the quality and reputation of the product.Strangely enough, though, such commodities hardly exist in reality.In any case, when a consumer buys an item, he either has a basic trust in the item, trusts the seller of the item, or he trusts both.

The correlation between trust in a product and purchase behavior needs no elaboration.The salesman's efforts to improve his reputation can prove that consumers' trust in the product is directly proportional to the number of purchases.The salesman has repeatedly emphasized to everyone that he is a trustworthy person.They go to great lengths to display their trademarks to the public, hoping that consumers will regard the trademarks affixed to their products as a badge of trust.These connections can be clearly seen in Henry Foods' efforts to build consumer confidence in the products it produces that bear the QS logo.

If money is used to measure the value of public trust in a company (sometimes referred to as a company's social image), this huge amount can attest to the importance of trust.On this kind of trust value estimation, an accountant wrote: "A good public image (of a company) is an intangible asset. The value of this asset can be calculated by subtracting the last 5 years from the company's total profits in the past 5 years. Annual capital interest (capital interest is calculated at 7% per year), and the remaining balance is the value of the company’s public image.”

Gain consumer trust and maintain a good public image

On business lists, confidence, or a good public image, is generally seen as some of a company's most elusive assets.Its ambiguity and immeasurability have led everyone to think that it exists only in theory.While this part of the asset called consumer confidence is difficult to measure and touch, it certainly exists.The trust phase is as important as any of the previously described phases.If one were to ask where trust resides in a company, the best answer would be that it resides in the minds of consumers.There, confidence in commodities is a consumption habit that consumers spend a lot of manpower and financial resources on.

This consumption habit constitutes the consumer's preference to purchase a certain commodity.For example, a certain men's clothing store has a good public image in the minds of consumers, which will prompt consumers to form a preference. As long as they buy clothing accessories, even a bow tie, they will open the door of this store instead of patronizing the competition. opponent.A good public image of a bow tie manufacturer will make consumers directly ask the salesperson if they have products of their brand as soon as they enter the store, without considering other brands.Sometimes, consumers will recommend that brand of bow tie to their friends.These consumption habits, in a sense, personal habits, that is, habits that belong only to consumers, are formed under the overwhelming advertising campaign and excellent service and quality of manufacturers.

The next issue to be discussed is how trust and a good public image should be established.

origin of trust

It is feasible for salesmen to set up a series of measures to cultivate trust based on the basic characteristics of consumers.To find out the source of these characteristics, we must go back to the infancy of ancient human civilization.At that time, the human mind was just beginning to germinate, and it was possible to find out from those initial things the same characteristics shared by later adult humans.

When examining the minds of human infancy, the first source of trust in our ancestors is so simple, it could be said to be the instinct of the mind, that it is almost impossible to define this trust in terms other than the language of "perceived simple facts" origin of.Every time he touched his surroundings with his hands, the infant human said, "Ah, I feel something here, and I think I can trust my senses." He believed that as long as he could perceive an object, the The object must be by his side.Rightly or not, to be is to him to be perceived.He believes everything he perceives and has absolute confidence in those trusts.These childish experiences of objects are closely related to human beings’ cognition of everything in the world in infancy, rough and positive. This feeling is a sense of trust that can be given a not-so-indecent name “everything is there”.

This trust in our ancestors has been called "primitive credulity" by a psychologist (Boone).Boone believed that the human mind is too organized to tolerate ignorance, so it tends to accept all claims and explanations.Young children are prone to believe the reality of things in their minds until they realize that there is another thing that is exactly the opposite.Children are naturally inclined to believe everything they are told, that Santa Claus enters the house through the chimney, that fairies live in flowers, that leprechauns haunt the fields and forests at night, and so on.

This "primitive credulity" that exists in every baby's heart will gradually lose its innocence as time goes by, and the acquisition of more experience will eliminate the freshness of things.Human psychology changes in this process.One day the child was hungry, and he reached out to grab the milk bottle, but found that there was nothing where the bottle had been.This action is based on his previous experience (he will have the scene of the milk bottle close at hand every time he is hungry), but this time he finds that the milk bottle is not where it used to be.At this time he will have a new sense of reality compared with the old experience. This feeling is called "unreal feeling" or doubt.

After experiencing the first doubt, the child will doubt often later in life.In the real experience, he will gradually discover that the "real world" in his original understanding is quite different from the real world.Not only was the milk bottle no longer in his hands, other things were also very different from his original cognition.Perhaps after a failed experience climbing a chimney, he began to doubt the idea that Santa entered the house from there.

After many such "frustrating" experiences, children gradually begin to adapt to the way of thinking of adults.They have formed the natural habit of suppressing the instinct of credulity, and learn to test every fact in their original understanding with their real life experience.When encountering a fact, he will set aside his original experience, verify the fact experimentally, and observe whether the experimental results are consistent with the results of his original cognition.If actions do not produce results that satisfy him, he becomes suspicious.He also becomes skeptical if new facts contradict past experience.Only when the results are exactly as he expected, one hundred percent consistent with his previous experience, will he dispel doubts and generate trust.

The trust generated in this situation can easily bring people a sense of satisfaction and a sense of calm after the satisfaction of desires.If you want to know the power of satisfaction when this doubt disappears, you can read the "Meditations" written by the priests.After a million times of tossing and turning over certain religious questions, they finally fully believe in God and gain peace of mind.By reading the above descriptions, the salesman can clearly understand how rare and powerful the absolute trust in a product is in the minds of consumers.

This is the simple process of the growth and development of individual trust.As the psychologist Brywin said, from a rough, primitive, and instinctive "feeling-based", it has undergone many trials and evolved into a refined and powerful force.This force we call confidence and faith.It takes almost a lifetime to establish absolute confidence in something.Now we know why it takes so long for manufacturers to establish a public image in the hearts of consumers that makes them absolutely trust a certain product.To achieve this goal, manufacturers first need a long time to cultivate consumers' trust in advertising.Although a long time ago, because of "primitive credulity", consumers tended to believe his first impression and the advertisement he saw for the first time.But the result may be completely opposite to what he expected, so he has doubts about the advertisement.Therefore, whenever he wants to buy the product recommended by the advertisement in the future, he will think of the unpleasant experience of buying the advertised product for the first time, and he will feel distrustful of the advertisement he is reading now.

He would voice out his dissatisfaction with the hype description of the advertising copy: "All the advertisements are liars, and I will not believe any of them." In this case, to rebuild consumers' confidence in the advertisement, the advertisement The salesperson must ensure that the advertisement is worthy of the name and can understand that when their advertisement is read by consumers, it will give the other party a sense of satisfaction.

characteristics of trust

Trust has the property that once it has survived the test of doubt and is still consistent with the original belief in the consumer's heart ("the original simple and true feeling"), it will always stand in the consumer's heart.People generally evaluate a person they trust in this way, "Even if I only have the last penny, I am willing to lend it to him." This kind of trust in an object can persist if the conditions of existence have not changed.But just the slightest change can completely destroy that trust.This paradoxical characteristic of trust makes it both long-lasting and stable, yet fragile and perishable.This characteristic of trust can be seen from people's trust in the banking industry. The trust of generations in banks can easily be destroyed overnight.

There is no better place to study the impact of trust on sales than banking advertising.As managers of modern people's wealth, banks must have a high degree of public trust in them.In order to ensure this high level of public trust, banks use many methods that can be regarded as a model for other commercial companies.Every bank will firmly grasp its board members. With their trust and support, the bank's business can be easily launched.When the real estate market is hot, banks will curb their investment in the real estate industry.The architectural style of bank buildings is generally hard and solid, which can easily inspire people's sense of trust.Many banks use large buildings with strong railings in front of the windows.While a lightweight building structure is strong enough, the addition of railings makes it easier to create a feeling that money stored in a bank vault is safe.

Bank advertisements are often accused of being conservative by creative advertisers, but from a psychological point of view, there is a basis for banks to do so, and a conservative bank image is more popular with the public.The main purpose of bank advertising is to gain the trust of the public, followed by deposits.Public trust is the foundation of a bank's survival.Although they know that trust is an indescribably fragile asset, they are careful not to damage it by their actions.

Ways to Gain Consumer Trust
With the deepening of the discussion on trust, readers will see how a consumer's psychological activities will change when he has a sense of trust in a product.Because of the "primitive credulity" nature, the consumer tends to believe the first advertisement he sees for the product.However, he suddenly thought of a past experience—an experience that was completely different from the text described in the advertisement. This experience aroused a sense of distrust in his heart, so he restrained his urge to buy.The salesman must dispel this doubt of consumers in time.In order to achieve this goal, the following two psychological methods can be used:
The first method is repetition.If consumers hear a statement enough times, a sense of trust will develop.That's why slogans like, "Ask the person who owns it", "Here's why", "100% pure", "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", "Extreme cigarettes" are often heard in our ears. , "America's Most Beautiful Car".

The second method is to induce and maintain satisfaction in the hearts of consumers, that is, trust.Trust plays a big role in sales because it represents a feeling of warmth and joy, as well as a genuine emotion.Emotions often dominate human actions.A salesman may have encountered the following situation. There may be a million reasons to prove that consumers should buy his product, but if he cannot establish trust in the product in the hearts of consumers, consumers will still not choose to buy the product he promotes .There is an old proverb that says exactly this: "If one cannot trust someone or something, one cannot truly accept them."

summary
The point of this lecture is that trust is essential in sales activities, but it does not always appear as the fourth stage in the changes in the psychological activities of consumers to buy goods.Because trust matters a lot when something is sold for the first time.As long as trust appears, it will definitely have a positive impact on purchase behavior, and the stronger the sense of trust, the smoother the consumer's purchase behavior will be.

Trust is stable but also fragile. Consumers' trust in a product or a person is as hard as the Strait of Gibraltar.Although this sense of trust is strong and has a solid foundation, it can crumble instantly if there is even a little deception.Therefore, the salesman must always pay attention to whether he has kept his promise and whether he has met the expectations of consumers for him and the product.

After discussing the original simple and natural trust of human beings, it then discusses the whole process of how the refined and stable trust of human beings evolves from simple trust.Although trust assets have always been considered elusive and have no real form, they are real and their value can be measured in currency.From a psychological point of view, in sales, trust is a series of consumption habits repeatedly instilled in consumers by merchants - the habit of spontaneous purchase behavior in the face of salesman's sales.

As for how to dispel consumers' doubts and make them trust in products, this lecture gives two specific psychological operation methods: repetition and maintaining consumers' pleasure.When using the second method, it should be noted that the product must meet the needs of consumption.

(End of this chapter)