Business Survey Results Are In

Building Customer Trust and Experience is Key to Profitability in 2021 

Success Through Trust, a business on a mission to help business owners and leaders build trust with their customers, is announcing key findings from its ‘Blueprint for 2021: Business Outlook’ a report that identifies key business priorities that will help privately held and family run businesses succeed in 2021. 

Survey Highlights 

• Two thirds of respondents believe customers are the number one priority to focus on in order to achieve success in 2021 and weather the COVID 19 business environment
• Sixty per cent of business owners are investing in the customer experience in 2021 
• Ninety per cent of business owners feel optimistic about the state of business

The survey revealed a number of strategies likely to be adopted to achieve profitability in 2021. They include reducing costs (61%), investing in the customer experience (60%), identifying new business opportunities (57%), launching new sales and distribution strategies (51%) and investing in training to strengthen relationships of trust with customers (47%). 

"In 2021, businesses need to operationalize trust in the customer experience. It is not the time to wait, retrench or cut back."

Natalie Doyle Oldfield

Survey sponsor, and President, Success Through Trust, Natalie Doyle Oldfield, said, “Ninety four percent of all survey respondents said customer trust is extremely important in this business environment. Yet, 58 per cent do not have a clear idea of what steps to take to achieve this.” “In 2021, businesses need to operationalize trust in the customer experience. It is not the time to wait, retrench or cut back. Companies that balance online interaction with personal interaction will win in 2021,” said Doyle Oldfield.

"Companies that balance online interaction with personal interaction will win in 2021."

Natalie Doyle Oldfield

There are a number of companies that stand out as customer focused trust leaders.  

Kohltech Windows and Entrance Systems (Kohltech), one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies stands out as a customer focused Trust Leader

Kohltech works with Success Through Trust to build and measure customer trust and improve customer experiences. CEO Kevin Pelley, said, “It is important to us that everyone at Kohltech be focused on providing extraordinary customer experiences and have strong customer relationships. Natalie Doyle Oldfield has helped us to understand our customers better and build our business.  

"It is important to us that everyone at Kohltech be focused on providing extraordinary customer experiences and have strong customer relationships."

Kevin Pelley, CEO, Kohltech

"We worked with Natalie Doyle Oldfield to develop a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and to train our team to consistently build trust and deliver extraordinary experiences. This training was invaluable when COVID-19 hit. We immediately reached out to customers to listen to their challenges and as a result we gained an understanding of their needs and were able to pivot and create a new tempered safety glass barrier for them called, Kohltech Shield.  This allowed them to have safe interactions with their customers. In 2021, finding ways to build trust when you can’t always meet in person continues to be a priority for us.” 

Success Through Trust has designed an evidence-based framework including the Trust Building Model to help companies operationalize trust across their business. To download the Blueprint for 2021: Business Outlook visit: Success Through Trust.

Research Methodology:

This survey was conducted online between January 3 and January 22, 2021 with 172 business owners and leaders across North America. Seventy one percent of the respondents were business owners and leaders, the other respondents included managers, front line and customer facing people.  Seventy-three per cent of the respondents were Canadian and include responses from every single province; 19% from 15 states in the USA and 8% were from Europe, Africa and Asia.