Trust Is Part of the Buying Decision
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report found that 88% of consumers consider trusting a brand important or critical when deciding what to purchase, roughly alongside value and quality.
Trust should not be treated as something earned only after years of doing business together. It affects whether the first transaction happens at all.
Start by Making Customers Comfortable
Rapport is not simply friendly conversation. It begins when customers recognize: these people understand what I am trying to accomplish.
Explain the process. Publish useful answers. Show real customer experiences. Identify common concerns. State what customers should expect. Respond quickly. Be transparent about limitations. Each step removes another reason for uncertainty.
Don’t Make Customers Discover the Bad Stuff Later
PwC’s Customer Experience research emphasizes responsiveness, empathy and systems designed to resolve problems before they escalate.
Businesses can go one step further: prevent predictable problems. If customers repeatedly ask the same question, answer it beforehand. If a policy regularly surprises people, explain it earlier. If pricing varies, explain why. If delays sometimes occur, establish expectations.
Build Trust Into the Process
The practical advantage of preparing for trust is that the salesperson no longer has to create all the confidence in one conversation. The website has already explained the process. Reviews have already demonstrated customer experience. Pricing guidance has already reduced uncertainty. The inquiry response has already shown that the company pays attention.
That creates a cumulative effect. Each touchpoint confirms the previous one instead of forcing the prospect to reset their expectations. By the time the customer speaks with someone, the conversation can focus on fit and specifics rather than basic credibility.
Businesses should map the first five things a prospect encounters and ask what each one communicates about reliability. A broken link, outdated page or unanswered inquiry can weaken confidence before the company ever knows the person existed. A clear, useful and consistent experience does the opposite: it quietly answers the trust question before it becomes an objection.
Turn the Insight Into a Decision
A useful owner exercise is to turn this issue into a short operating review. Identify the customer, cost, capacity or market signal most likely to move first; decide what evidence would justify action; and assign someone to watch it. That keeps ‘Trust Starts Before the Sale’ from becoming an interesting headline that never changes a business decision. The goal is not perfect prediction. It is earlier recognition and a more disciplined response when the evidence becomes clear.
The BizScope
Too many businesses treat customer resistance as something salespeople must overcome. A better strategy is to prevent unnecessary resistance from developing. Ask what could make a reasonable customer nervous about doing business with you and address it before the first conversation.
Don’t wait until customers become skeptical to start earning their trust. Build the experience so skepticism has fewer reasons to appear.
Business Experience. Shared Forward.