Trust in a digital world

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Long-term gains

Firms looking to build sustainable advantages are looking at EMO, and the attributed boost in e-trust, as ways to do this. The adoption of e-marketing allows firms to cut costs for physical mediums by using electronic channels. It also gives customers greater flexibility in engaging with firms. EMO allows firms to target customers more directly, and in a more personalized manner. This is typically achieved through communications channels across social media and other online platforms, and by using browsing and purchasing data to help push products and services most likely to be purchased to the fore. The direct and personalized engagement by a firm towards a customer can also have the benefit of building loyalty. This is a key factor in improving retention levels, which has a knock-on benefit for productivity and strategic strength for a firm. EMO has the ability to allow market pool size to be expanded at relatively low costs. Using e-marketing enables firms to reach out to larger audiences with greater frequency, without incurring much additional cost. The key to successfully implementing EMO in this fashion is making sure the short-term gains are transformed into long-term benefits. Any increase in market size or customer loyalty can be quickly lost if sufficient work is not put into maintaining these benefits. In order to gain the e-trust of customers, a firm must build a successful EMO dialogue. Customer satisfaction is what tends to drive e-trust and building that should be a center point for all firms embarking with EMO. The prevalence of social media and online forums allows customers to quickly and widely distribute opinions and reviews of firms and their products. Firms that deal successfully with these complaints, and in turn gain a loyal following, are those that expend effort in replying to customer complaints and demonstrating a desire to take on negative feedback to improve things for the future. Doing this convincingly and quickly are key ways for firms to build e-trust with customers.