When it comes to the brand names that small businesses trust most, Amazon, Stripe and Google top the list.
Alignable Q3 2017 Trust Index
That’s the finding of the third quarter SMB Trust Index (PDF) report by Alignable. The company surveyed 42,000 small businesses to gauge their level of trust in other brands that aid small businesses.
If you are a small business owner, you are probably very familiar with the top three companies. But the report includes a top 20 across different industries so you can evaluate the brands fellow small business owners find trustworthy.
This type of survey gives small business owners a reliable source for identifying brands they can trust to run their companies. Because small businesses can ill afford to try out new brands and the cost associated with repairs, weak service level agreements, updates, security and much more, strong brands are sought-after
On Alignable’s official company blog, Jonathan Moreland addressed the importance of this survey and the two-fold explanation the data provides. He said, “First when making important purchasing decisions, you can quickly see which brands other small business owners rely on and why. Second, you can find peace of mind knowing that these ratings were shared by a trusted network of small business owners.”
The Process
Alignable uses the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology to create the Trust Index by asking how likely respondents are to recommend a brand to a fellow business owner on a scale of 1 — 10.
The Top Brands
Amazon came in first for the fifth consecutive quarter as small business owners sang the praises of the pricing, speed, and reliability the company provides. These are all qualities a small business depends on, meaning Amazon will likely remain a perennial favorite.
The remaining top five also deliver when it comes to reliability. Stripe was second, selected for its strong payment processing solution capable of addressing digital and physical transactions without glitches, the survey indicates.
Google, Apple, and Authorize.Net came in third, fourth and fifth respectively. Again, these brands bring together digital and physical services to reliably solve real-world problems small business owners face every day.
The remaining top 20 brands include: FedEx, WordPress, PayPal, UPS, LinkedIn, Vistaprint, MailChimp, 1&1, Square, Microsoft, Twitter, Dropbox, Intuit, Facebook and OpenTable.
More than 100 brands were included in the index in 13 different industry categories.
Trusting Other Small Businesses
Moreland said, “While it can be helpful to speak with company representatives or read third-party reviews sites, the most valuable information comes from a trusted network of fellow business owners.” This is especially true with businesses that are in the same industry as you. If you know what works, you won’t have to go through a costly trial and error period to find it.
You can look at the rest of the data from the index in the infographic below.
Amazon Logo Photo via Shutterstock
[“Source-smallbiztrends”]
