Microsoft knows you need them more than they need your trust

In communications and marketing, we love to talk about the three central tenets of brand success: getting people to know, trust, and like you. We measure it, benchmark it, and design entire campaigns to achieve them. 

For most businesses, this is essential to earning customer buy-in. 

Microsoft, as we know it today, is not winning in the ‘trust’ and ‘like’ stakes. 

While the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) recent takedown of Microsoft for hiking subscription prices and ‘deliberately hiding’ cheaper options makes for juicy headlines, it won’t be the auto-da-fé that people are predicting. 

In other words, a breach of trust that would bring most other businesses to their knees is unlikely to put a significant dent in Microsoft’s sales. 

Microsoft’s fiefdom over millions of computers is so deeply entrenched that trust is a buffer for the tech behemoth, not an Achilles heel. Yes, customers may read the news and feel frustrated or betrayed by the brand’s perceived rapaciousness. But the very next day, they’ll open their Microsoft laptops, read their emails on Outlook, and continue working in their Excel spreadsheets. 

This is the rarely talked about reality of brand trust: the scales are not weighted equally, and are instead mediated by entrenched awareness, dependency, and inertia. In this case, Microsoft is so ubiquitous that the ‘know’ part of their equation does the heavy lifting. That level of brand awareness compensates for any deficit in the ‘trust’ or ‘like’ category, which is why this appalling bump in the road is unlikely to register in any meaningful way. 

Phoebe Netto

Of course, this is not just a happy coincidence. A company of Microsoft’s size and standing knows precisely how embedded it is in our daily lives. It can nudge, tweak, and test the limits of goodwill because, for customers, the cost of leaving is simply too high. The friction of switching – and the ubiquity of Microsoft’s ecosystem – outweigh the moral discomfort. 

That might sound unjust, but here’s the thing: they earned that position first. 

In the decades since Microsoft was founded in 1975, the brand has reached the upper echelons of relevance, reliability and familiarity. They became indispensable long before they became objectionable. And now, they can lean on that foundation of trust without it crumbling beneath them. 

For business owners, this story is far more than a warning about the dangers of misleading customers. It’s also a perfect example of the commercial reality behind both building trust and nurturing it. 

For the 90% of brands without the embedded awareness that Microsoft has, a breach like this could be apocalyptic.

When you’re not a household name, you cannot lean on brand familiarity like Microsoft can. Instead, your ‘like’ and ‘trust’ components must work overtime to keep your reputation on track. You can’t survive on inertia, and you certainly can’t afford to be seen as careless or cunning with your customers. You must earn your keep – just like Microsoft did all those years ago. 

So while my bets are on Microsoft weathering this storm just fine, this remains a cautionary tale for the vast majority of businesses. If you’re still earning your place in the hearts, minds, and lives of your customers, it’s important to remember that trust and likeability are what turn brand awareness into action and customers into loyal ones. 

Because even the biggest brands only get to spend their trust once. And when it’s gone, rebuilding it costs far more than keeping it. 

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