The style of communication is decisive! results of different kinds of relationships with innovation averse customers when launching new products

The communication of “something new and unknown” requires an innovative approach to reach not only those people affine towards innovations anyway but also those innovations averse. This challenge needs highly sensible communication. Trust is able to reduce uncertainties of the customers as well as increase the disposition to buy. Therefore the question arises of how trustful communication should be designed in order to stabilise trust of late followers in the long run and therefore supporting the introduction of new products to the market. This paper calls for a complex experiment design due to its “pioneer nature”. A multitude of expert interviews is being followed by a multistage empirical analysis on the basis of 490 returned questionnaires, identifying two types of innovation averse persons, based on their attitude towards trust (averse or affine). Therefore this study develops an interdisciplinary approach representing an entirely new research field, showing the effect of the correct use of trustful communication on the adoption of new products by innovation averse customers. Here, persons averse to innovation and trust prefer primary information instead of interactivity with the partner (preference of people affine towards trust). Concrete implications for business management are given at the end of the paper.