trust

The topics of customer trust and customer confidence have come up in conversations a few times recently, especially as it relates to pandemic and post-pandemic actions by several companies. More on that in a moment. To start with, I thought I’d take a closer look.

How do you define customer trust? How do your customers define trust as it relates to your brand?

This analysis from Nielsen is amusing.

The global survey found that trust levels in advertising have remained consistent across earned, owned and paid formats over the past two years.

Everybody likes to operate in an environment of trust. When you deal with people you trust, things get done faster, stress is reduced and new opportunities open up. As E.M. Forster once wrote, “One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.”

How is low trust impacting your organization? Your business results? 

I've written about trust at least a dozen times in the past. In response to my recent post, A Culture of Distrust, Richard Fagerlin reached out to me about his book Trustology: The Art and Science of Leading High-Trust Teams. He wanted to get my thoughts on his stance on trust.

What does a culture of distrust look like?

I've written a lot about trust in my blog over the last several years, much of it devoted to how it relates to the customer experience and customer relationships; there have been a few posts about trust and the employee experience, as well. But I think it's time to punctuate this latter thought.

If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product. Most people know this. The basis of the business model is that your personal data is mined and shared with all kinds of companies that can use this data for their benefit. Mostly this data is used to sell advertising space or intelligence to improve advertising efficiency.

EY (is it not called Ernst & Young anymore?) released its 2014 Global Consumer Banking Survey recently. For a better review of it than I’ll provide here, see the summary on The Financial Brand, or download the report directly.

Does your company operate with a culture of transparency? How transparent are your executives with employees, customers, shareholders? 

There's a quote on Wikipedia that reads: For well-informed participation to occur, it is argued that some version of transparency, e.g. radical transparency, is necessary, but not sufficient. It's unattributed, but I've seen it a few times.

A fertilizer plant blows up, killing at least 14 people who were unaware, along with regulators, that the facility stored vast quantities of explosive material. A fast-food chicken chain invites everyone to take impromptu walkthrough tours of any of its outlet kitchens. These two recent events illustrate the extremes of corporate transparency (both companies are privately-held), and why it needs to be central to our conception of corporate reputation.