The Difference Between Trust And Reputation

My friend, David Horsager, is the world’s leading expert on trust. I’ve mentioned him in articles about trust that I’ve written in the past. My favorite quote from Horsager is this:

“A lack of trust is your biggest expense.”

The above is intended to remind you of the importance of trust in our business. If you don’t have a customer’s trust, you will eventually, if not already, lose the customer’s business.

Recently, a client who leads an industry-recognized company contacted me with a concern that should worry any business leader: they were losing their customers’ trust. Despite their excellent reputation for being client-focused, they were experiencing service problems that had begun to erode customer trust and potentially their hard-earned reputation.

Trust and Reputation

The word reputation is very closely linked to the word trust. They are often used interchangeably in business conversations, but they aren’t the same. One fuels the other, and it’s worth pointing out the differences.

Trust is a customer’s personal belief in a company’s reliability, honesty, and intention. It’s an individual’s perception of the company. It happens one interaction at a time. One person may trust the company, but that doesn’t mean others will.

Reputation is a collective perception of what others say about the company. It’s a group of customers commenting on their experience. A company doesn’t have a great reputation because of one customer’s perception. It’s the general consensus from many customers that creates the reputation.

The point is that without trust, you can’t begin to have a good reputation. Trust is the day-to-day confidence that individual customers experience, while reputation is “market currency” in the total customer base or broader marketplace.

The Right Survey

Back to my client. I asked, “So, what are you going to do about it?” His answer was good. His renewed focus was to use a customer satisfaction survey to get a current benchmark on how customers were currently reacting to the company’s customer experience. Based on recent feedback, he knew they were slipping. He wanted to know why and measure the current experience so he would know if his upcoming efforts were effective.

He shared that they would use Net Promoter Score (NPS) as the main gauge. (On a scale of 0-10, what’s the likelihood you would recommend us?) If you’ve been following me, you know I’m a big fan of NPS, but only if used the right way. When it comes to customer surveys, I like to keep them short. I suggested that if his company uses NPS, they follow up with one or two additional questions on the same 0-10 scale and one open-ended question to gather qualitative feedback.

But I went on to say that customer satisfaction, while important, may not be the most important measurement for now. He had used the word trust as he described his concern. While NPS or other questions related to customer satisfaction would be helpful, the concern he should have is with how much or little trust his customers have for the company.

Trust Survey Questions

With that in mind, our team began working on a trust survey. The questions we came up with apply to any company and are worthy of your consideration. Using a scale of 1-10 (although any scale will work – just keep it consistent from question to question), here are some questions to consider:

• On a scale of 1-10, how much do you trust us to do what’s right for you as a customer?
• On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that we will deliver on what we promise (quality, timeliness, and other commitments)?

And some open-ended questions:

• Based on the 1-10 score you received, consider two questions:
• If the score is eight or less: What would it take for us to earn a higher score?
• If the score is nine or higher: Is there one thing we can do to make you trust us even more?
• A broader open-ended question: What’s the biggest reason you trust (or don’t trust) us?

I’ve worded these questions generically. You should change them based on your own needs and circumstances.

The Customer Confidence Score™

Trust is the foundation of confidence, and confidence drives customer loyalty. It is the outcome of consistent, trustworthy interactions. To help organizations measure that connection, I developed the Customer Confidence Score, a framework that gauges how much customers believe in your brand. By combining quantitative and qualitative questions, companies can assess the confidence customers have in your people, processes, and promises.

Final Words

Finally, consider a 360-degree survey, which modifies the above quantitative survey questions (scale of 1-10) for internal use with employees. For example, take the “How much do you trust us” part of the first question above and change it to “How much do you think our customers trust us?” Survey leadership, management, and other employees who interact with customers (and maybe those that don’t), to see if their impressions of how much customers trust the company align with the customers’ responses.