Abstract/Summary

Trust is at the heart of ongoing relationships amongst people, but also with brands and companies. It has become a hot topic (Connelly, 2017, Huffington, 2015), particularly given the increasing media coverage of breakdowns in customer trust in well-known companies such as VW, Tesco, BP and Google. But away from these headlines is a stronger, more underlying trend. A move from transactions to longer term customer relationships. The risk of undermining that relationship through not being transparent, not being fair, not having reliable products and services is exacerbated as our world becomes increasingly technology focused. Relationships with suppliers we don’t know are built through trusted on-line third parties. Information about products and services we are unfamiliar with is increasingly sought from others, on-line, and subsequent feedback on customer experiences shared quickly and widely. Where companies are not transparent, the exponential growth in speed and breadth of news spreading makes them vulnerable. It is impossible to hide. However, to assess our own approach to corporate and brand trust, it helps to go back to the key academic theories to discover the concepts that underpin our understanding of trust, the factors that build trust and the outputs that emerge. In addition, we need to understand our performance on trust in the light of data from an industry and global context but also to support the business case for ensuring it remains a business priority. Examining a few of the high-profile failures in trust also helps us identify the range of areas where trust can be undermined. They provide pieces of a jigsaw that, when seen together, help us understand a broader picture of trust to inform our approach with our businesses and our customers now and in the future.