Quantifying Customer Trust

Customers of technology companies often reward trustworthy brands but punish those that aren’t. Research shows which domains are important to focus on for building customer trust.

The pace of change and complexity of challenges businesses have to navigate seem as great as ever. Given the strategic and operational challenges brought on by the pandemic, social justice, climate change, geopolitical shifts, and increasing competition, companies are under pressure to act quickly, and make every move count. Such a fast-moving environment can make it difficult for companies to maintain stability and high levels of customer trust.

These pressures are particularly felt by technology companies. For example, overall trust in the technology sector has fallen in the United States, as the sector moved from first place among the most trusted sectors in 2020 to ninth in 2021. Recent studies indicate that many tech customers, both end users and business-to-business (B2B) purchasers, lack trust in the organizations from which they purchase. In a fall 2021 survey, almost three out of four B2B purchasers surveyed said that “tech vendors typically fall short of being honest.” This lack of trust can make it challenging for technology brands to drive growth and achieve their mission and purpose.

Trust in an organization depends on relationships with different stakeholders and is built through incremental steps occurring over time. These steps are actions that demonstrate a high degree of competence and the right intent, i.e., both the ability and desire to maintain a relationship based on trust. Although many executives value the importance of building trust with stakeholders, many also consider trust to be too complex and multifaceted to address, except very broadly.

Deloitte’s research suggests that trust can be managed and measured like other strategic objectives on the C-suite agenda—by identifying actions across the enterprise that affect trust, and then tracking and managing the effectiveness of these actions over time, both in terms of conveying competence and good intent. Dozens of interviews Deloitte has conducted with senior executives and subject matter specialists across industries since 2020 reveal a broad range of areas that can impact stakeholder trust. However, few studies in the broader market so far have attempted to quantify the impact of an organization’s actions and stakeholders’ trust in them, as manifested in positive behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions of organizational performance.

To address this gap, we conducted a comprehensive analysis looking specifically at the US tech sector. We surveyed two types of customers in the US technology sector in January 2022: end users and B2B purchasers from large corporations (with more than US$500 million in annual revenue). Our analysis suggests for these stakeholder groups, certain trust-building actions are significantly more valuable than others—actions primarily in the areas of quality of customer service, the brand’s focus on innovation and insights, and the foundational security of its offering (including cybersecurity, data protection, and conduct and crime).

Both surveyed B2B purchasers and end users demonstrated positive behaviors and attitudes when they strongly agreed that trusted actions were occurring in these three areas. They also cited potential damage to the brand that failed to take these actions or do them well. In other words, customers may reward brands for taking specific actions, but they can also punish those that do not. This suggests that executives should consider both the positive gain and negative implications when identifying and prioritizing trust-building efforts with their customers (both B2B and end users).

How much trust do US customers have in tech brands?

Our analytical results are consistent with other research and the general marketplace consensus: Trust in technology brands is lacking and trailing trust levels among many other consumer-facing industries. We found that fewer than 40% of our respondents highly trusted the brand from which they recently purchased. In other words, fewer than 40% of respondents strongly believed that the brand demonstrated each of the four signals of trust discussed above – capability, reliability, transparency, and humanity.

While these trust scores may be low, technology executives have reason to be optimistic. Trust levels of those surveyed were significantly higher for brands that successfully executed trusted actions in the operating areas noted previously: providing superior customer service; investing in innovation, intelligence, and technology; and providing a strong foundation for enterprise security (cybersecurity, crime, and conduct). For example, surveyed B2B purchasers who very strongly agreed that the brand employed measures to prevent data loss and privacy breaches were 24% more likely than average to highly trust the brand, and end users who very strongly agreed the brand leveraged its digital capabilities to enhance the customer experience were 14% more likely than average to highly trust the brand.

So what should tech organizations do next to build trust?

Those familiar with Greek mythology will recall Sisyphus, king of Corinth. Having been condemned for his greed and trickery, Sisyphus was tasked by Zeus to roll a giant boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back every time, for eternity.For executives, building trust with stakeholders may feel the same: It requires an ongoing commitment, the benefits of which may not always be easily quantifiable or appear incremental at best. But trust can be lost when organizations misstep or face an unexpected crisis, and the consequences for the brand can be severe, as our research suggests.

The following principles may help leaders commit, or recommit, to a trust-building mindset.

Stay attuned to and be wary of shifting customer perceptions. In today’s competitive environment, organizations are expected to deliver across a range of domains, with customer service, information and intelligence, and enterprise security among the most important for the technology sector. Organizations may not be aware of the extent to which some customers may have become dissatisfied with their brand offerings and service, or the reasons why they feel that way, making it important for leaders to establish mechanisms to continuously monitor customer feedback and identify shifts in attitude or perception before these shifts can drive negative consequential customer behavior.
Recognize the scope of trust-building actions when prioritizing investments. The actions that drive the needle with customers span internal as well as external functions. Customer service and digitally driven customer experiences matter, but then so do internal capabilities such as cyber and data security and financial transparency.
Enhance operational transparency whenever and wherever possible. Given the breadth of factors that can impact the level of trust customers have in the brand from which they purchase, look for ways to be transparent across the life cycle of the customer relationship, and be open to sharing the capabilities and competences that make your brand unique. This means, for example, being more transparent when demonstrating digital capabilities and showing how those capabilities inform enterprise decisions. Further investment in digital technologies to make supply chains more resilient and transparent with customers will likely also be important to consider.
Look to build trust equity to mitigate future risk. Trust equity represents the accumulation of goodwill or support that customers have in a brand, driven by the organization’s success of delivering on its promises over time. It can serve as a reserve for organizations to draw upon during times of crisis when trust gaps may have emerged, enabling the organization to be more resilient and weather crises that arise without veering too far off its strategic course.

Small moves made over time can help build trust and positively impact key stakeholder behaviors, but these moves when poorly executed can similarly create large trust gaps. The opportunity and the threat both exist. While our research focused on technology customers, the lessons likely apply to organizations across industries. Organizations have it within their control to build trust as a tangible asset and in a manner that can prevent a landslide loss.

By Michael Bondar, Natasha Buckley, Roxana Corduneanu and David Levin

Full report available here