Trustability: A Higher Form of Trustworthiness
This excerpt from Extreme Trust explains why trustability is essential to business success in the Age of Transparency.
Most organizations operating today think they're already customer-centric and are basically trustworthy, even though their customers would disagree. Seventy-five percent of CEOs think "we provide above-average customer service," while 59 percent of consumers say they are somewhat or extremely upset with these same companies' service. In one infamous study reported by Bill Price and David Jaffe, 80 percent of executives thought their companies provided superior customer service, but only 8 percent of the customers of those companies thought they received superior customer service. Being "trustworthy" is certainly better than being untrustworthy, but soon even "trustworthiness" won't be sufficient. Instead, companies will have to be trustable.
Look at Table 1 below, and tick down the list of policies a trustworthy company might implement, or the actions it might take. Most of these probably apply to your own firm, and all of them are clearly honest and straightforward. It isn't hard to imagine a customer-oriented company adopting these policies, and even being celebrated for them.
TABLE 1: Distinctions of a Trustworthy Company