DR. PRADEEP SALGAONKAR elaborates on how businesses can enhance trust through the CRIE framework
It is an undisputed fact that trust is an essential ingredient for creating customer delight and building brands with high brand equity. Thus, being trustworthy in dealings with all stakeholders undoubtedly is the most critical aspect for any business transaction. However, although many understand the importance of trust in relationships, how many really know what exactly comprises trust – the trust taxonomy? What could be the different dimensions of trust? Can trust and distrust exist together? What is over trust? Does low trust mean high distrust? These are some practical aspects worth knowing, for being trustworthy in eyes of the other person and for better management of relationships in personal as well as professional life. How many times have you done a business transaction solely based on the ‘word’ or the ‘promise’ the other party makes, without any legal commitment or contract? Have you ever interacted with a first time customer and the customer has ended up with the purchase, making a statement smilingly “I trust you?” Now, that’s ‘trust’ and being ‘trustworthy’, thereby building relationships. Trust is the confidence that a person has about the other person’s behaviour. While trust involves positive expectations about things hoped for, (i.e belief that possibility of benefit is higher), distrust involves expectations about things feared, (ie. belief that possibility of harm is higher). Put it simply, trust is the assessment of another person’s trustworthiness.
Co-existence of trust and distrust:
Relationships whether in personal life or in business, begin with parties having limited information about the other party and also limited inter- dependence. Imagine a scenario, you are travelling and waiting at the airport sitting next to a stranger. After some time of waiting you both may start a conversation; two strangers talking without any prior information about each other. Now depending on how the conversation progresses, you either tend to form positive opinions or negative opinions about the other person, depending on how the other person talks to you, behaves and carries himself. At this stage you both are at a ‘trust neutral stage’. However, inspite of the fact that you know very little about the other person, you would still trust that person in some aspects, for example, you may trust this person with your bag. Whereas with something more worthwhile, you may not trust this person, for example, you wouldn’t trust this person with your two year old child. Simply because you don’t have enough information about this person to trust him with the most valuable part in your life, your child. Thus there is a situation where you trust a particular person with certain aspects, whereas with respect to some other aspects you don’t trust the person. Thus, there is co existence of trust and distrust. Normally, in areas where the stakes are higher, people take a very long time to develop trust and it is built step by step, bit by bit, with consistent positive interactions reinforcing the trust equation. It is interesting to note that, if the consistent repeat interactions over time are positive, then the relationships evolve further and move towards higher trust levels. Whereas, if the interactions are consistently negative then the relationships move towards high levels of distrust. Trust and trustworthiness also depends on factors like the similarities among people, like the social class, cultural background, geographical commonness, the group that one belongs to etc. Recollect a scenario where you are in a foreign land and come across a person from your hometown. How do you react/respond to these people? Or how do you react to the people belonging to your group v/s others group or your social class v/s other social class? The trust relationships certainly vary in these situations. The tendency to trust a person belonging to your group will be higher than to a person belonging to other group; rather you would distrust such people. The same logic holds good for businesses.
Trust building:
Researchers like Lewicki & Bunker (1996, 2009) propose that trust is built in stages, one step leading to the other over period of time through continued interactions. In the first step, trust begins at a very low level, as more of a transactional or formal or professional type of relationship. This is based on one’s assessment of the other person’s trustworthiness and is more transaction focused. Gradually, as the interactions increase between these people, they get to know more about the other person, understand the other person more, and start developing confidence in the other person’s dependability and reliability. Further, as positive interactions continue and relationships grow stronger, the two parties understand each other so much that they are ready to support one another; they understand each other’s desires, intentions and needs clearly. That’s the stage of high trust in the other party. While the first stage, the transactional relationship, may be seen in many cases, the second stage, based on knowledge, is seen in comparatively few cases, whereas, the last stage of high trust, (and sometimes over trust), is seen in still fewer cases.
Components of trustworthiness:
Various researchers have tried to define trust by using different components comprising of human behaviour. Trust is explained through components like competence, credibility, intimacy, good track record, consistency, dependability and benevolence (Reina, Blanchard, and Blakey & Hoopis). Through our extended research on trust and trustworthiness, we have observed that two important components of human relationships namely, Empathy and Integrity have not beenconsidered by the past research. We feel that these two components, Empathy and Integrity, in addition to two other components namely, Credibility and Reliability, are very critical in demonstrating trustworthiness when it comes to relationships with customers. To build trust and be trustworthy in front of the customer, the behaviour of the business person towards customer has to be empathetic and every transaction has to be very high in integrity.
Thus, based on the research findings we have proposed the CRIE framework of trust. Trust according to our research is the combination of’trustworthiness of a person or business’ and the ‘willingness of
the customers to trust’ the person or the business. Trustworthiness, according to us, is composed of four elements namely, Credibility, Reliability, Integrity and Empathy (CRIE). The framework thus is represented as, Trust = CRIE.
Implications for businesses:
Every business should work to create high trustworthiness so that the trust the customers have in the business and the people they come in contact with is high. Thus, to be trustworthy and build high trust, every business will have to focus on the four components; (1) Credibility – should possess competence, ability, strong credentials, expertise etc. (2) Reliability – should exhibit good actions, excellent track record, consistency in delivering excellent service and keeping promises etc. (3) Empathy – understanding your customers, their needs, their pains, resolving issues fast
etc., and (4) Integrity – genuine, truthful, transparency, upholding interests of customers etc. For growth and sustainability of every business, high customer trust is Implications for businesses: Every business should work to create the fundamental aspect and hence, every business, in order to have high trustworthiness among its customers and a very strong trust equation, should adopt and practice the CRIE trust framework.
