Abstract
Most businesses today consider themselves to be trustworthy, and by yesterday’s standards they are. They post their prices accurately, they try to maintain the quality and reliability of their products, and they generally do what they say they’re going to do. But that’s as far as most businesses go, and by tomorrow’s standards it won’t be nearly good enough. Not even close.
The chapter discusses key points raised by the authors in their book ‘Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage’ (Portfolio revised paperback 2016). The chapter contains certain excerpts from the book.
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Notes
- 1.
The retail banking discussion is based largely on Gotcha Capitalism (Sullivan 2007, pp. 62–70). According to Sullivan, some banks charge a $30-plus overdraft fee and then another $5 per day for every day the account remains overdrawn. Some offer automatic transfers from a credit card to the bank account to cover the fee, but cash advance charges apply, and the minimum amount of transfer is sometimes $100 (p. 62). When consumers get their bank balance at an ATM, the “available balance” often automatically includes the courtesy overdraft cushion, encouraging overdrafts. “Here’s how it works. When a customer with an $80 balance and $200 courtesy overdraft protection asks for a balance, the ATM indicates ‘$280 available balance’” (p. 63). Thus, Sullivan’s advice to consumers is to “opt out of courtesy overdraft protection!” (p. 70). Continuing, Sullivan notes that debit card swipes and ATM withdrawals now account for the majority of “bounced check” fees (p. 64). And the biggest checks clear first out of an account, so that overdrafts are maximized. “Here’s an example: If you have $500 in your account and you write checks for $72, $98, $28, and $410 on the same day, you’ll bounce the first three checks, and pay about $100 in fees” (p. 65).
- 2.
The general consensus is “Courtesy Overdraft: Bad for Customers” (Bruce 2007). In the article, we found this quote: “Every interaction with your bank shouldn’t be an act of self-defense,” says Eric Halperin, director of the Washington, D.C., office of the Center for Responsible Lending, or CRL. Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/exclusives/courtesy-overdraft-bad-for-customers-1.aspx#ixzz3r70Hu446. See also Connie (2009).
- 3.
There have been too many good-to-excellent articles written on trust. But one you should see is by our colleague Bruce (2012).
- 4.
A Forrester report (Forrester Research Inc., 2009) has shown that 83% trust friends, more than 50% trust online reviews, and just 14% trust advertising. But although most of us remember the Edelman Trust Barometer’s famous 2006 finding that “a person like me” was the most trusted source of information (Edelman 2006), more recently the Trust Barometer has shown that people now trust experts more than peers. How can both be true? The key may be in the difference between online and offline. A study by Razorfish indicated that offline friends are more influential than online friends (The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report 2009). Forrester has broken its results down to examine face-to-face friends as well as online friends, whereas Edelman’s survey doesn’t differentiate between face-to-face friends and online peers. Amanda (2011) wonders whether this is likely a result of our talking to our online peers way too much about minutiae. After experiencing how little of import our peers actually have to say (if they’re talking and we’re listening constantly), maybe experts aren’t as overrated as we thought. See also Charles (2011) about how Edelman measures trust (http://www.edelman.com/trust/2011/).
See full 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer Findings at Edelman (2015).
- 5.
Whitney MacMillan, chairman emeritus of Cargill, makes the case for the critical value of building social capital within your company and offers a proven formula for how to do it. See MacMillan (2006).
- 6.
SAG-AFTRA has merged the Screen Actors Guild and AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) into one performers’ union.
- 7.
Moore’s law is named after Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel, who pointed out in 1965 that the number of transistors that could be fit onto a square inch of silicon doubled roughly every two years.
- 8.
As Professor Robert (2015) says, “Today is the slowest pace we will experience the rest of our lives”.
- 9.
Peter (2011).
- 10.
ComcastRULES (2016).
- 11.
Since Dave Carroll and Sons of Maxwell (Carroll 2009) posted their legendary YouTube video “United Breaks Guitars” in July 2009, which depicts Carroll begging to keep his valuable guitar with him on the plane as a carry-on bag and then records the guitar case falling to the tarmac after landing, has generated a keynote speaking career and case study materials, a genre of luggage-mishandling videos has cropped up on YouTube. For just one example, see Brwnsugayum (2011) on YouTube.
- 12.
Key Performance Indicator.
- 13.
See David (2010). Here’s more on the story: David Pogue wrote an earlier blog about how you could call Verizon to block all data charges, and you could go online and change your own settings (very possible to do, although not intuitive—one forum shows you how (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23507198-How-to-block-Verizon-Wirelesss-data-services). Although hardly any user was able to block data services online, Verizon still charged you $1.99 each time you accidentally accessed the Internet, because even to get the message “you don’t have this service” it still took 0.06 MB of data, and they still charged a minimum of $1.99 for 1 MB. So even blocking it officially and legitimately did not stop the charges. See David (2009).
- 14.
Thanks to Tom Lacki, Ph.D., formerly an officer in Peppers & Rogers Group, for his additional insights about the research on trustability and mobile carriers.
- 15.
Our understanding of the difficulties of operating a mobile carrier in a more trustable way came from an interview we did with Peppers & Rogers Group consultants responsible for this client, Ozan Bayulgen and Zeynep Manco, Peppers & Rogers Group Istanbul office, August 2011.
- 16.
Peppers and Rogers Group, “Measuring the Value of Trust in Healthcare,” 2012.
- 17.
See Andriotis (2014).
References
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Peppers, D., Rogers, M. (2019). Extreme Trust: The Competitive Necessity of Proactive Trustworthiness. In: Kompella, K. (eds) Marketing Wisdom. Management for Professionals. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7724-1_1
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