How important is trust?
Sounds like a no-brainer right? Of course, trust is important. How important is it though to say, an auto-repair or tyre business?
You’re probably thinking, ‘I’m trustworthy. I do the right thing. I don’t rip people off. What more is there to know?’
Well, a lot actually.
Customers come to you because they trust you. Think about it. They trust you’ll perform the services you committed to and that they’ll be performed to an appropriate standard e.g. as per the logbook.
They don’t know you’ll do that. They trust you’ll do it.
Or more accurately, they trust your team member Mary, who took their call.
And why would they trust Mary when they don’t her? Well, turns out that’s just what we humans do. Trusting is our default state. We evolved that way. If our ancestors hadn’t trusted, they would never have formed communities or created societies. We wouldn’t have evolved.
Think about how much you take for granted, products, water, electricity, traffic lights etc. We trust those things will work. We don’t go around not trusting We simply couldn’t function if we did. Except…
There are some things we default to not trusting. Like Sellers. Why is that? Well, let’s look at what trust is. The Trust Equation is a good model:
