Recently, I wrote about a customer trust survey. The feedback was amazing, which compelled me to take this a step further. After more writing and additional research, I recognized the need for more attention to a metric that measures a customer’s trust, which will directly correlate with customer satisfaction levels, loyalty, and any metric that measures what keeps customers or drives them away.
Merriam-Webster defines trust as an assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. One in which confidence is placed.
One can’t ignore that the word confidence is part of the definition! They are very closely linked. We might ask something similar to, “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” The question would be, “Which comes first, confidence or trust?”
Or, put another way: Does more trust lead to higher confidence, or does a higher level of confidence lead to more trust?
Or does it really matter? If you have both, you win. My take is that trust leads to confidence. Customers show confidence in your company through repeat business and referrals. That’s how they express their trust.
And that is why I’m officially announcing to you, our subscribers, readers, and viewers, a name to describe the trust questions I recently covered. I call it the Customer Confidence Score™ (CCS), another question to add to the survey questions you use to measure customer satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS). Here’s an anchor question from my recent article on trust surveys:
On a scale of 1-10, how much do you trust that we will always do what’s right for you as our customer?
If your customer doesn’t give you a perfect 10 on this question, there are trust issues. Customers either fully trust you, or they don’t. And obviously, the lower the score, the less likely you’ll see them return. But a score alone is just a number. The real insight comes when you ask your customers why they gave you that score. The answer is your opportunity to resolve trust issues and improve the likelihood they will return.
The Customer Confidence Score™ is the result of surveying for trust, but it’s more than just another metric. It doesn’t replace CSAT or NPS. It completes them by measuring the foundation they are built on: trust. Without trust, a high CSAT or NPS score may be temporary at best. Measure CCS consistently, act on the insights, and you’ll build the kind of confidence and loyalty that get customers to say, “I’ll be back!”
