Trust Barometer Points To Key Trust Qualities In Business

Trust is crucial to starting and building a business—trust with customers, trust with clients and trust with employees. Trust, along with an ethical approach in business dealings, gets noticed locally and globally, helps retain a healthy customer base and leads to great word of mouth.

The barometer, in its 19th year, gathers statistics about trust in four key areas of business, government, non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, and the media through a trust and credibility survey. The survey, conducted by Edelman Intelligence— the research and analytics division of Edelman, a public relations firm based in Chicago, Ill.—shows that trust has declined broadly in the four institutions.

Globally, 75 percent of people trust their employers to do what is right, significantly more than NGOs at 57 percent, businesses at 56 percent, government at 48 percent and the media at 47 percent, according to the survey. The general population is shifting to localized trust to the relationships they believe they can control, such as those with employers, and away from traditional authority figures and institutions.

But there is good news. A large number of respondents, or 73 percent, said they believe businesses can take actions to increase their profits, while improving economic and social conditions in their communities. Sixty-seven percent of employees want their employers to advocate for social issues—and those that do are rewarded with greater employee commitment, advocacy and loyalty, as stated in the survey.

Businesses can employ trust and ethics in their interactions with staff, customers and the community to build, maintain and improve their overall appeal in the marketplace, while also keeping their mission and values in the forefront of everything they do. They can do their own part to ensure the Edelman Trust Barometer continues on an upward trajectory in business trust.

Trust and ethics are something the Better Business Bureau highly values, as demonstrated in our Business and Charity Accreditation process as well as with the celebration of our BBB Torch Awards for Ethics and BBB Spark Award for Entrepreneurship winners annually.

And to help us offer even more local services for the business and nonprofit community as well as provide a space for like-minded organizations to network with others, BBB has recently expanded our office space.

The new BBB Community Center will launch next month with an Open House celebration on Oct. 1st from 4:00-6:00 p.m. At the celebration we will unveil our new meeting room spaces that will soon be made available (free of charge) to BBB Accredited Businesses and Accredited Charities for their own meetings and events. Starting in 2020, BBB will also offer trust-building classes and seminars for businesses and nonprofits. Businesses and nonprofits can RSVP for the event by visiting bit.ly/32P5Utw.

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