New financial services study shows impact of brand trust on company performance - and executive bonuses.

CREMORNE, AUSTRALIA, November 13, 2010 (Press-News.org) In their 2010 trust in financial services study, mext and Australia Online Research claim to prove the importance of fully understanding trust for business success.

While most organizations focus on 'advocacy' and 'satisfaction' measures, brand trust is often merely tracked as a byproduct. 'The common perception is that trust is warm and fuzzy, but has little business impact and can not be precisely implemented and measured', says mext managing partner, Stefan Grafe.

This couldn't be farther from the truth, according to mext. The impact of trust on business is intuitively right and also well documented with customers agreeing that if they trust a brand they will recommend it, use more its products and services, will look to it first for things they need - and more.

In fact, the new study by mext proves that recommendation and satisfaction are closely correlated to trust. With correlation coefficients of 0.65 - 0.8 for all major banks, one could say that satisfaction and recommendation are a question of trust.

'Satisfaction' and 'advocacy' are nice and simple scores and their relationship to company performance also well documented - that is why many organizations tie their executive bonuses to them. However, a key issue managers face with these measures is that they don't comprise a clear implementation framework. Current practice in 'satisfaction' measurement is the scoring of mostly service related statements. Because they tend to be rationally based, it leads to a functionally focused implementation. Trying to drive 'recommendation' is equally difficult. Despite much investment and experimentation, many share their frustration at trying to connect their market investment to their indicator movements.

Mext's 2010 financial services trust study could provide a potential answer. It confirms that trust is driven through six clear facets - what the brand & organisation can be trusted for. The study exposes that underperformance on any of these facets directly impacts the overall level of trust. According to mext, understanding that trust is built through six clearly defined facets allows to implement 'trust building' measures very precisely and effectively. And thus by implication drive 'advocacy' and 'satisfaction'

To prove their point, mext take the example of Bendigo Bank. Although Bendigo Bank is the overall most highly trusted bank, it underperforms very strongly in the 24-35 age group: They simply do not find appealing what the Bank can be 'trusted for'. This is critical, because this is this age group that makes most key financial decisions and form their banking relationship for a life to come. Unlike satisfaction and advocacy measure, trust and its facets could provide Bendigo Bank with a clear framework for improvement.

Trust could be the next generation market based performance measure. If the study is right, trust, more than any other measure (including satisfaction and recommendation) can provide a clear implementation framework to drive performance measures and customer behaviour - and of course those famous executive bonuses.


About the study
The study was conducted with a general Australian population sample of 1,110 respondents by Australian Online Research and comprised a special segment on trust by mext market management consultants.

About HuTrust
HuTrust is the mext's proprietary model for understanding and building trust. Developed under supervision of Professor Wilhelm Salber, the father of the most modern psychology theory, it has been applied with many leading brands globally and shown to improve ROI by up 36%. HuTrust identifies the 6 facets of trust and thus makes 'building trust' a practical concept.

About mext
Mext is a globally operating market management consultancy with offices in Australia, Singapore and Germany and Partners in North America and the Netherlands.
Mext focus on helping clients grow with vision, precision and certainty by connecting psychological insight with rigorous business application.

About Stefan Grafe
Stefan is the founder and managing Partner of mext. With an international background as Head of Strategy & Consulting with the Bates and BBDO Groups, Stefan founded mext in 2004. During his career he advised many leading services organizations including KPN Europe, Allianz and AXA.