Businesses must try to earn back customers' trust

By Tom Eggert

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Trust. Every company, from the single proprietorship to the large multinational, should be concerned with the public's impression of business. Every business should be actively committed to rebuilding the trust that has been eroding. I teach a class at the UW-Business School called Ethics, Values and Society, and one of the key messages in the class is that our future business leaders need to focus on rebuilding trust in our business community.

In a Harris poll of 1,016 adults in the U.S., less than half of the respondents have a "great deal" of trust in leaders of our small businesses. Less than half!

Why is it important to our small business community to rebuild trust? When I was growing up, my father completely trusted Mr. McCauley at the hardware store to recommend the best way (and it wasn't necessarily the most expensive way) to reattach our basketball backboard to the roof of the garage, my mom trusted Mr. Riemer at the flower store to always design the right arrangement, and I trusted the girl at the soda counter not to skimp on the cherry syrup in my cherry coke.

Now we hear every day that businesses are struggling to survive -- when haven't they been struggling to survive? -- and they must cut costs and become more efficient. I believe the public hears this message as "I will get less in the future, and I will pay more." Instead of a customer having a relationship with a small business based on trust and service, customers are often full of distrust. They don't believe that they will get superior service any longer, so they are reduced to trying to find the cheapest price. Small business will seldom win at that game.

It is not for the government, not for the trade associations, and not for "somebody else" to undertake the steps that are necessary to rebuild trust.

As I write this, the Enron trial is under way, and we can get daily updates on what unmitigated greed (along with the absence of a moral compass) looks like. The public receives almost a daily dose of reasons not to trust business. It is time that businesses large and small start telling the good stories. It is only if the business community aggressively commits to rebuilding trust that we can counter the "Wal-Mart phenomenon," where a purchasing decision is almost entirely based on price.
teggert@bus.wisc.edu

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