Net Trust Score (NTS) is a great way to quantify and understand stakeholders’ trust in an organization. Unlike traditional metrics that focus on customer satisfaction or loyalty, NTS specifically targets trust. It clearly shows people’s confidence in your company’s actions, values, and overall integrity.
The concept of measuring trust isn’t new. For example, the “trust index” from Edelman and Ipsos was an early attempt to measure how people view different organizations regarding trust and credibility.
You can apply NTS to different stakeholders, including customers, employees, and suppliers. This makes it a versatile tool for assessing and improving trust across various areas of your organization.
In this blog, we will explore how you can effectively use the Net Trust Score to build and enhance trust within your organization.
What is a Net Trust Score?
Net Trust Score is a way to measure how much trust people have in a company, brand, or organization. It shows how confident customers, employees, and suppliers are in the entity’s ability to act in their best interests.
Net trust score is similar to other metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Effort Score (CES), but it specifically measures trust.
NTS surveys typically use a 10-point scale, where respondents are asked questions related to trust. For example, you can ask questions like: “Does the company always have your best interests at heart?” and follow-up open-ended questions like, “Why did you score this way?” This approach can help you to quantify trust levels while also providing qualitative insights.
How a Net Trust Score is Calculated?
The net trust score can be calculated similarly to NPS by subtracting the percentage of detractors (those who score low) from the percentage of promoters (those who score high). This calculation provides a net score that represents the overall trust level.
You ask people to rate their trust in your entity on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means “no trust” and 10 means “full trust. Then, categorize the responses into:
- Promoters: Those who give a score of 9 or 10.
- Passives: Those who give a score of 7 or 8.
- Detractors: Those who give a score of 6 or below.
Now, calculate the Net Trust Score by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters using the following formula:
Net Trust Score = % Promoters – % Detractors
Net trust scores can help you understand public perception and are widely used in business, politics, and media to manage and monitor reputation.
- A positive score means more people trust your entity than distrust it.
- A negative score means more people distrust your entity than trust it.
- The higher the score, the greater the overall trust.
Importance of Trust in Customer and Employee Retention
Trust is becoming more important in both customer behavior and employee retention. It can greatly impact a business’s success. By using tools like the net trust score to measure and improve trust, companies can strengthen their relationships and achieve better results.
For Your Customers:
- Customer Loyalty: When you build trust, your customers are more likely to stay loyal to your brand, even when competitors offer alternative options.
- Positive Word-of-mouth: Trusted customers will recommend your brand to others, helping you acquire new customers through personal referrals.
- Business Performance: High trust levels are linked to improved financial outcomes, including increased revenue and market share.
For Your Employees:
- Job Satisfaction: Trust in your leadership and organizational values boosts job satisfaction and employee engagement.
- Employee Retention: Employees who trust your organization are less likely to leave, which helps reduce turnover and recruitment costs.
- Adapting to Change: Trust helps your employees adapt to organizational changes and remain committed during transitions.
- Post-Pandemic Dynamics: With remote work and changing expectations, trust is crucial for retaining employees and adapting to new work environments.
How to Use Net Trust Score Effectively?
Net trust score can be a valuable tool for improving trust within your organization. To make the most of NTS, you need to integrate it into your customer experience strategies, compare it with other metrics, and extract actionable insights. Here’s how you can effectively use NTS to enhance your business outcomes:
Step 1: Implementing Net Trust Score in Customer Experience Strategies
To use net trust score in your customer experience strategies, add NTS-related questions to your surveys. These questions should measure how much trust customers have in your company and its practices.
To measure customer trust, add specific questions to your surveys, such as, “Does the company always have your best interests at heart?” Analyze the feedback you receive to pinpoint areas where trust may be lacking and make necessary improvements, such as enhancing data security if trust in protection measures is low.
You can combine NTS with CSAT, NPS, and CES to get a complete view of customer experience and understand how trust influences overall satisfaction.
Step 2: Comparing NTS with Other Metrics: CSAT, NPS, and CES
Comparing net trust scores with other customer experience metrics can provide valuable insights into different aspects of customer relationships. Recognize that:
- CSAT measures satisfaction.
- NPS evaluates loyalty.
- CES assesses effort.
- NTS focuses specifically on trust.
By understanding each metric’s unique insights and how they relate to trust, you can gain a more comprehensive view of customer experience and identify areas for improvement.
Step 3: Gaining Actionable Insights from Net Trust Score
Gaining actionable insights from net trust scores involves analyzing both quantitative scores and qualitative feedback. Here is what you can do:
- Segment Feedback: Examine NTS data for different customer groups to determine where trust might be lacking. Use this information to fix specific issues.
- Analyze Open-Ended Responses: Review detailed feedback to understand why trust levels vary.
- Benchmark Against Industry Standards: Compare your NTS results with industry standards to see how you compare to competitors.
- Develop Action Plans: Create specific strategies based on NTS data to solve trust problems and improve customer relationships.
- Communicate and Implement Changes: Share what you’ve learned with your team, make the necessary changes, and keep everyone updated to build trust.
Examples of Surveys You Can Use to Measure Net Trust Scores
Surveys designed to measure a net trust score typically focus on understanding your customers’ trust in a brand, organization, person, or product. These surveys usually involve a series of carefully crafted questions that help capture your customers’ trust and confidence levels.
Here are some common components and examples of surveys that measure net trust scores:
01. Trust in Brands or Products
Trust in a brand or product can significantly influence customer loyalty, repeat purchases, and word-of-mouth recommendations. To measure customer trust in specific brands or products, these surveys often include questions such as:
- How much do you trust our products to keep their promises?
- On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our products to a friend or colleague based on your trust?
- How would you rate your overall trust in our product?
These questions capture different aspects of trust, such as reliability, recommendation likelihood, and general trustworthiness. To measure a net trust score in brands or products, you can use survey tools like:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): The NPS measures customer loyalty and satisfaction. It measures how likely customers are to recommend a brand or product to others. NPS surveys will help you gather customer sentiment and will be useful for tracking changes over time.
- Brand Trust Surveys: These surveys are specifically designed to evaluate trust factors associated with a brand. They often explore brand reliability, transparency, ethical standards, and consistency. By asking targeted questions, these surveys can help you understand how customers view your brand’s trustworthiness and identify what drives that trust.
02. Trust in Organizations or Institutions
These surveys evaluate the level of trust in various institutions, such as governments, NGOs, media, and businesses. Understanding how much the public trusts these entities is important because it shows how confident people are that these organizations are acting ethically, openly, and in the best interest of society.
The survey usually asks questions that explore how much people trust various aspects of an organization’s actions and behavior. For instance:
- How much do you trust this organization to act in the public’s best interest?
- How transparent do you believe this institution is in its operations?
- How likely are you to rely on information from this organization?
You can use the following survey tools to evaluate the level of trust in various institutions:
- Trust Barometer: This is an annual global survey that explores trust in four key institutions: business, government, NGOs, and the media.
- Research Surveys: The research conducts regular surveys that include questions about trust in various institutions, such as government bodies, the media, and other societal organizations.
03. Trust in Public Figures or Leaders
Surveys that measure trust in public figures check how much people trust those in positions of power or visibility. This can include political leaders, celebrities, community leaders, or anyone else who is well-known.
These surveys usually ask public figures questions about their integrity, honesty, and how well they act in the public’s interest. For example:
- How much do you trust Mr. David to do what is right for this community?
- On a scale of 0-10, how would you rate your trust in Mr. David?
- Do you believe Mr. David is honest and transparent in their communications?
The survey examples to evaluate trust in public figures or leaders:
- Polls: These tools are well-known for regularly measuring public trust in various political figures and leaders. Polls include questions about leadership effectiveness, honesty, ethical standards, and alignment with public values.
- Surveys: Surveys frequently assess public trust in a wide range of figures, including politicians, celebrities, business leaders, and other influential individuals. They use diverse samples to ensure their findings represent broader public opinion. This can help you understand the nuanced views of various population segments regarding public figures.
04. Trust in Media and News Sources
Understanding trust in the media is important because it influences how people get their information, shape their opinions, and make choices. Surveys about media trust show which news sources people believe are trustworthy and reliable. They also highlight how trust varies among different groups, regions, and media platforms.
Surveys measuring trust in media often include questions like:
- How much do you trust our news source to report the news accurately and fairly?
- Would you consider our news source a reliable source of information?
- On a scale of 0-10, how much do you trust our news?
Here is an example of a survey that measures trust in media and news sources:
- Trust in Media Surveys: These surveys examine how people from different groups feel about news sources. They explore what influences their trust or distrust, like whether they think the news is biased, transparent, or high-quality. These media surveys also measure people’s trust in news media in different countries and provide an overview of global opinions on various news organizations.
05. Customer Trust Surveys for Companies
Customer trust surveys are important for companies to understand how much their customers trust their products, services, and overall business. By regularly checking trust levels, companies can identify areas for improvement and work on building better relationships with their customers.
A high level of trust often correlates with customer loyalty, repeat business, and positive word-of-mouth referrals, making it a valuable metric for any organization. The questions in a customer trust survey are designed to cover various aspects of trust, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of customer perceptions. For example:
- Do you trust this company to safeguard your personal information?
- How much do you trust our company to provide high-quality services?
- How likely will you continue using our company’s products based on your trust?
To effectively measure customer trust for companies, you can utilize various survey tools specifically designed to capture trust metrics.
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Surveys: These surveys usually check how happy customers are overall, but you can add questions about trust to see how much trust affects their satisfaction. This way, you can get more detailed information about how trust in the company’s actions and policies impacts customer happiness.
- Net Trust Score Surveys: These surveys are specifically designed to measure how much customers trust the company. They ask direct questions about trust, like whether customers would recommend the company based on trust. The results give a clear score of customer trust and provide useful data for improving company strategies and customer relationships.
Best Practices for Conducting Net Trust Score Surveys
To get accurate and useful results from net trust score surveys, you need to plan and carry out the surveys carefully. This helps make sure the results truly reflect how the target audience feels. Here are some tips for doing these surveys well:
- Use a Clear Rating Scale: Stick to a consistent scale, like 0-10, to easily compare and analyze trust levels.
- Segment Your Audience: Break down responses by different demographic groups to understand trust levels more clearly.
- Ask Specific, Relevant Questions: Avoid ambiguous or leading questions. For example, instead of asking, “Do you trust us?” ask, “How much do you trust us to handle your data securely?” This specificity provides more actionable insights.
- Include Both Quantitative and Qualitative Questions: While quantitative questions (such as rating scales) provide measurable data, qualitative questions (open-ended responses) offer deeper insights into why customers feel a certain way.
- Analyze Open-Ended Feedback: Look at the detailed responses to understand the reasons behind participants’ trust levels.
- Optimize Survey Length and Timing: Keep the survey concise to maintain engagement and ensure higher completion rates. Ideally, the survey should take no more than 5-10 minutes to complete.
- Keep Surveys Anonymous: Anonymity encourages honest feedback, which is vital for accurate trust assessment.
- Update Surveys Regularly: Regular updates help monitor changes in trust over time and assess the effects of specific events.
How to Use QuestionPro to Build Trust Using Net Trust Scores?
Here’s how you can use QuestionPro to build and improve trust with your customers and employees effectively:
1. Creating Effective NTS Surveys
Begin by designing surveys in QuestionPro that focus on trust. Include questions like:
- Trust in Customer Service: Does our company always act in your best interests?
- Trust in Product Quality: How much do you trust us to deliver high-quality services?
- Trust in Communication: Do you feel our company communicates honestly and openly?
Make sure your surveys collect ratings and detailed feedback to get a complete picture of trust levels. You can also design your surveys quickly using pre-made templates.
2. Analyzing Your Data
After collecting survey responses, use QuestionPro’s analysis tools to examine the results:
- Segment by Demographics: Break down trust scores by factors like age or location to see where trust levels differ.
- Track Trends: Look at how trust scores change over time to understand the impact of your actions.
- Compare Metrics: See how Net Trust Scores (NTS) results relate to other metrics like Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT), Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and Customer Effort Scores (CES) to get a fuller view of customer experience.
3. Extracting Actionable Insights
Use QuestionPro’s reporting features to gain valuable insights:
- Review Feedback: Analyze comments to understand why customers or employees feel a certain way about trust. Identify common issues.
- Benchmarking: Compare your results with industry standards to see how you measure up.
- Create Reports: Generate reports and visualizations to share with your team, highlighting key insights and areas for improvement.
4. Making Improvements
Based on the insights you gather, make targeted improvements:
- Develop Action Plans: Use feedback to address specific trust issues. For example, if quality concerns are raised, improve your product quality.
- Communicate Changes: Let your customers and employees know about your changes in response to their feedback. Transparency is key to building trust.
- Monitor Results: Use QuestionPro to track your trust scores and see if your changes are having a positive effect.
5. Engaging with Your Stakeholders
Engage with your customers and employees effectively:
- Regular Feedback: Continuously seek feedback on trust and other areas of experience. Regular input helps maintain and strengthen trust.
- Personalized Communication: Address specific concerns raised in surveys to show that you value their opinions and are taking action.
Building and maintaining trust is crucial for the success of any organization. Net trust scores provide valuable insights into the strength of your business relationships and help you identify areas for improvement. By adding NTS to your feedback and performance measures, you can address specific issues, boost overall trust, and achieve better business results.
By leveraging tools like QuestionPro to measure net trust scores, you can gain valuable insights into how your customers and employees perceive your commitment to their needs and interests.
Ultimately, using NTS with QuestionPro helps you build stronger, more trustful relationships with your stakeholders. It can drive better business outcomes and foster long-term success.
To see how net trust scores can boost trust and improve customer relationships for your organization, try a free trial.
