The Four Factors of Trust: How Organizations Can Earn Lifelong Loyalty

NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2022 — Trust is at the core of successful relationships and businesses. Yet trust is at an all-time low, steadily declining since 1973 (“Confidence in Institutions,” Gallup Historical Trends, Aug. 13, 2021). Until now there has been no meaningful and actionable measure of how trust impacts human behavior. "The Four Factors of Trust: How Organizations Can Earn Lifelong Loyalty” authored by Deloitte Consulting LLP Principal Ashley Reichheld with Deloitte Digital’s Chief Experience Officer Amelia Dunlop, builds on Deloitte’s longterm investment and research into the science of trust to explore the creation of a new predictive and actionable measure of trust. By quantifying trust, organizations can use this measurement to build trust with employees, customers, partners and society at large.

“Deloitte has more than 175 years of experience in building trust with our clients, our people, the capital markets and our communities, and we are investing heavily in Enterprise Trust to help organizations build and strengthen trust with their stakeholders,” said Joseph Ucuzoglu, Chief Executive Officer, Deloitte US.

Highly engaging and readable, with exciting new research at its core, “The Four Factors of Trust: How Organizations Can Earn Lifelong Loyalty” (Wiley/Nov. 1, 2022) breaks trust down into four elements — humanity, capability, transparency and reliability — that makes it possible to build a new way to measure trust to help companies “Elevate the human experience™” (HX).

These four factors make up Deloitte Digital’s HX TrustID™, a groundbreaking measurement tool poised to become the gold standard for evaluating organizational performance. HX TrustID complements the Net Promotor Score (NPS) by offering leaders immediate insight into actions, tied directly to behavioral and financial outcomes. Reichheld and Dunlop show how organizations can use HX TrustID to measure, predict and act in ways that proactively build trust to earn lifelong loyalty — and elevate the human experience with customers, workers and partners.

“We believe trust is the path to loyalty,” said Ashley Reichheld, Lead author of “The Four Factors of Trust” and a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “Our research found that there is a strong linear correlation between HX TrustID and the Net Promoter Score — as trust increases so does NPS.”

Full of compelling stories from organizations — Delta Air Lines, Marriott International, Energizer, Cleveland Clinic and many others — Reichheld and Dunlop provide practical applications in Marketing & Experience, Cybersecurity, HR, Sustainability (ESG) and Operations & Technology.

Dunlop said, “’The Four Factors of Trust’ can help leaders create the relationships they want to build, the organizations they want to belong to, and the world we all want to live in.”

“The Four Factors of Trust” lays it all out in do-able parts so leaders can:

• Create better business outcomes by understanding how trust affects human behaviors.
• Measure their company’s trust score — revealing strengths, deficits and opportunities to (re)build trust with key stakeholders.
• Design actionable strategies to improve trust with customers, the workforce and partners.
• Build trust and earn loyalty through every business function from marketing to operations to talent experience.
  

Key insights from “The Four Factors of Trust”:

• Trust is an ecosystem. To deliver on financial outcomes, trust needs to be built with all of your humans (workers, customers, partners):
  • Workers who trust their employer are 79% more motivated to work (and less likely to leave).
  • A trusting workforce achieves 2x improved customer satisfaction.
  • Customers who trust a brand are 88% more likely to buy again.
  • Building customer trust affects partners and improves up to 4x market capitalization.
  • Trusted companies outperform their peers by up to 400%.
• Research from the book shows that when customers believe a brand is high in:
  • Humanity – they are 2.5x more likely to stick with a brand through a mistake.
  • Transparency – they are 2x more likely to promote the brand on social media.
  • Capability – they are 3x more likely to choose the brand over competitors.
  • Reliability – they are 2.1x more likely to spend more on the brand (compared to a similar product or service).
• Research from the book shows that when workers believe a brand is high in:
  • Humanity – they are 1.5x more likely to defend their employer after someone’s criticism.
  • Transparency – they are 1.5x more likely to positively review their employer on a public website.
  • Capability – they are 33% less likely to look for another job.
  • Reliability – they are 1.5x more likely to recommend their employer to a friend, family member, or colleague.
• Three most trusted brand archetypes were identified:
  • Competence Leaders have capability and reliability scores almost 2x higher than the average organization.
  • Humanity Leaders have humanity scores roughly 2x higher than the average.
  • Trust Winners excel in both intent and competence and have an average HXTrust ID score 2x higher than the average.

The book is based on almost two years of rigorous research including nearly two dozen in-depth interviews with trust experts, several surveys with a total of 207,550 respondents, and tested in-market with more than 5,000 respondents. Additional resources about HX TrustID also available at www.Thefourfactorsoftrust.com.

Advance praise for “The Four Factors of Trust”

Nothing is more important to business success than building trusted relationships with all your stakeholders. Every organization can benefit from reading ‘The Four Factors,’ a thoroughly researched, comprehensive guide for creating a deeply-rooted culture of trust.

— Amy Weaver, president and chief financial officer, Salesforce

It’s no secret that trust is on the decline around the world. Yet trust remains more important, even vital, than ever before. It is, in fact, the one thing that changes everything — a force-multiplier for inspired performance and greater well-being in everyone around you. Whether you’re in the C-suite or on the factory floor, you can lead in creating and extending trust to others. Ashley and Amelia’s terrific book will show you how.

—Stephen M. R. Covey, The New York Times and No. 1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of “The Speed of Trust and Trust & Inspire”

We all know the importance of trust, but few of us really understand how to earn it. Thankfully, Ashley Reichheld and Amelia Dunlop are here to help. In this remarkably readable, well-researched, and actionable book, they reveal what it takes for individuals and organizations to establish reliability, transparency, capability, and humanity.

—Adam Grant, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of “Think Again” and host of the TED podcast, “WorkLife”

Read this important new book so you can help your organization measure and manage trust — one of the most vital ingredients for building relationships that are worthy of loyalty.

—Fred Reichheld, creator of the Net Promoter® Score and System and author, “Winning On Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers”

About the authors
Ashley Reichheld, a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP, works with organizations across industries to help their leaders reimagine brands and experiences. Ashley believes that building trust is the single greatest opportunity to create competitive advantage, so she led a team to create Deloitte’s HX TrustIDTM — a groundbreaking measurement tool poised to become the gold standard for evaluating organizational performance — to help companies measure, predict and build trust with their customers, workforce and partners. Ashley is the Lead author of “The Four Factors of Trust” (2022) with Amelia Dunlop

Amelia Dunlop, chief experience officer at Deloitte Digital and a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP, helps organizations solve their toughest problems using human-equity-centered design to build empathy and trust. Dunlop believes in elevating the experience for all humans, including customers, workers, and partners. She received Consulting Magazine’s 2020 Top Women in Technology Award for Excellence in Innovation. Amelia is the author of The Wall Street Journal bestseller, “Elevating the Human Experience: Three Paths to Love and Worth at Work” (2021), and co-author of “The Four Factors of Trust” with Ashley Reichheld (2022).

About Deloitte
Deloitte provides industry-leading audit, consulting, tax and advisory services to many of the world’s most admired brands, including nearly 90% of the Fortune 500^® and more than 7,000 private companies. Our people come together for the greater good and work across the industry sectors that drive and shape today’s marketplace — delivering measurable and lasting results that help reinforce public trust in our capital markets, inspire clients to see challenges as opportunities to transform and thrive, and help lead the way toward a stronger economy and a healthier society. Deloitte is proud to be part of the largest global professional services network serving our clients in the markets that are most important to them. Building on more than 175 years of service, our network of member firms spans more than 150 countries and territories. Learn how Deloitte’s approximately 415,000 people worldwide connect for impact at www.deloitte.com.