189935 Resource 149173 155860 149257 1195415022412 1195491106036 Controlled Small Business News: Consumer Trust Is Down, Part 2

New business report reveals that auto dealers, real estate brokers and furniture stores among least trusted businesses

In the first part of this series we introduced some of the results from the first-ever BBB/Gallup Trust in Business Index survey, which was commissioned by the Better Business Bureau and underwritten by Visa Inc. The survey revealed that a company’s reputation plays a vital role in how high a consumer’s trust is in them.In fact, having a reputation for providing good value for money and good prices ranked fourth and fifth respectively in the survey. Company advertising ranked lowest, with only 18 percent of respondents citing it as a key trust factor. Further, respondents were asked to consider what one company, large or small, that they regularly deal with in everyday life, do they trust most -- and what does that company do to earn their trust. From unprompted, top-of-mind responses, competitive, low prices were cited as a key trust factor by 29 percent of respondents, with nice and friendly personnel at 29 percent as well. Good customer service (non-specific) was ranked third by consumers as a core component of trust in companies at 26 percent. Consumers were also asked to consider the one company they deal with regularly that they least trust and comment on what the company does that creates the lack of trust. High charges and fees were noted by 30 percent of consumers as creating the most distrust, followed by poor service (27 percent) and failure to meet promises (16 percent). "Earning consumers' trust isn't simply the result of good ethics, integrity or even low prices," said Steven Cole, president and CEO, Council of Better Business Bureaus. "As the survey data shows, it's more -- companies must keep their commitments and produce results. If they don't provide quality customer service and deliver on promises, they won't be trusted, and consumers are not likely to purchase their goods or services." Consumers were also asked about their level of trust in 15 different types of companies they do business with regularly. Companies that fared worst in the BBB/Gallup Trust in Business Index include auto dealers with 16 percent of survey respondents saying they had a great deal of trust or quite a lot of trust, real estate brokers (17 percent), cell phone and wireless providers (21 percent), and furniture stores (22 percent). Business categories consumers trusted least are generally consistent with the volume of complaints BBB recorded from consumers last year, a record-breaking 1.2 million complaints spanning 3,900 business categories. Last year BBB received more complaints about auto dealers (new and used) and cellular telephone service and supplies than any other business categories, and the furniture retail and real estate categories were also significant complaint generators. By comparison, pharmacies and drug stores are most trusted by American adult consumers with 65 percent saying they have a great deal or quite a lot of trust in these types of businesses. Grocery stores and supermarkets came in second at 59 percent, followed by banks, financial institutions and stock brokers (48 percent), and home improvement stores (46 percent). The bottome line regarding this survey, is that if you feel like your consumer base is declining, you might want to look at the level of trust you instill in your customers to see if this is an area for improvement. For more detailed information regarding this survey, visit <a href="http://www.bbb.org">www.bbb.org</a>. 10 application/xml auto dealers business news consumer trust furniture stores least trusted businesses real estate brokers small business small business news false Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 mfmomper 74.132.174.34 false true false false true 189572 false false true false false false true 149173 blog blogsite/FreedomVoice/web