In this article, you’ll discover the 8 factors influencing customer confidence in a company. Confidence is a central concept that plays a role in customer satisfaction and loyalty, among other things.
Trust is a central concept for anticipating consumer behavior. A great deal of research has been devoted to it over the last 40 years, but only recently was a synthesis of 549 studies published. This colossal body of work provides a better understanding of the levers that can be used to increase customer trust. The benefits are multiple: satisfaction and loyalty, lower acquisition costs, and greater profitability. In this article, I’ll take you through the essence of this meta-analysis and explain what actions to take.
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- 8 factors have been identified as playing a key role in building trust between a company and its customers.
- A group of 3 variables plays a more prominent role in building confidence between the customer and the company. These are attachment, ethics and social responsibility, and reputation.
- Reputation is the variable which, taken in isolation, has the greatest effect on trust
- Perceived quality is the only variable belonging to the second group whose effect is comparable to those of the first group
- The effect of the variables in the 2nd group is between 18% (perceived value) and 52% (competence), weaker than the average of the 3 variables in the 1st group.
“Antecedents” influence a construct (in this case, the ‘trust’ construct). The authors of the research propose to classify the antecedents of customer trust into two broad categories:
- 3 antecedents from which company integrity is derived:
- customer attachment to the company
- ethics and social responsibility
- reputation
- 5 antecedents that define reliability:
- marketing investments
- customer-perceived value
- company competence
- perceived product/service quality
- perceived risk of being a customer of the company
I will now briefly describe a range of factors before presenting the research results.
Integrity-based antecedents
The authors first define a group of 3 variables linked to company integrity.
- Attachment: Ongoing relationships and interactions between consumers and the business entity can lead to attachment, influencing perceptions of the sincerity of the entity’s intentions.
- Ethics and Social Responsibility (SR): A company’s commitment to ethics and social responsibility signals to consumers that it is moral, honest, and caring. ESG criteria are now mandatory for all major companies.
- Reputation: a company with a good reputation is more likely to be trusted by consumers.
Antecedents based on reliability
A group of 5 variables is then defined as signaling a company’s reliability.
- Marketing investment: signals the company’s capacity and expertise.
- Perceived value: when a service or product is perceived as offering superior value, confidence can be reinforced because the customer sees it as a sign of reliability.
- Competence: competence and reliability go hand in hand, giving customers greater confidence in the company. Who would want to give their money to a company perceived as incompetent?
- Perceived quality: Perceived quality improves confidence by reinforcing positive evaluations.
- Perceived risk: the lower the perceived risk, the greater the reliability and confidence.
How can you increase customer trust in your brand?
The meta-analysis results show that the first group of factors (integrity-based antecedents) are generally more effective in building trust than those based on reliability.
The table below shows the different variables you can play with and their effects. They are listed in descending order of effect.
| Variable | Effet | |
| 1 | reputation | 0,46 |
| 2 | ethics and social responsibility | 0,426 |
| 3 | attachment | 0,408 |
| 4 | perceived quality | 0,407 |
| 5 | perceived value | 0,353 |
| 6 | marketing investments | 0,256 |
| 7 | competence | 0,209 |
| 8 | perceived risks | non significant |
What do these figures mean?
By increasing perceived reputation by one point, trust will increase by 0.46 points. On the other hand, for a one-point increase in competence, confidence will rise by only 0.209 points.
These figures are therefore important if you must make investment decisions. Investing in reputation is almost twice as profitable as investing in competence.
However, it’s important to realize that the research fails to consider these variables’ correlations. Is it possible, for example, to increase reputation without investing in marketing? Can reputation increase without investing in perceived quality and value?
It’s important to understand the limits of such an exercise. Nevertheless, the results give you clear indications of the directions to follow.
Conclusion
The meta-analysis conducted on 549 studies highlights the predominant role played by a few variables in forming trust between a customer and a company. The company itself can influence some of these variables.
The effects of each variable can be used to prioritize efforts. To increase trust, the company should focus on a group of variables: The company’s reputation, it’s ethics and social responsibility, its attachment to the company.
References
Khamitov, M., Rajavi, K., Huang, D.-W., & Hong, Y. (2024). Meta-analysis of 50 Years of Empirical Research. Journal of Consumer Research.
Posted in Research.