Why does trust matter?

Beaufort tracks public perceptions of brands/ organisations for many clients and this almost always includes the dimension of trust.

We run the tracking on our Wales Omnibus, an online survey that interviews a representative sample of 1,000 Welsh adults aged 16 and over. The Omnibus essentially provides a snapshot of the views of the Welsh public. The method for the survey is consistent each wave (we run 5 waves a year) so it’s ideal for monitoring any changes in attitudes, views or behaviour over time.

So how important is trust? Our findings show that companies or organisations being trustworthy really matters to people in Wales – an emphatic majority of 82% agreed with this statement in a recent survey on our June Wales Omnibus.  The same proportion agreed that once a business or organisation loses their trust, they rarely give it a second chance.

It is clear that trust (or lack of it) can influence people in a positive and a negative way. Across our research we consistently see the importance of trust in influencing people’s decisions:

- in health, it can influence whether people get vaccinated when invited or go for potentially life-saving cancer screening

- in financial services, it’s a key driver of choice when deciding which provider to take out a mortgage or savings account with

- and in transport, it influences whether people use public transport for their journey or take the car.

Trust is therefore important across the board, whether you are in the public or private sector.

What does our tracking tell us?

Firstly, that brands/ organisations in some sectors (in particular, those in the health sphere) are more likely to be trusted by the public than others. In recent research comparing levels of trust across different organisations, 81% of the Welsh public said they trusted what NHS Wales does and says, compared to 58% saying this about their local council. Only 15% of the public distrusts NHS Wales, compared to 37% saying this about their local council.

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Secondly, that trust is not static but changes over time. Sometimes this is linked to the company and its own performance but sometimes it can be influenced by external factors – for example, we’ve seen greatest trust in health organisations at the time they’re needed most (e.g. in the COVID-19 public health emergency).

Our data shows there is a strong relationship between awareness and trust, so falling levels of knowledge mean that trust also declines.  When we cross-analyse data on how much people know about an organisation with how much they trust it, we can see that:

- Over half of those who know a lot about the company trust it a great deal

- Compared to just a handful of those who’ve only heard its name doing so.

So awareness and trust are deeply connected. All things being equal, this suggests the more visible a brand/ organisation is, and the more you can inform and educate people about what you do and what you stand for, the more beneficial it is for trust.