Five Rules for Building Customer Trust — And Why Most Companies Break All of Them

Episode Summary

Trust is the foundation of every customer relationship. But here's the uncomfortable truth: most businesses assume they have it when they don't. PwC's latest research found that 90% of executives believe their customers trust them highly — yet only 30% of customers actually do. That's a 60-point gap. And it's growing.

In this episode, Colin Shaw and Professor Ryan Hamilton from Emory University break down the five rules that are guaranteed to build genuine, lasting trust with your customers. These aren't theoretical — they're drawn from decades of real CX work, rooted in behavioural economics, and illustrated with the kinds of real-world examples that make you realise how often companies (and people) get this wrong.

What You'll Hear in This Episode:

• Why trust is earned, not given — and why that changes everything about how you approach customer relationships

• The authenticity trap: why trying to appear authentic is worse than not trying at all

• Why you should always tell customers the bad news early — and why hiding it always costs you more in the end

• The Fiverr story: how a supplier destroyed trust before they'd even started the job

• Why consistency and reliability are not soft values — they're heuristic signals that your customers use to judge whether they can trust you for the things that really matter

• How the "emotional bank account" works — and why you need to be in credit before something goes wrong

Quote of the Episode:

"The danger is people will be too strategic about authenticity. The point is not to act like you're authentic. The point is actually to be authentic."

— Professor Ryan Hamilton, Emory University

Resources Mentioned:

• Connect with Colin Shaw on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinrjshaw/

• Connect with Professor Ryan Hamilton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prof-ryan-hamilton/

• Beyond Philosophy website: https://beyondphilosophy.com

• PwC Trust in Business Survey: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/trust-in-business-survey.html

About the Hosts:

 Colin Shaw is a LinkedIn 'Top Voice' with a massive 286,000 followers and 87,000 subscribers to his 'Why Customers Buy' newsletter. Shaw is named one of the world's 'Top 150 Business Influencers' by LinkedIn. His company, Beyond Philosophy LLC, has been selected four times by the Financial Times as a top management consultancy. Shaw is co-host of the top 1.5% podcast 'The Intuitive Customer'—with over 600,000 downloads—and author of eight best-sellers on customer experience. Shaw is a sought-after keynote speaker. Follow Colin on LinkedIn.

Ryan Hamilton is a Professor of Marketing