Trust Metric: Measure Customer and Employee Experience beyond NPS

Trust is the biggest driver of loyalty and retention and now you can measure and monitor it with Adoreboard’s Trust Metric. Yes, organisations can now measure and track trust in feedback surveys, reviews and any unstructured text or combine it with NPS, eNPS, CSAT and other metrics for increased insights around customer and employee satisfaction.

Not only that, they can gain actionable insights that map action to a dollar value and ROI.

Why measure trust?

Adoreboard have been in the emotion-AI and “experience” insights space since 2011, long before it was cool 😎. During that time, we’ve served a small but elite clientele of futurists and innovators who choose to put humans at the centre of their brand and who recognised early that there is more to sentiment than positive-negative-neutral; emotion is central to experience and actionable insights.

Over the years Adoreboard’s Emotion-AI has observed Trust as being the single most important emotion for driving long term loyalty and retention.🥇

It makes sense; the cornerstone of any effective relationship is Trust, be it between businesses and their customers, organisations and their employees or individuals and their associates or loved ones.💕

The latest addition to Adoreboard’s Emotics^TM platform, the Trust Metric is designed to transform how forward-thinking enterprises interpret and measure trust from unstructured text data. As with other features, the trust metric aligns with outputting actionable insight reports and determining value at risk.

But don’t just believe us, here’s what others have to say;

• According to Adobe‘s “Future of Marketing Research series,” 71% of customers will make more purchases from a business they trust, whilst the same percentage will stop buying altogether if that trust is broken. Source.
• Companies included in the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list based on the high trust metric outperform their counterparts by a factor of 3.36 over a 25 year period. Source.
• According to Baker McKenzie’s ‘Trust Matters’ publication, having high trust levels leads to an enhanced reputation, increased revenues and shareholder returns, greater customer engagement and loyalty, better regulatory compliance, resilience during crises, and a competitive advantage fueled by innovation. #phew (try saying that in one breath!) Source.

And if you’d like to learn more about trust, here’s what Bruce Temkin has to say. Don’t know who Bruce is? He led Qualtrics’XM Institute for 5 years, spent over a decade as a VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester and co-founded the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA).

Bruce Temkin is often referred to as “The Godfather of Customer Experience”.

Ready?

Let’s dig in…

What is the Trust Metric?

The Trust Metric is a comprehensive, emotion-based analytics metric or score that captures and quantifies trust levels derived from unstructured text verbatim, such as patient, customer and employee surveys and feedback.

Unlike traditional metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), which rely primarily on numerical or quantitative inputs and are often categorical in their context, the Trust Metric uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Emotion-AI* to provide more authentic human insights from natural “unstructured” language.

* Note that our customer data is NOT used to train our AI. You can read more about our AI and LLM usage here.

Full details on the Trust Metic feature set will be announced soon (ETA late summer 2024). Meanwhile, you can book a demo to find out more.

The Trust Metric Framework

Our Trust Metric is built on a framework that integrates empirical and formal trust metrics with our Emotion-AI technology. It combines observational and introspective data with statistical processing to measure the degree of trust displayed in unstructured, open text.

If that sounds like a mouthful, we get it! 🤯

What it basically means Adoreboard’s that Trust Metric comes from a combination of our AI and LLM’s observation and understanding of what “trust” is in the real world from the contractual to various frameworks such as the Trust Triangle (logic, authenticity & empathy), alongside the emotions being expressed within the unstructured text provided upon data upload.

This text data (eg feedback comments, reviews) can optionally be paired with quantitative, numerical values for further analysis eg. each comment could be uploaded with a corresponding spend, duration or any other value you determine to be a more formal, quantitative indicator of trust (or just paired with something you’d like to check re correlation!).

The Trust Metric and its benefits are achieved through the following:

1. Emotion detection and classification
   • Based on Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions and our Trust LLM’s understanding of empirical trust, the Adoreboard platform dissects text into basic emotions such as joy, trust, fear, and anger. This classification allows for a deeper understanding of trust as a human emotion, providing context and layers beyond a simple positive or negative sentiment.
   • Now you have a Trust Metric for your dataset. #yey! But wait, metrics alone don’t mean much. It’s actionable insights on the Trust score drivers that you really want, so it doesn’t stop there…
2. Theme and topic Identification
   • Simultaneously, the Adoreboard platform analyses for thematic and topical indicators of trust, such as the willingness to cooperate, expressions of reliability, competence and credibility, indicators of repeat experiences and empathy. Conversely, it also looks for indicators of disgust or distrust such as signs of inconsistency in experience, disengagement and expressions of incompetence.
   • Using exploratory analysis (no keywords or manual categorization is required), our platform uncovers the broader themes and the more specific topics that are responsible for your Trust Metric and gives each an individual Trust score.
3. Identify the key drivers of Trust
   • After identifying recurring themes and topics and scoring them for trust, the platform surfaces the strongest themes and topics that are having the most impact.
   • It then pinpoints specific drivers of trust or distrust and drills down into the specifics, identifying individual comments and the opportunities for action.
4. Value at risk calculation
   • A unique feature of our platform, including the Trust Metric, is a predictive calculator of the potential dollar cost associated with resolving the issues or opportunities identified.
   • This predictive analysis highlights areas and actions that could have significant financial impact and ROI, aka “Value at Risk“, thus aligning trust metrics with business objectives.
5. Instant Insights report
   • The final stage involves generating actionable insights reports in the most suitable format for each member of the team. These reports recommend the next best action to take that will increase trust, NPS, eNPS, CSAT and other satisfaction metrics, but ultimately improve retention, loyalty and bottom line.
   • Reports are available in a summary scorecard “Executive Ready” format, or if you subscribe to our Storyteller Report, you’ll be able to create an indepth actionable narrative report in a few clicks.

How the Trust Metric Works

The Trust Metric is an emotional lens through which complex feedback data can be automatically analysed refined into easily digestible formats and numerical value that can be tracked over time.

Here’s how it works;

1. Data Upload
   • Unstructured text data, such as customer reviews or employee feedback, is fed into the platform via csv, Excel or connecting to your third-party feedback collection platform such as Qualtrics, Survey Monkey, ZenDesk (we can also analyse public data such as X or Reddit).
2. Emotion Mapping
   • Using advanced NLP algorithms, our internal LLM an Emotion-AI, the platform maps out the emotions within the feedback according to our proprietary model based on Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion. The Trust Metric focuses more specifically on elements contributing to trust.
3. Thematic Analysis
   • Recurring themes and specific issues are identified through exploratory analysis and linked back to trust levels.
4. Quantification and Prediction
   • Trust levels are quantified, and predictive analysis is applied to estimate future trust trends and, if you subscribe to our “Value at Risk” (VAR), their potential financial implications.
5. Actionable Reporting
   • Summary scorecards, executive-ready reports and comprehensive “Storyteller Reports” are generated, outlining key trust drivers, specific feedback examples, and strategic recommendations.

How the Trust Metric can benefit your organisation

The Trust Metric gives you a north star, always there to guide you. Yes, all the other emotions have their impact and some are incredibly powerful however as a long-term metric for loyalty and retention, tracking and monitoring trust should be at the foundation.

Here are some of the additional benefits;

1. Enhanced understanding of trust
   • Gain insights into the emotional drivers behind trust, enabling a better understanding by the entire organisation of what influences your customer and employee experiences.
2. Proactive management
   • Identify trust issues early with predictive analytics and take proactive measures to address concerns before they escalate and impact the bottom line; proactive crisis management!
3. Strategic decision-making
   • Turn actionable insights into strategic actions that foster trust, boost engagement, and drive loyalty. This can lead to increased retention rates and repeat business, ultimately impacting the bottom line and ROI positively.
4. Demonstrate quantifiable impact
   • Understand the financial implications of changing trust levels and of taking, or not taking, action. Our value-at-risk analysis contextualises trust and action in monetary terms, allowing for more informed budgeting and resource allocation.
5. Instant reports for each stakeholder
   • Receive detailed or summary reports highlighting key themes and verbatim examples, making it easier to communicate findings and strategies across all departments and to stakeholders, form C-Level summaries to detailed Storyteller Reports.

The Trust Metric is a significant advancement in unstructured feedback analysis metrics, providing a future-focused barometer of organizational health.

Integrating the Trust Metric into your experience management process means you will be able to not only measure and improve trust but also link it directly to tangible financial outcomes. This fosters a more profound relationship with both customers and employees, ensuring long-term success and stability.

By embracing the Trust Metric, you are not just adopting a new means of measurement, you are showing the world that trust is a foundational core value in your enterprise.