Trust isn’t just about who you are—it’s also about what you do during every interaction with a customer. While your competence, personality compatibility, and fairness (the “Who You Are” components of trust) set the initial level of trust before an interaction even begins, your behavior during the interaction determines where that trust ends up.
In this article, I’ll break down the three “What You Do” components of the Relative Trust Model—Positivity, Time, and Intimacy—and explain how they shape customer trust in real time.
1. Positivity: The Foundation of Trust Growth
Positivity isn’t just about having a good attitude. It’s about whether your behaviors during an interaction add to or take away from trust. And here’s the challenge: research shows that bad is stronger than good.
Customers react much more strongly to negative behaviors than to positive ones. A single lie can do more damage than ten truths can repair. This is why rebuilding trust is so much harder than building it in the first place.
Positivity in an interaction is shaped by two key factors:
🔹 No-BS (Radical Honesty) – Customers can sense when you’re making things up. If you don’t know something, say so. If your product has weaknesses, be upfront about them. Trust grows when you’re honest—even when the truth isn’t what the customer wants to hear.
🔹 Empathy – Seeing things from the customer’s perspective, not just your own, is critical. What they want, need, and value may not match your own preferences. The more you can understand and acknowledge their concerns, the stronger the trust will be.
If you bring positivity to an interaction, customers will be more likely to forgive minor mistakes and stay engaged. But if you introduce negativity, even small issues can escalate into major trust problems.
2. Time: The Accelerator of Trust
The more time a customer spends with you, the more opportunities they have to assess your consistency—and consistency builds trust. However, not all time is created equal.
🔹 First Impressions Matter – Customers make snap judgments based on their first interaction with you. If you make a poor first impression, it takes a lot of effort to recover from it.
🔹 Consistency Over Time – Once trust is established, your actions reinforce (or weaken) it. If your behavior is reliable and predictable, trust grows. If you are inconsistent, customers will hesitate to trust you fully.
Time alone doesn’t build trust—how you use that time does.
3. Intimacy: The Power of Personal Connection
Intimacy in a business setting doesn’t mean personal closeness—it means richness and depth of interaction. The richer the communication channel, the more trust can develop.
🔹 Face-to-Face > Email – Seeing someone’s body language and hearing their tone builds trust more than reading their words on a screen.
🔹 Alignment Between Words and Actions – Customers subconsciously pick up on inconsistencies between what you say and how you say it. If your body language contradicts your words, trust erodes.
By increasing intimacy in communication, you give customers more signals to determine your trustworthiness.
Final Thoughts
Your actions during an interaction shape how customers perceive you. Positivity, time, and intimacy determine whether trust grows or shrinks. And because bad is stronger than good, every negative action has a far greater impact than a positive one.
Next time you interact with a customer, ask yourself: Am I being honest? Am I seeing things from their perspective? Am I using time effectively? Am I communicating in a way that strengthens trust?
Because at the end of the day, trust isn’t just given—it’s earned, moment by moment.
Want to hear the whole story? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s16e11-the-three-components-that-shape-customer-trust/id1569249060?i=1000699635048
or get the book: https://amzn.to/3FFPLyf
Dr. Yoram Solomon is an expert in trust, employee engagement, teamwork, organizational culture, and leadership. He is the author of The Trust Premium, The Book of Trust, host of The Trust Show podcast, a three-time TEDx speaker, and facilitator of the Trust Habits workshop and masterclass.
The Book of Trust®, The Innovation Culture Institute®, and Trust Habits® are registered trademarks of Yoram Solomon. Trust Premium™, the Relative Trust Inventory™, and The Trust Show™ are trademarks of Yoram Solomon.
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