Trust and quality in electronic communication: Getting to know your customers bit by bit

A client was experiencing trust and information quality problems in his structured Internet communication with potential and existing customers. Customer information entered online was typically of very poor quality and a lot of effort had to be exerted to cleanse the data before it incurred costs (such as printing and sending physical mail, etc.). Additionally, the interaction with clients, both on the portal and through the newsletter, was such that there was a high risk to the trust in the client’s brand. We were asked to redesign the whole Internet-based interaction processes with his prospective and existing customers. This paper is a case study of how we changed the way this client communicated and thereby achieved better information quality, less irrelevant information and higher levels of trust.