TRUST AND CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS

TO PROVIDE INFORMATION
IN DATABASE-DRIVEN
RELATIONSHIP MARKETING

Denise D. Schoenbachler DENISE D. SCHOENBACHLER is

an Associate Professor and
Geoffrey L. Gordon GEOFFREY L. GORDON is a
Professor in the Department of
f Marketing, Northern Illinois
University, DeKalb, Illinois.

ABSTRACT
As organizations continue to embrace the concept of building
customer relationships as a way of creating a competitive
advantage, they seek to understand what makes a customer
relationship successful. This article reports the results of a survey of
consumers that explores one constructtrust in the organization
and its role in customers perception of their relationship with an
organization. In addition, trust in the organization and its influence
on customers willingness to provide the information necessary to
help build a strong relationship is examined. The findings provide
some support for the role of trust in building relationships, as well
as identifying which factors are important in building that trust.

2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and

Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.

JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING

VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
DOI: 10.1002/dir.10033

2
 TRUST AND CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION
INTRODUCTION
In todays competitive business environment,
more and more marketers are embracing a re-
lationship marketing orientation, where the
aim of the seller is to have a long-term, broad-
based relationship with the buyer in which the
occurrence of a particular transaction is only a
minor event in a long history. The goal is to
gain loyal customers to whom a marketer can
provide a variety of goods and services (Tomer,
1998). Although conceptually appealing, mar-
keters have been frustrated when faced with the
task of implementing relationship marketing.
An effective relationship in a marketing context
suggests that consumers are willingly reducing
their available market choicessomething mar-
keters must give customers a good reason to do
(Sheth & Parvatiyar, 1995). A relationship by
definition requires two-way interaction and
communication. Thus marketers have to deter-
mine how to create a dialogue and then how to
maintain that dialogue so it is beneficial to both
the marketer and the customer.
Many marketers have turned to the data-
base as the source for creating a dialogue and
thus developing relationships with customers.
The database, which at its core is a collection
of information about customers, helps mar-
keters identify customer needs, customer
wants, and customer preferences that can
then be better served in the long run.
Through modeling, loyalty programs, CRM
(Customer Relationship Management) pro-
grams, and some trial and error, the database
marketer learns who his/her customers are
and how best to communicate with them. The
database, however, is only as good as the in-
formation it contains. Obtaining personal in-
formation about customers creates concerns
for privacy and the potential for abuse of
information by marketers. Customers have to
feel comfortable enough with the marketer to
reveal information, which in turn helps the
marketer better serve the customer.
One factor proposed as a potential driver of
database-driven relationship marketing is trust
(Milne, Rohm, & Boza, 1998). Customers
must have feelings of trust toward the mar-
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
3
keter before revealing information. Trust,
however, may be a function of several related
antecedent constructs including risk percep-
tion (Doney & Cannon, 1997), credibility
(Gundlach, Achrol, & Mentzer, 1995), past
experience (Rempel, Holmes, & Zanna,
1985), reputation (Ganesan, 1994), and per-
ceived dependability (Smith & Barclay, 1997).
The purpose of this research is to look at the
role of trust as a driver of database-driven
relationship marketing in a consumer con-
text. Sheth and Parvatiyar (1995) noted that
although there has been a great deal of re-
search on relationship marketing in a busi-
ness context, very few studies have focused on
relationship marketing with respect to con-
sumer products. This work explores the rela-
tive importance of a number of trust anteced-
ents, identified in earlier research on trust
and relationships, in formulating trust be-
tween consumers and the organization in a
database relationship context. It then exam-
ines whether the establishment of trust drives
customer perceptions of a relationship and
customer willingness to provide information
to a company for further database-driven re-
lationship marketing efforts. As marketers
better understand the importance and nature
of trust in developing relationships, they can
better serve customers and better respect cus-
tomers concerns and rights to information
privacy.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Database-Driven Relationship
Marketing and Trust
Marketers efforts to develop closer relation-
ships with customers have led them to the data-
base as a tool to identify and serve customer
needs. Database marketing continues to grow
and with it more and more opportunities to
conduct transactions that do not even require
the physical presence of a buyer and seller. The
growth of database marketing has also gener-
ated increased concerns for consumer privacy
of information. Punch (1996) found that almost
85% of respondents to a survey expressed con-
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
 JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
cern about threats to personal privacy. This shift
toward remote transactions and the need for
more and more personal information sets up
the need for trust as an increasingly salient
concept.
Previous marketing literature views trust as a
factor that affects the overall relationship qual-
ity between a marketer and customer (Moor-
man, Zaltman, & Deshpande, 1992). Moorman,
Deshpande, and Zaltman (1993, p. 82) defined
trust as a willingness to rely on an exchange
partner in whom one has confidence. In fact,
when strong relational bonds exist between
marketers and customers, trust and commit-
ment become the primary predictors of future
purchase intentions, whereas in transaction-
based relationships, overall satisfaction is more
important (Garbarino & Johnson, 1999). Thus,
customers perceiving a strong relationship with
a marketer are willing to look beyond a less than
satisfactory experience, if trust is high. Market-
ers attempting to implement relationship mar-
keting and build partnerships with consumers
must consider how consumer trust factors into
the relationship (Fournier, Dobscha, & Mick,
1998).
Within the database marketing literature spe-
cifically, trust is identified as a potential mech-
anism to build relationships (Campbell, 1997).
Database marketers are completely dependent
on customer information to more efficiently
target those customers desired products and
services (Parsons, Zeisser, & Waitman, 1998).
Thus, database marketers are able to strengthen
their information resources through relation-
ship-building practices (Milne et al., 1998).
Milne and Boza (1999) provided support for
this notion with their study in the database mar-
keting context, in which they found that, across
industries, building trust is a more effective
marketing strategy in the context of managing
consumer information than is an effort to sim-
ply reduce customers concerns. They also
found that trust has a positive effect on pur-
chase levels. In theory, then, marketers who can
build long-term customer relationships and mu-
tually beneficial customer databases through
trust development should foster greater loyalty
and, in the long run, firm profitability.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
4
Database-Driven Relationship
Marketing and Personal Information
Although building trust seems a plausible strat-
egy to enhance customer relationships, data-
base marketers must overcome customer vul-
nerability concernsspecifically consumer
privacy concerns. Although privacy has been
defined a number of ways, there has been no
real consensus. Young (1978, p. 2) concluded
that privacy, like an elephant, is more readily
recognized than described. Efforts to protect
customer privacy tend to be either legalistic or
behavioral (Goodwin, 1991). Legalistic ap-
proaches either limit the number of marketing
intrusions, educate consumers, or allow con-
sumers to protect themselves through legal
mechanisms. The behavioral approaches sug-
gested include preference checkoffs that will
allow consumers to make their own privacy
tradeoffs with respect to a particular firm, prod-
uct, and/or service. For example, most legiti-
mate e-mail marketers provide a clear and sim-
ple opt-out option for consumers. The
behavioral approaches recognize the diversity
of consumer preferences about privacy. For ex-
ample, some consumers, such as the catalog
shopper, use mail as a convenience, and these
individuals may perceive the gain of conve-
nience to be worth the price of privacy. Other
consumers may be willing to provide informa-
tion in an anonymous survey for some form of
compensation.
Petrison and Wang (1995) note that the
construct of privacy includes numerous di-
mensions, including (1) controlling access to
information about oneself (informational pri-
vacy); (2) being alone (physical privacy); (3)
not being bothered by others (interactional
privacy); (4) living away from others (seclu-
sion). In the database relationship marketing
context, the primary dimension of privacy
that causes concern among customers is infor-
mational privacy.
Nowak and Phelps (1995) pointed out that,
from a legal perspective, it is individual-level
information (rather than group-level informa-
tion) such as credit and financial histories,
license applications, and personal demo-
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
 TRUST AND CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION
graphics, that is relevant. In addition, they
suggest that some dimensions of consumer
information have more relevance than others.
Consumer attitudes about use of personal in-
formation seem to vary depending on the
situation, the company using the information,
the type of marketing context where the in-
formation is used, the specificity of informa-
tion requested, and certain customer demo-
graphics (Nowak & Phelps, 1992; Wang &
Petrison, 1993). Consumers, in general, be-
lieve they are asked to provide excessive
amounts of personal information and that
they have little control over what happens to
the information collected (Nowak & Phelps,
1992). Many express high levels of concern
about the ways companies use personal infor-
mation and would like to have the opportu-
nity to have more control over information
collection and use (Phelps, Nowak, & Ferrell,
2000).
In a cross-cultural look at privacy concerns,
American consumers, as compared to British
consumers, are more likely to object to use of
personal information only when the revela-
tion of that information has a strong potential
to lead to some sort of specific negative con-
sequences. For example, consumers are less
willing to provide credit history information if
it is likely to lead to the denial of credit.
Similarly, consumers are more reticent about
providing a phone number to a retailer if they
believe it will lead to the receipt of unwanted
direct mail or telephone solicitations (Petri-
son & Wang, 1995). Specifically, consumers
indicate they are most willing to provide gen-
eral demographic information (such as age or
marital status) and lifestyle information (such
as hobbies), and least willing to provide finan-
cial information and personal identifiers
(Phelps et al., 2000). Thus, the key to success
in developing a database-driven relationship,
personal information, raises concerns among
consumers, and the success of the relation-
ship is predicated on building customer con-
fidence so they are willing to provide the
individual-level information needed to build a
relationship.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
5
Trust, Relationship Marketing, and
Willingness to Provide Personal
Information
Morgan and Hunt (1994) noted that any abuse
of information can result in a loss of trust be-
tween exchange partners. Moorman and col-
leagues (1993) suggested that trust reflects a
reliance on a partner and involves vulnerability
and uncertainty on the part of the trustor. With-
out vulnerability, trust is unnecessary. This per-
spective also suggests that some element of un-
certainty is critical to trust since there is no need
for trust if the trustor has control over or com-
plete knowledge about the actions of the ex-
change partner. In the database marketing con-
text, customers can be perceived as vulnerable
in that they do not control or have complete
knowledge of the use of personal information.
Although the marketers intent may not be to
withhold knowledge or control, many custom-
ers are not aware of the amount, type, or use of
personal data. Certainly, then, firms that follow
short-run, opportunistic practices may risk
alienating their relationships as well as sources
of information for the database and future
growth. Ganesan (1994) found that establishing
trust could help reduce perceptions of risk of
opportunistic behavior by a partner in an ex-
change relationship.
It appears that trust is a major driver of rela-
tionship marketing derived from database mar-
keting. Much of the literature on relationship
marketing addresses the issue and importance
of trust. In terms of implementing trust-build-
ing strategies appropriate to the database-mar-
keting scenario, little guidance is offered. The
concern for database marketers is that existing
trust and relationship marketing research does
not directly relate to the potentially high-risk
interactions taking place in database marketing.
Because the marketer has access to and use of
consumers personal information, there is in-
herent risk that such information could be used
inappropriately or shared inadvertently. In ad-
dition, because many database marketing trans-
actions take place without face-to-face interac-
tion or without actually seeing or trying the
product or service, consumers may perceive a
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
 JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
greater transaction risk. In the consumer con-
text, most transactions are for personal use
rather than organizational use and, thus, the
perceived risk may be greater.
Relationship marketing requires an invest-
ment of energy, time, and attention to develop
and sustain a bond between buyers and sellers.
A partnership between the provider and cus-
tomer also involves a mutual commitment to
doing business with each other. Thus, there is a
willingness of both to forsake alternative trans-
actions offering opportunities for short-term fi-
nancial advantage. Relationship marketing also
involves continuous communication between
buyers and sellers. Communication fosters
learning, and thereby the improvement of
goods and services in terms of their ability to
satisfy the needs of the customer (Tomer,
1998). Generally, relationship marketing is
viewed as a win-win situation for both parties. In
an ideal relationship marketing context, the
partners (buyers and sellers) utilize the best of
todays flexible information technologies to aid
the learning and customization processes.
How, then, do sellers develop this relation-
ship to provide what customers really need?
Panelists from several large relationship market-
ing supporting firms suggest that identifying
top customers through a quality database is a
first critical step of any program. Even though a
programs objectives may be to drive consumer
loyalty, recency and frequency, increase reve-
nues, and increase market share for the brand,
incentives do not drive a relationship-marketing
program. Rather, it is the databases quality, the
information itself and how it is used and ob-
tained, that drives the program and targets cus-
tomers (Relationship Marketing, 1998).
The key to successful relationship marketing,
the quality database, comes with the increased
vulnerability customers may feel because their
personal information is being used without
their real control or knowledge. Thus there is a
risk that customers will perceive the potential
for abuse of their personal information. The
move toward relationship marketing, albeit ap-
pealing to both marketers and consumers in
theory, is dependent on information. Some sug-
gest, however, that a focus on relationship mar-
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
6
keting may actually help manage customer pri-
vacy issues (Campbell, 1997; Shaver, 1996). The
information in a marketing database is the key
to identifying and successfully serving key cus-
tomers. As the relationship is established, using
information, the customer is more likely to pro-
vide additional information and to feel less vul-
nerable. The development of the relationship,
however, is dependent on establishing trust.
Trust and Its Antecedents
Marketers must balance customers perception
of the positive effects of relationship marketing
with the negative concerns about abuse of pri-
vate information. Developing stronger trust re-
lationships with customers may provide that bal-
ance. Interorganizational trust exists when an
exchange partner has confidence in another
exchange partners reliability and integrity
(Morgan & Hunt, 1994). It is the generalized
expectancy that the word of another can be
relied on. On an interpersonal level, trust is
defined as having clear, mutually agreed upon
expectations (Gabarro, 1978).
Although related, the interorganizational
and interpersonal trust literature streams do
not address the relationship between the end-
consumer and an organization. These relation-
ships are somewhat different from the tradi-
tional contexts because of the power
asymmetry between the two parties (Milne et
al., 1998). Thus the trust needed to establish a
relationship whereby consumers are comfort-
able enough (or trusting enough) to provide
personal information to further the relation-
ship is not firmly defined.
Within the trust literature, several constructs
emerge across studies that may be key in the
development of the personal-organizational
trust critical in a database-driven relationship.
Perceived risk, for example, is often a factor
affecting a trust relationship (Doney & Cannon,
1997). Within the context of database market-
ing, a customer has to weigh the costs and ben-
efits of providing personal information to an
unknown person or organization. The database
marketing relationship is basically impersonal
and uncertain and therefore perceived risk is
likely to be higher than in traditional exchange
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
 TRUST AND CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION
relationships. Rieck (1999) noted that people
want to avoid risk. Although customers want to
pursue gain, the urge to avoid loss is even more
powerful. In a database-driven marketing con-
text, customers often cannot see the product/
service or even the salesperson. Thus, there is
an inherent level of suspicion that must be over-
come that is not as prevalent in a traditional
retail context. In the database context, this issue
is compounded by the fact that most customers
do not really understand how the database and
a database-driven business operate (Rieck,
1999).
Similarly, credibility is a factor influencing
trust (Gundlach et al., 1995). A firms credibility
may be critical particularly where the only rela-
tionship or interaction is with the organization
by name. In direct and database-driven market-
ing, it is likely the interaction is directly with the
organization, rather than with a salesperson.
The organizations messages, statements re-
garding privacy, guarantees, and even product
descriptions must be credible to foster the de-
velopment of trust. Rosenspan (1999) sug-
gested that, today more than ever, it is essential
to create credibility among prospects and cus-
tomers. Westphal (1998) affirmed that market-
ers today are having a more difficult time gain-
ing credibility, and it is taking longer. Database-
driven marketers who do create credibility have
an enormous advantage over those that do not.
Prior interactions or past experience may
also foster (or detract from) the trust necessary
to build database-driven relationships (Rempel
et al., 1985). Continued positive experiences
with a company can help strengthen ties with an
organization, further encouraging provision of
personal information. As customers learn that a
company uses information responsibly to mar-
ket more effectively to them, they are more
likely to develop trust.
Firm reputation can also contribute to
greater trust and perception of a customer
company relationship (Ganesan, 1994). Cus-
tomers are becoming less tolerant of ethical
errors, particularly when concerns of privacy
are at risk. Amazon.coms announcement that
its database is counted as an asset and therefore
saleable, and failed E-toys attempt to sell its
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
7
database during bankruptcy proceedings dem-
onstrate the effect media can have on firm rep-
utation. Database-driven marketers must have a
strong firm reputation that in turn builds trust.
Customers are often being asked to purchase
and provide personal information without a
substantive physical presence. The firms repu-
tation, developed primarily through media and
word of mouth, becomes a major factor in de-
veloping trust.
Customers perception of firm dependability
may also influence the trust in a database mar-
keting relationship (Smith & Barclay, 1997). If
customers perceive that a company will deliver
on its specific promises and claims, their per-
ception of dependability increases as does over-
all trust. Perceptions of dependability can be
developed through experience, claims, market-
ing communications, and ties with other de-
pendable entities. For example, promoting
next-day delivery service may increase percep-
tion of dependability on the part of a customer.
It is further enhanced when the delivery pro-
vider is named and has a reputation for provid-
ing next day service.
Based on the preceding overview of the rele-
vant literature, Figure 1 presents a model that
proposes relationships between the antecedents
of trust posited to be relevant in the database-
driven marketing context and trust in the orga-
nization. Trust in the organization is then pur-
ported to influence customers willingness to
provide personal information and the custom-
ers perceptions that they have a relationship
with the organization. This model specifically
draws on the literature to propose the nature of
trust relationships in a database-driven context
where personal information is needed and used
to market effectively. It assumes that most ex-
changes will be dependent on the database and
that these exchanges will likely be directthat
is no salesperson will serve to facilitate the trans-
action or to act as an agent in building the trust
or relationship.
METHOD
A national survey of 5,000 direct mail response
consumers was used to explore the relation-
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
 JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
FIGURE 1
Trust in a Database-Driven Relationship
ships proposed in Figure 1. The sample was
drawn from a list of recent (12-month) mail
order buyers by a major list brokerage firm of
U.S. consumer names and addresses. Mail order
buyers were chosen because this type of trans-
action requires provision of personal informa-
tion (at a minimum name, address, phone num-
ber, credit card), and no face-to-face interaction
with a salesperson. Respondents were asked to
consider and describe a recent direct mail pur-
chase. They were asked to indicate the prod-
uct(s) purchased, the brand name purchased,
the marketer (or direct mailer) of the product,
nature of the solicitation (catalog, mail, direct
response to advertisement, online), price paid
for the product, and when it was purchased.
Respondents were then asked to complete a
survey based on the direct mail purchase iden-
tified. Most prior research on trust, relation-
ships, and willingness to provide information
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
8
has either used hypothetical scenarios (e.g.,
Wang & Petrison, 1993) or survey questions
about relationships and/or use of personal in-
formation in general (e.g., Nowak & Phelps,
1992; Phelps et al., 2000). Asking respondents
to consider an actual purchase situation consid-
ers the situational impact of a purchase on re-
lationships and willingness to provide informa-
tion.
The survey instrument consisted of multi-
item scale measurements of each of the trust
components (credibility, past experience, repu-
tation of the company, perception of depend-
ability, and perceived risk), a measurement of
overall trust, willingness to provide personal in-
formation for marketing use, and a measure of
respondents perception of the relationship be-
tween the organization/seller and the cus-
tomer. Respondents were also asked a series of
demographic classification questions.
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
 TRUST AND CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION

TABLE 1
Constructs and Sample Survey Items*

Construct Coefficient Alpha Sample Items

Perceived Risk 3 items .70 The product/service I purchased from this company is NOT very
important to me.
I do NOT think there is much risk involved with purchasing a
product/service from this company.
Credibility 3 items .82 This company is honest.
This company is one I can believe in.
Past Experience 3 items .88 My experiences with this company in the past have been good.
I have done business with this company often in the past.
Reputation 4 items .76 This company has a good reputation in the market.
This company is NOT well known in its industry (reverse
scored).
Dependability 3 items .84 I know I can depend on this company to follow through.
This company keeps promises it makes to customers.
Overall Trust 4 items .72 I can trust this company to keep my best interest in mind.
I find it necessary to be cautious with this company (reverse
scored).
Willingness to Provide .87 I am willing to provide this company with information about me.
Information 5 items
I am willing to provide this company with information about my
product needs.
Perception of a Relationship .81 I plan to do business with this company in the future.
4 items
I feel that I have a good relationship with this company.

* On a 6-point scale anchored with 1 strongly disagree and 6 strongly agree.

The items measuring the antecedents to trust
and the overall trust measure were derived from
existing scales measuring these constructs, and
adapted to a 6-point Likert-type scale anchored
by strongly disagree and strongly agree.
Where necessary, the items were also adapted to
a consumer purchase context and to refer to
the specific company and purchase situation.
Willingness to provide personal information
and the relationship perception measures were
specifically designed and pretested for this re-
search. Table 1 contains sample items for each
measure and reliability estimates for each.
The willingness to provide personal informa-
tion and relationship perception measures were
developed using multiple items derived from
related research, pretesting the measure on a
sample of consumers, and calculating overall
reliability and item-total correlations. The over-
all trust measure was also pretested using the
same criteria because the items, although
adapted from existing scales, were changed sig-
nificantly to apply to the consumer, direct mar-
keting context. Items with correlations below .5
were discarded. A second round of pretesting
was used to again assess measure reliability and
item-total correlations. The final measures of
willingness to provide information consisted of
five items (coefficient alpha .87), perception
of a relationship consisted of four items (coef-
ficient alpha .81), and overall trust consisted
of four items (coefficient alpha .72).
A pre-notification postcard mailing was sent
two weeks prior to the actual survey mailing to
notify recipients that a survey would be forth-
coming and the importance of its completion.
Of the 5,000 cards and surveys sent, the U.S.
Postal Service returned 398. A total of 1,338

JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002

9
 JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
completed, usable product data points were ob-
tained and used in the analysis for a 29% re-
sponse rate.
The survey asked respondents to provide
some personal demographic information. This
may have introduced response bias since those
individuals that are willing to provide personal
information in response to a survey may be
more willing to provide personal information to
a marketer. To check for such bias, a conve-
nience sample of 200 consumers was asked to
complete the survey. One half of the surveys
contained the same request for demographic
information as the original survey and one half
did not ask for any personal demographic in-
formation. The response rates and responses to
the measures of willingness to provide informa-
tion, trust in the organization, and perception
of a relationship were compared for the two
groups. There were no significant differences in
response rates for the two groups and there
were no differences in response to the depen-
dent variables for the groups. The convenience
sample providing demographic data was
younger, more educated, and had lower income
than the general sample.
A second test of the potential bias associated
with asking respondents for personal informa-
tion was a comparison of responses between
respondents completing all information and
those electing not to complete all or part of the
demographic items. Almost 20% of the sample
did not complete the income item, and a
smaller percentage did not complete one or
more of the remaining demographic items.
This groups responses were compared to the
remainder of the sample (those completing all
items) and no significant differences were
found between the groups.
RESULTS
Antecedents to Trust
Table 2 summarizes the results of the regression
analysis used to test for the relationship be-
tween the proposed antecedents to trust and
the trust construct in a database-driven context.
It indicates that the proposed relationship be-
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
10
TABLE 2
Relationship between Elements of Trust and
Organization Trust
Independent Significance
Variable Beta T of T
Perceived Risk .006 .061 .951
Credibility .124 1.045 .301
Past Experience .057 .577 .566
Reputation of
Company .271 2.424 .019*
Perception of
Dependability .571 4.444 .000*
* Significant at the .05 level.
tween perceived risk and organization trust is
not supported. Similarly, the antecedent credi-
bility of an organization and past experience
with a company were not significantly related to
overall trust in the organization. There is, how-
ever, a positive relationship between the repu-
tation of a company and trust and the percep-
tion of dependability and trust.
Milne and Boza (1999) found differences in
perceptions of trust by industry. To test if this
were the case in this research, two independent
coders coded products named by respondents
by industry. The products purchased fell into
seven industry categories: credit card issuers,
telephone/telecommunications companies, ap-
parel, computers/home electronics, books/
CDs, catalog companies, and other industries.
Table 3 summarizes findings by industry cate-
gory.
When the relationship between the trust an-
tecedents and overall trust are viewed by indus-
try, the importance of reputation and percep-
tion of dependability in developing trust are
confirmed. Reputation is a significant factor in
trust in all but two industries (telephone/tele-
communications and other) and perception of
dependability is important in all but the credit
card industry. In addition, the antecedents that
were not significant across industries were sig-
nificant in specific industries. For example, past
experience with a company was a significant
antecedent to trust in telephone/telecommuni-
cations, apparel, computer, and catalog indus-
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 TRUST AND CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION

TABLE 3
Relationships between Trust Antecedents and Trust by Industry (Betas Reported)

Perceived Past
Industry Risk Credibility Experience Reputation Dependability

Credit card .02 .07 .01 .09* .001

Telephone .02 .06 .11* .07 .10*
Apparel .04 .02 .21* .08* .09*
Computer .17* .03 .09* .24* .11*
Books/cds .06 .04 .002 .09* .18*
Catalog .01 .02 .13* .16* .08*
Other .12* .05 .04 .06 .14*

* Significant at .05 level.

tries. These results support Milne and Bozas
(1999) findings that concern and trust differed
somewhat by industry.
The importance of the antecedents to trust
may vary by the method consumers use to make
purchases. Consumers may use telephone, mail,
or online methods to actually purchase many
mail order items. When consumers order by
telephone, there is a person-to-person contact
not present in online or mail order that may
influence the antecedents to trust. Online pur-
chasing is relatively new and may be perceived
as more risky. Thus, the antecedents to trust
may be more important. Surprisingly, there
were no significant relationships between the
method of purchase and each of the trust ante-
cedents.
Trust and Relationships
Table 4 presents the findings exploring the re-
lationship between overall organizational trust
and two dependent variables, willingness to pro-
vide information and the perception of a rela-
tionship with the company. Once trust is estab-
lished, customers should be more likely to
provide information than when trust is not
present. Similarly, the customer trusting the or-
ganization should be more likely to perceive a
relationship with the company. The table sug-
gests that a customers feelings of trust in a
company do influence his/her willingness to
provide information to the company as sug-
gested. In addition, customers with higher lev-
els of trust also perceive that they have a rela-
tionship with the organization, rather than just
engaging in transactions with that organization.
Given the differences by industry in the im-
portance of trust antecedents, it is possible that
the relationship between trust in the organiza-
tion and willingness to provide information and
perception of a relationship with a company will
differ by industry. Table 5 summarizes the re-

TABLE 4
Relationship between Trust in an Organization and Perceptions of a Relationship with an Organization and Willingness
to Provide Information

Significance
Dependent Variable Beta T of T

Willingness to Provide Information .317 2.546 .014*

Perception of a Relationship with the Organization .328 2.640 .011*

* Significant at the .05 level.

JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002

11
 JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
TABLE 5
Trust in an Organization and Perceptions of a
Relationship and Willingness to Provide Information by
Industry (Betas Reported)
Willingness
to Provide
Industry Information
Credit card .09
Telephone .19*
Apparel .24*
Computer .31*
Books/cds .37*
Catalog .11*
Other .22*
* Significant at the .05 level.
sults of these constructs by industry. The find-
ings in Table 5 suggest that the relationship
between trust and willingness to provide infor-
mation and the perception of a relationship
with a company hold across industries. The only
nonsignificant relationship is between trust and
willingness to provide information in the credit
card industry.
Willingness to provide information and the
consumers perception of a relationship with a
company may also differ by the method of pur-
chase (telephone, mail, or online) used by the
consumer. For example, consumers may feel
more confident providing information to a per-
son on the telephone as compared to providing
information online, where security of informa-
tion remains a consumer concern. On the other
hand, consumers may actually be more willing
to provide information online where the com-
panys privacy policy is clearly stated and con-
sumers are regularly assured that there is a se-
cure connection. Comparison of mean
willingness to provide information revealed a
significant difference for those using mail to
purchase and both online and telephone. Con-
sumers ordering through the mail are more
likely to be willing to provide information than
those purchasing using other means (t 4.5; p
.05). Comparison of mean perception of a
relationship with the company did not differ by
method of purchase.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
CONCLUSIONS AND MANAGERIAL
IMPLICATIONS
The findings from this study provide some sup-
port for the model proposed in Figure 1. Based
Perception of on the premise that trust in the organization is
Relationship a key to developing successful relationships with
with Company consumers in a database-driven context, the
model suggested that five factors acted as ante-
.27* cedents to developing that trust in an organiza-
.31* tion. This premise was tested based on consum-
.19* ers evaluation of the importance of the
.24* antecedents in a specific, self-generated, mail
.15* order context. In this context, only two of the
.29* five antecedents to trust are significant in this
.32* model across industries, suggesting that trust in
an organization may be more dependent on a
companys reputation and dependability than
on the actual purchase situation. That is, con-
sumers evaluate reputation and their percep-
tion of a companys dependability when devel-
oping trust in that company. Thus, direct
marketers wanting to establish a trust relation-
ship with consumers would be best served em-
phasizing their reputation and dependability.
Fortunately for marketers, both reputation and
dependability are perceived by consumers as
characteristics or attributes of a company and
can be developed and maintained through
strong communication efforts. Reputation can
be enhanced through brand or image advertis-
ing in addition to strong word of mouth. Online
marketers can attest to the importance of brand
promotion and advertising to develop a reputa-
tion and perception of dependability to gain
consumer trust.
Creating and maintaining both reputation
and dependability require more than just a
good communication strategy, though. Market-
ers must be vigilant in protecting reputation
and perceptions by providing excellence in cus-
tomer service, product quality, fulfillment, and
customer communication. The best developed
communication strategy to build reputation can
be rendered useless through poor fulfillment or
customer service. Toys R Us learned this les-
son during its entry online a few years ago when
it could not fulfill orders in time for Christmas.
Perhaps as interesting as the finding that rep-
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
12
 TRUST AND CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION
utation and dependability may be key to gaining
consumer trust in a mail order context, is the
finding that the remaining three proposed an-
tecedentsperceived risk, credibility, and past
experience with the companywere not signif-
icant in building trust. Perceived risk may not
have been significant in forming trust in this
study because the specific purchase context was
not dictated. Respondents may have described
less risky purchase scenarios for the study and
thus, perceived risk was low. Perhaps consumers
tend to avoid mail order purchases when per-
ceived risk is high. This study would not have
captured this information. Although past re-
search identified perceived risk as key in devel-
oping trust, most research proposing this rela-
tionship was in the personal selling context.
Consumers may save their high-risk purchases
for personal selling situations.
Credibility was also not a significant predictor
of trust in the organization. This is a bit surpris-
ing considering it is more similar to reputation
and perception of dependability in that compa-
nies can be pro-active in developing credibility
through communication strategy and credibility
can be quickly erased through poor company
performance. The credibility construct may not
be as important in developing trust in the direct
marketing context, even though it is consis-
tently identified as an important element in
trust and building relationships in a channels of
distribution context. Perhaps in the channels
context, where credibility has been most often
tested as an element of trust, the discrepant
power relations inherent in that context make
credibility key to developing trust and relation-
ships. In a mail order or direct marketing sales
scenario, the power balance is not as disparate
and therefore credibility less critical. That is, a
consumers need to believe everything a mar-
keter says is not as strong as a channel partners
need to believe what other channel members
say since the potential loss is great. It would be
interesting to study the role of credibility of a
company in a controlled, direct marketing sce-
nario study where the consumers potential risk
or loss is much greater.
Finally, past experience with the company
was not significant in building trust in a com-
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
13
pany. This finding may be a function of the
nature of the study. In this study, respondents
completed the questions based on a specific
mail order purchase they had made. It is likely
that this purchase was either a first-time pur-
chase from a company and thus the respondent
had no past experience, or if the respondent
did have past experience, it would most likely be
positive experience or the consumer would not
have returned to the company to order. Thus,
in hindsight, the study design essentially elimi-
nated the potential for much variation in past
experience with the company.
Perhaps the most important finding to mar-
keters interested in building relationships with
consumers is the support for the importance of
trust in building strong relationships with cus-
tomers. Customers trust in the organization is
important in building their perception that a
relationship with the organization exists. Con-
sumers who feel they can trust a company also
feel they have a relationship with that company.
In a marketing environment such as businesses
face today where building relationships is al-
most necessary for company survival, under-
standing this relationship provides marketers
with important building blocks. Direct market-
ers that approach relationship marketing as
simply a good loyalty program, or good data-
base modeling, or a good CRM program are
missing the key element building trust. Al-
though loyalty programs, CRM, and modeling
are important, these tactics potentially build re-
peat buyers but not relationships. In order to go
beyond simply getting consumers to buy more,
this study reveals that the consumer must first
trust the organization. Although not measured
in this study, it would be interesting to ask con-
sumers who are repeat purchasers and/or par-
ticipants in loyalty programs if they perceive
that they have a relationship with the company
they purchase from. This study suggests that the
answer would be yes only if those consumers
also trust the company. Thus consumers may fly
only one airline to get frequent flyer miles, and
the airline defines this as a relationship. If the
consumer does not trust the airline, he/she
would not view this as a relationship with the
airline, but rather a series of repeat purchases.
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
 JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
The difference becomes apparent when a com-
peting airline offers a better program. The con-
sumer who trusts the airline and perceives a
relationship with the airline is more likely to
remain loyal. Direct marketers must differenti-
ate between relationships with consumers built
on trust, and simple repeat purchase behavior
to improve customer retention and satisfaction.
Direct marketing organizations focusing on a
customer relationship approach to gain a com-
petitive advantage must develop trust through
the antecedents identified as significant in
building trust, reputation, and dependability.
The marketer must coordinate a strong commu-
nication strategy to build reputation and per-
ceptions of dependability with a relationship
marketing program based on trust. This sug-
gests, perhaps, that direct marketers should be-
gin incorporating a more integrated marketing
communications (IMC) program that may in-
clude brand or corporate advertising as well as
loyalty-based promotions and programs. Posi-
tive public relations can also help build reputa-
tion. Solid fulfillment and customer service pro-
grams can help build perception of
dependability and consequently trust in the
company.
Similarly, companies using database-driven
marketing and therefore relying on personal
information to build a relationship must first
build trust to maximize consumers willingness
to provide information. Across industries, the
findings in this study suggest that consumers
purchasing through mail order, either by tele-
phone, mail, or online, are more willing to pro-
vide information to companies if the trust has
been built. This research study did not break
out types of information, but it did measure
both willingness to provide personal informa-
tion about the consumer and willingness to pro-
vide information about product/service needs
and wants. In both situations, consumers are
equally likely to be more open to providing
information, when the trust has been estab-
lished. Direct marketers can help build that
trust by protecting consumers information and
ensuring that the company is dependable with
respect to consumers concerns about personal
information.
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
14
For example, the mail order prescription
house earns its perception of dependability by
providing prescriptions on time and being ac-
curate in filling prescriptions and billing. Its
reputation is built through online advertising
and perhaps mass media advertising as well as
physician referrals. Having a clear and pub-
lished privacy policy including information on
how consumer information is handled further
builds reputation and perceptions of depend-
ability. Consumers build trust in the organiza-
tion and are now more willing to provide addi-
tional personal information, even medical
history information, to help the prescription
mail order firm provide better service. What the
mail order firm does with the information may
serve as a further feedback loop to the reputa-
tion and perception of dependability. Selling,
sharing, or using the information indiscrimi-
nately will likely hurt reputation/dependability
and consequently trust and willingness to pro-
vide more information. The relationship is then
lost.
The finding that the antecedent and trust
relationships hold across industries (for the
most part) and across methods of purchase sug-
gests that the results of this study may be useful
in many direct marketing contexts. In all indus-
tries identified by respondents, at least one of
the two overall antecedents (reputation and
perception of dependability) was significantly
related to trust. Thus direct marketers pursuing
a relationship marketing strategy generally
should be concerned with building reputation
and dependability regardless of industry. Inter-
estingly, this held true across industries requir-
ing diverse levels of financial risk (such as com-
puters and books), diverse types of information
(such as credit card financial information and
apparel size), and both tangible and intangible
products (books/CDs and telephone service).
Once the trust is established, consumers are
much more likely to perceive a relationship with
the company across all industries, further dem-
onstrating the importance of direct marketers
putting efforts into establishing trust as part of
relationship marketing strategy. With the excep-
tion of credit cards, trust was significant in pre-
dicting a willingness to provide information to
VOLUME 16 / NUMBER 3 / SUMMER 2002
 TRUST AND CUSTOMER WILLINGNESS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION
marketers. Again, the relevance of this finding
supports marketers need to emphasize trust-
building over program- or tactic-building when
the real goal is a relationship. The credit card
industry may be the exception because of the
nature of the information required (often
credit history and financial information) and
the potential risk of being denied credit or the
information being used for alternative uses. It
may also be a function of consumers acknowl-
edging that a credit card company must have
certain types of personal data to issue credit and
therefore trust is not necessary for consumers to
be willing to supply such information.
This research study provides managers with
some direction for building relationships and
maximizing consumer willingness to provide in-
formation, but it also suggests areas for future
work on this topic. One such direction is repli-
cation of this type of study where the type of
personal information requested is more clearly
defined. This study defined personal informa-
tion generally and did not define different types
of information for the respondent to consider,
except for differentiating personal information
about the consumer and personal information
about product/service needs and wants. It
would be very interesting and useful to measure
the role of trust and willingness to divulge dif-
ferent types of information. Taking this a step
further, future research might explore willing-
ness to provide information and perceptions of
a relationship when consumers are made aware
of how the information will be used. Consumers
may be more or less willing, regardless of trust,
if they knew the information would be sold to
other marketers, or used in a telemarketing or
e-mail marketing campaign, or kept only to
make offers related to past purchase behavior.
Future research should also seek to identify
other antecedents to trust. This research was
based on prior work on trust and relationships
in marketing, but most of that work has been
done in a business-to-business and personal sell-
ing context. Future work should explore new
constructs relevant to building trust in the busi-
ness-to-consumer context, and specifically in
the direct marketing context.
The general implications of this research are
JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE MARKETING
15
clear. Organizations concerned with building a
database of information and using that informa-
tion to secure customer relationships, not just
repeat customers, must first work toward estab-
lishing a trust relationship with customers. Al-
though a number of constructs have been pos-
ited to influence trust, in the direct response
product purchase context, the key factors are
the reputation of the organization and custom-
ers perception of the organizations depend-
ability. Firms must focus first on building these
elements to then develop a competitive advan-
tage based on customer relationship manage-
ment.
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