Your reputation matters to you. At work you care what others think about your performance and reliability. At home you care that your friends like you and your family and significant others feel they can trust you. In community, like anywhere else in life, reputation matters.

More so than at any other point in corporate history, consumer trust in your messages is at an all time low. Honestly, with all the things that have happened in the last decade, who can blame them.

The notion of trust has always played a factor in a purchase decision. Whether an explicit checkbox on their purchase requirements (are other people using this company, are they financially stable, will the product do what they say it will) or it has been part of a subconscious criteria set (I trust the sales person to do right by me).

Trust is there for us to lose

Trust is relevant at many points in the customer life cycle. A customer trusts that the recommendations given to them about a product to buy are correct, they trust it will work as advertised, that if they have an issue it can be resolved with as little fuss as possible, that they can upgrade seemlessly (if that is relevant).

With all that said, have you noticed that it doesn't actually take much to establish trust? I think most of us are hardwired to some extent to trust people. I remember reading an article in the early days of eBay, that the company's trading method ran on the principle that everyone is fundamentally good and trustworthy. And I have to tend to agree with that. Yes there are exceptions, especially people who take advantage of that trust, but I'd like to think that we aren't predisposed as a race to be disingenuous.

So lets look at the following simplistic scenario.

You're looking to buy a set of drill bits for some projects at home. What do you do? Odds on it could be any or all of the following...

• ask a couple of friends what they think. You will get as many answers as friends you ask

• head to you your local home improvement store and look in the tools aisle and be overwhelmed by all the options

• visit Amazon.com and check out the power tool accessories category, and see again be overwhelmed by the 354 results that are returned

So how do you make a choice (we'll take budget out of the equation to make things easier)? Well you could ask an Expert. In our scenarios, these would take the form of:

• assistant at the store

• expert or peer reviews online

• perhaps an expert community, say a home improvement community

But who is to say these people are right in their recommendations? How do you trust their suggestions?

I read these reviews. I trust them to help me make an informed decision, that I am going to steer away from lemons and make a good purchase. But interestingly, why do I trust these people. I have no relationship at all with them. In fact, other than Bob, my friendly assistant at the home improvement store, I don't even know the names or credentials of the people who are helping me spend my money.

The power of the crowd & the reputation of one

So, why should I believe in the reviews or comments from 'Drill Guy from N Dakota' or 'ProCarpenter from Indiana'?

One indicator you will be looking for is not necessarily around the individual but around how many individuals reflect that same opinion. The power of the crowd provides a level of confidence that the choice you are making is the one that has the consensus of the masses. You don't even need to know who these people are, but the fact that a lot of them say something very similar will lead you to trust the opinion of the group.

Okay, that leads us in the right direction. What about if you have a specific question about the drill bits you are about to purchase. Let's say both Drill Guy and ProCarpenter both respond. Which is the answer you trust?

What if the ProCarpenter had a reputation for knowing his stuff? Perhaps an official badge that said '340 people say this guy knows his Power Tools' or a rating that says he has solved '57 specific power tool questions'. Peer reputation is a powerful thing, and is something that is respected by users and highly prized by the recipients. More and more, it is being prized by companies too.

What happens if you have and army of Drill Guys and ProCarpenters helping solve issues for you in your community? Consistently in my dealings with companies who embrace customer communties, I see passionate, loyal and incredibly knowledgeable fans of all types of products, laptops, printers, vpn equipment, even credit scores (FICO has an incredibly active community around credit scoring, and won a Forrester Groundswell award in 2009 for the work it was doing in this space).

The people in these communities believe in your products and the things they say have weight with other users, both existing customers and new prospects. Their knowledge can solve people's issues, save you money, give you suggestions for product improvements, ideas for entirely new product lines. In fact their reputation for having that knowledge can even help actively evangelize your products to people in the market.

Trust and reputation go hand in hand. When your community can reward users for their help by building their reputation with their peers, then you have powerful army of advocates at your disposal and a real asset on your hands.