Audacious merger propels King & Wood Mallesons into top 20 legal brands globally.

The newly merged King & Wood Mallesons brand now ranks No. 16 in the Acritas Sharplegal Global Legal Brand rankings.

To offer their clients the best possible service, King & Wood Mallesons put a strong focus on their client’s needs. This seems to pay off through the only sino-western merger and a strong brand focus.

mext supported King & Wood Mallesons in developing the new brand and communications and worked with mr mumbles as the creative agency. The brand was developed with the help of mext’s cutting edge brand development tools based on the most modern psychology.

One of the tools, HuNeeds®, is able to map client & employee needs and help position the brand, its practices, people and offers. HuTrust® is globally the only robust approach to analysing, building and managing trust.

The initial launch of the merged brand led to accolades in the legal and marketing industry, with Wall Street Journal exclaiming: ‘London and New York beware. Here comes King & Wood Mallesons.’

King & Wood Mallesons was also the only professional services entry nominated finalist in the prestigious AMA New Brand Launch awards against the likes of BUPA. Apart from brand and marketing success, the launch led immediately to new business leads. Two weeks after launch of the merged brand the Asia Wall Street Paper reported that King & Wood Mallesons was already working on 40 new business cases and matters.

New study out now. Banks just make trust threshold, almost half don't trust their banks for Competence, over half don't trust the banks for their vision

New study shows Australian banks are barely trusted because of lack of trust in their vision and competence.

Banks globally are struggling with low customer trust. Now a new study, using a methodology to dimensionalise trust, uncovers what the bank’s trust is (not) made of. The methodology, HuTrust®, is globally the only psychologically sound, statistically robust and practically proven understanding of trust. HuTrust® analyses what the Big 4 banks in Australian are trusted for – and not. Developed by mext Managing Director Stefan Grafe with a German psychologist and psychology professor W. Salber, HuTrust® has successfully been applied with organisations like Qatar Airways, KPN Europe, Origin, Telstra and the Singaporean Government. HuTrust® examines the six drivers of trust – trust in stability, trust in future development, trust in an appealing relationship, trust in benefit, trust in the vision and trust in the competence. These six drivers of trust are statistically proven and also proven to determine the bank’s own performance indicators, satisfaction and the Net Promoter Score (NPS®).

The HuTrust® components are measured on a 0-10 scale, from ‘don’t trust at all’ to ‘trust very much’. In the trust scale scores from 0-4 mean to customers that they distrust. The 5 and 6 scores mean lack of trust and only as of 7 customers mean increasing levels of trust. The average of the 6 HuTrust® components has shown to be equal to the customers overall trust score.

The Big 4 Australian Banks score almost equal on all 6 trust components, a sign that they continue to be  inadequately differentiated. The study with 657 customers shows that over half of customers do not trust their bank’s vision and almost half of their customers do not trust the big 4 for their competence. ‘Between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 customers actively distrust their bank for its vision’, says mext Managing Director, Stefan Grafe, ‘this inhibits the banks ability to build more trust with their customers. Banks have to understand much better what their vision should be and communicate it.’

Overall brand trust in the big 4 just goes beyond the trust threshold of 7. But they surpass the trust threshold only on stability, development and benefit trust. Despite huge spending on ‘relationship building’, relationship trust for all 4 stays below the trust threshold – they are not trusted for offering an appealing relationship.

The findings of the second Bank HuTrust® Profile helps financial service organisations analyse and better build trust with their customers. Grafe says: ‘Trust is the key to the banks’ success. Trust drives their Net promoter score, satisfaction and their reputation. With the HuTrust® results they can understand where the trust deficits are and therefore do something about it. Trust is the most powerful driver of customer engagement. Trust is very valuable to customers – that’s why it is so valuable to organisations and their performance.

Using the most modern psychology we can help you better understand your consumer’s and customer’s needs and motivations and build trust with them. mext

 

Customer research: Bridging the trust gap between seller and buyer

Trust drives immediate sales effectiveness

New research conducted by mext in conjunction with Huthwaite – global leaders in sales training: “Improve your sales effectiveness and KPIs by bridging the trust gap between seller and buyer.”

Sales professionals agree that trust is the key to their sales success, and rightly so. Customers readily confirm it and the stats confirm it. A 20% increase in customer trust means a 400% improvement in buyer predisposition.

Yet many companies do not focus on their people’s capability to actively build trust. The reasons are varied and range from a lack of robust methodologies to the continued belief in wrong myth, or just plainly not knowing where to start.

With HuTrust mext and sales performance partners, Huthwaite, have shown that trust building can be learned quickly, to improve sales results immediately and renew confidence and passion of the sales teams.

Since the launch of the sales and service training application in 2012, mext and Huthwaite Australia have already trained over 1,500 sales and service professionals in the ability to actively build and manage trust with HuTrust.

Have a look at this summary presentation: “Improve your sales effectiveness and KPIs by bridging the trust gap between seller and buyer.”

Want to know more on HuTrust and how to apply this powerful trust building methodology to improve your sales and services, I, as a trust consultant and developer of HuTrust, am sharing my knowledge and how to in “More Trust. More Sales”. Available for purchase here and of Amazon as paperback, epub and pdf.

Also visit: mextconsulting.com & huthwaite.com

Using the most modern psychology we can help you better understand your consumer’s and customer’s needs and motivations and build trust with them. mext

Trust in Canadian Politicians: HuTrust study foresees Tremblay's leadership as unsustainable

HuTrust Politician Study showed very little trust in Tremblay's party, high level of distrust in Competence which made his tenure unsustainable; hence:
"Louise Harel, leader of the opposition Vision Montréal party, said the mayor had to go because he had lost Montrealers’ trust. The mayor’s protests that he had been betrayed were “pathetic,” she said."


See this article

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/montreal-mayor-grald-tremblay-resigns/article4952278/

Click here for the study on trust in politicians.

Using the most modern psychology we can help you better understand your consumer’s and customer’s needs and motivations and build trust with them. mext

New study - trust in banks: The top trust drivers & Australia vs Germany

2012 Australia Bank HuTrust Profile

This year’s study focuses on the top 4 banks with a sample of 657. We did the last one 18 months ago with over 1200 sample size. The interesting change that occurred is not in the levels of trust or even HuTrust Profiles, but in what drives trust with each of the banks. The drivers of trust have strongly shifted over the last 18 months due to economic and social changes rather than bank changes like advertising or products. We also checked the levels of trust in the banker/financial adviser versus the brand and found that the person is much less trusted than the organisation as a whole.
That is interesting considering the myth that the customer relationship lies with the banker.
Also, Psyma conducted a HuTrust Profile Pilot study in Germany last year. We have included one top level chart of German Banks as a comparison. Any questions? Want the full study? Want to know how you can use it with fin services?
Melissa.wraith@mextconsulting.com

Bank Trust Study

Using the most modern psychology we can help you better understand your consumer’s and customer’s needs and motivations and build trust with them. mext

Trust makes for great leaders. Bad trust advice makes for great failures.

Stephen Covey’s book on trust – 'The Speed of trust’ – is far better than most. However, the same can’t be said about the 13 behaviours the book says build that trust. Here they are:

1. Talk Straight
2. Demonstrate Respect
3. Create Transparency
4. Right Wrongs
5. Show Loyalty
6. Deliver Results
7. Get Better
8. Confront Reality
9. Clarify Expectation
10. Practice Accountability
11. Listen First
12. Keep Commitments
13. Extend Trust

Covey and we, at mext, believe that trust is the most powerful driver of performance. In our opinion that is, because the ability to trust is so immensely valuable to our audience – be they employees, customers, the public or corporate stakeholders.

But we differ very much in 2 key aspects:

1)     Explaining what trust actually is

Only if we understand what trust is and how it forms in our minds, how it affects us physiologically, we can seriously develop recommendations that go beyond generic statements.

2)     How to analyse and build trust
We are not saying that Covey’s behaviours don’t impact trust. But they don’t allow for meaningful analysis, nor do they support anyone in meaningfully and practically building trust.

A few examples:

1. Talk Straight

Talk what straight? Talking the wrong stuff straight is immensely damaging or falls on deaf trust ears. Talking the right stuff straight is immensely powerful to building trust.

3. Create Transparency

Be transparent with what? As practitioners we see this parroted over and over again – and leaders merrily creating distrust by being transparent with the wrong things in the wrong manner.

7. Get Better

Get better with what? Golf putting in the office?

12. Keep Commitments

If you commit that you will always deliver me the sweetest tasting apples, you can keep your commitment as much as you want. I will not trust you. In fact, I may distrust you, because I am much more interested in you paying your workers fairly and not using insecticides.

Building trust is not a random collection of behaviours. First and foremost, trust is about ‘what you can be trusted for’. Is what you can be trusted for appealing to me and how well can I trust you for these things?

To be able to build trust leaders need to be able to identify ‘what they need to be trusted for’. Many trusted leaders intuitively do this well within the context of what they have to achieve. The majority of us is not that great at it. We have to learn how to do this – even if we are already quite good at it. That’s exactly what HuTrust® helps doing. Scientifically correct and practically proven.

Only when we know what exactly we need to be trusted for, is it worth looking at how you can bring these qualities to life through the behaviours like the ones Covey describes. Only if you can consciously manage trust, you can, for lack of better words, operationalise trust building on an individual and organisational level.

Stefan Grafe is the Managing Director of mext, an internationally operating consultancy that specialises in performance improvement by building trust. He is the co-developer of HuTrust®, the only scientifically, statistically and practically proven approach to analysing and building trust and the author of ‘More trust. More sales.’, ‘More Trust. More Human Resources’ (out soon) and ‘Boost your work performance’.

HuTrust® is globally licensed to leading organisations like Sales Performance specialists, Huthwaite International, and Global market research company, Psyma.

Covey leadership article: http://www.leadershipnow.com/CoveyOnTrust.html

HuTrust draws in sales professionals in Singapore

In September 2012, Laurenz Koehler, HuTrust Partner in Singapore and Managing partner of Duxton Consulting, presented HuTrust to a crowd of sales professionals.
The presentation focused on the critical importance of trust in sales and how HuTrust, the only robust methodology to building and managing customer trust, leads to immediate steep increases in sales success.
Research done by HuTrust Partners mext and Huthwaite International was cited and provided rich examples of turnaround successes with HuTrust in Singapore and Australia.
The presentation content was picked up by the Singapore Straits (click here to read). HuTrust is available in South East Asia through Laurenz.koehler@duxtonconsulting.com or for Sales Training, Greg Moore at gmoore@huthwaite.com.sg

People power! How trust drives organisational performance.

Most executives know intuitively that trust is the strongest driver for staff engagement and organisational performance. Now HuTrust® partners, Who Group and mext, have published the 2012 Employee HuTrust® Profile.
The study with Australian white collar employees shows that employee trust is the root cause for employee engagement and the behaviours that make organisations so much more resourceful. For the first time this study provides a benchmark for the Australian market beyond a simple top level engagement or trust result.
It shows the strengths and weaknesses in the 6 drivers of trust (HuTrust® Facets) for organisations and managers - and which trust dimensions are most important to employees.

For more information and the Summary 2012 Employee HuTrust® Profile presentation:
http://www.hutrust.com/hr-people-engagement






For the full 2012 Employee HuTrust® Profile contact:
Australia
Who Group 
Michael Dudley md@whogroup.com
+61 3 8636 4001

International
mext
Stefan Grafe, Managing Partner
stefan.grafe@mextconsulting.com
+61 3 9428 5417

Or see partner list.

HuTrust® spells success for King & Wood Mallesons

Last night King & Wood Mallesons brand were nominated as a finalist in the Australian Marketing Institute’s prestigious ‘best new brand launch’ category. HuTrust® was used as the centre piece in the brand development of the merged brands of the largest Australian legal firm and China’s leading King & Wood. The audacious merger created a world first in legal services and one of the world’s largest legal firms. 

The team at King & Wood Mallesons developed the brand with HuTrust® specialists, mext.  

HuTrust® was used to analyse what clients want to trust the firm for and what the firm wanted to be trusted for. Based on this, HuTrust® served as the framework to define the brand’s facets. King & Wood Mallesons’ HuTrust® Facets were then translated into action throughout the organisation, including internal engagement plans, client engagement and communications. The ground breaking design and advertising was created by mext partner, mr mumbles.

At the time of the launch Stuart Fuller, Global Managing Partner, King and Wood Mallesons commented: 

“We want to build great things with our clients and our people, enhancing the reputation that both firms have already built over many years and take it to the next level. In a legal landscape of ongoing rationalisation and expansion, King & Wood Mallesons has recognised that the battle for brand is the next frontier. With this campaign, we are taking the first step in standing above our competitors.” 

For more information, please visit:

King & Wood Mallesons: www.kwm.com

Mext: www.mextconsulting.com

Mr mumbles: www.mrmumbles.com