Not so long ago, being reasonably trustworthy was good enough. But soon only the extremely trustworthy will thrive.

In the age of smartphones and social networks, every action an organization takes can be exposed and critiqued in real time. Nothing is local or secret anymore. If you treat one customer unfairly, produce one shoddy product, or try to gouge one price, the whole world may find out in hours, if not minutes. The users of Twitter, Yelp, and similar outlets show little mercy for bad behavior. The bar for trustworthiness is higher than ever and continues to rise.

Bestselling authors Dan Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., argue that the only sane response to these rising levels of transparency is to protect the interests of customers proactively-even if that requires spending extra money in the short run to preserve your brand reputation in the long run. The payoff of generating extreme trust will be worth it.

With a wealth of fascinating research as well as practical applications, this book will show you how to earn-and keep-the extreme trust of everyone your company interacts with.