Survey: Tech is trusted, banks are not

Edelman Worldwide last week released its latest survey of the public's trust (or lack thereof) in the business community. Not surprisingly, banks have their work cut out for them in regaining the public's trust, while technology companies enjoy high marks.

To read the full report, click here. Below are a few highlights:

*The banking and insurance industries rank as the least trusted in the U.S., with banks recording the only slide in faith in the past year.

*According to those surveyed, "quality of communications" and "customer service" as important as "price" and "performance" in influencing trust.

*In the U.S., trust in banks fell to 33 percent from 36 percent, while trust in insurers was the lowest in 2010 at 32 percent, although that level improved from 29 percent in the previous survey. Only media companies matched the 32 percent low.

*Technology ranked highest with a trust level of 81 percent.

Most interesting to me is that the public ranks how a company communicates alongside how a company prices its product and how well that product performs. That's another incentive for companies to meet the needs of their customers in new and creative ways.