Transparency and social responsibility are major components of an organisation’s credibility, which is intrinsically linked to trust. Media intelligence can offer an early warning of potential cracks in trust, allowing them to be addressed before they escalate into regulatory or investor pressure.
Trust has been under considerable pressure of late with scores declining as trust in people, businesses, media, and institutions decline. Even the medical industry, which has long managed one of the most resilient trust scores over the years, has seen numbers decline.
Ensuring that the trust your organisation has worked hard to build over the years is protected requires attention. Fissures in trust can become irreparable cracks if not addressed quickly and appropriately.
However, identifying the issues that might become problems down the line is not always a simple task. Business stability depends on customer constancy, which in turn is dependent on trust.
Here is how media intelligence can help to uncover patterns that can indicate trust is beginning to falter.
Analysing trust
“Trust” can be a challenging aspect to measure. Tracking consumer sentiment, brand loyalty, and purchasing behaviours contribute to an overall picture of trust.
Social and traditional media channels also contribute to overall sentiment and can influence how the public perceives your brand.
Consumer sentiment
Tracking and analysing consumer sentiment is a fundamental pillar to measuring trust. Artificial intelligence (AI) can assist in scouring through user-generated content to surface opinions about a brand, which is particularly helpful if volumes are high.
Surveys are a good method of determining consumer sentiment. Because a brand decides what to ask and how to structure the survey, these results can pinpoint specifics that might get missed in other forms of feedback. For example, a survey allows a brand to ask very specific questions about how a product or activity is being received by a target audience.
Product reviews can also be very helpful in analysing consumer sentiment to uncover brand trust. Reading through unfiltered opinions can reveal what frustrations consumers may have with a brand, which, if left unaddressed, could begin to erode trust.
Analysing these two approaches to tracking consumer sentiment is useful because one is initiated by the brand (consumer surveys) and the other is initiated by the customer (reviews). This provides data that the brand is specifically seeking through a well-crafted survey, and information that is almost fully directed by the consumer, through a product review.
Common pushback on the question of whether product reviews are truly useful notes that reviews can be “swarmed” by non-customers to make a point—such as when people get angry at a brand and flock to Google or Amazon and flood those platforms with one-star reviews.
Even that type of activity can provide a brand with some information; namely, that something is wrong that triggered a bit of a crisis. Short of it being caused by false or malicious information, a piling-on like this does offer data. Whether it is information that is relevant to the brand or worth being acted upon will be determined after appropriate analysis.
While overwhelmingly negative sentiment is challenging for consumer products, for regulated industries like the energy sector, public disapproval can lead to calls for additional government regulation. Tracking sentiment and responding with well-thought-out communications is key to restoring consumer trust.
In short, reviewing consumer sentiment can be an excellent indicator of where trust is placed in a brand, and where or why it might be faltering.
Brand loyalty
Assessing brand loyalty is typically identified through sales figures and the use of tracking tools like points cards, but user generated content can also contribute.
Customer retention scores and repeat purchases are now easily traceable through online purchases. Click-through rates and automatic reorders (for applicable products like cosmetics and cleaning supplies, for example) can also affirm brand commitment.
Sometimes there are obvious indicators that a brand needs to pay attention to consumer loyalty, such as a new-to-market competitor or product offering. This is an important clue as to why it is so important to consider monitoring competitors. Brands may experience a drop-off in consumer loyalty when a competitive product is new to market. The real question is what happens in the next few consumer cycles: do customers return, solidifying brand loyalty, or have they switch alliances to the new product?
Tracking sales and what is being said online and in mainstream media outlets can provide a picture of what to expect. This allows a business to plan counter-moves, like brand promotions and offerings, or the launch of a PR or influencer campaign.
Anticipation and planning
PR and communications teams are sometimes tasked with tracking public reaction to bad news. This applies to consumer goods when decisions are made that could upset customers.
Shrinkflation, discontinued products, or even seemingly minor changes to things like bottle designs or logos can cause a sudden rupture in trust.
Measurement might not be able to completely eliminate consumer anger or distress at unpopular brand decisions, but it can sometimes help to blunt the impact of such challenges.
Listening to customers with empathy, in a way that makes it clear a business understands their concerns is part of maintaining or, in some cases, rebuilding trust.
Stability and trust are measurable, and are increasingly important metrics to track. By incorporating ongoing analysis of consumer sentiment across multiple channels including surveys, reviews, media reports, and user-generated content, your brand will have the tools to address complex issues before they begin to erode trust.
