Secure trust

Trust is vital to community cohesion and, if anything, it's a quality that gains importance as the decades slip by. It's no secret that our individual and collective senses of security have undergone massive challenges in the past years. Coincident with this shared apprehension is the growing awareness that trust is a precious value.

And for marketers, the quality of trust is essential in everything we do. Trust amongst friends and families is an under-appreciated fact of life. And its principles extend to the well-being of the relationship between consumers and brands. Consumers need to feel trust in brands. And brands need consumer trust. In short: brand equals trust.

To maintain and reflect consistent brand trust, especially in turbulent times, is a tall order. But the brands that succeed in earning and securing consumer trust will enjoy their consumers' lifelong loyalty.

Here are some questions you can ask your consumers. The principle underlying a survey such as this is to ascertain how consumer perception evolves. What was true last year may not have currency today. And the objective is to help you create a strategy for building and maintaining trust around your brand. Some of the following points may seem more relevant for some businesses than others. But adjust them to suit your needs. Regardless of your line, your business will benefit from invigorating your brand's trust level, once and for all.

So, ask your consumers:

1. What does trust mean to them?

2. What trust-creating elements do they
perceive to be part of your brand's identity?
(For example, the FedEx promise to deliver on time and in perfect condition may need massaging in order to answer the consumer's newly evolved perceptions of trust.)

3. What additional services or benefits would inspire their greater trust in your brand? (For example, transport and mail-delivery services may need to add security-oriented promises to their portfolios.)

Responses to these questions should generate enough background information for you to create a solid plan for increasing your brand's trustworthiness.

The thread to the questions above is that, in ascertaining your brand's trustworthiness, you have to forget about what your consumers answers would have been six months ago. The world has now turned upside-down. For example, an airline company today would be experiencing consumer perceptions that have changed over the past years. Consumer trust in an airline company suddenly requires additional and refurbished elements: in-flight entertainment and airport lounges may no longer contribute to the consumer's sense of trust in an airline. An emphasis security procedures may be more likely to garner consumer trust.

Of course, your brand might in the happy situation of enjoying consistent consumer perceptions and undiminished trust. If your consumers haven't changed their minds about what they believe the quality of trust to be, and if your consumers still perceive that your brand delivers what they expect, then forget about changing your whole marketing plan.

However, I'm sure many marketers will realize that their customers' outlooks have changed a lot recently, and what was true just two months ago is irrelevant today. Your trust-building solution might turn out to be a radical new approach that shuns your traditional marketing strategies. It might even be that you have to adjust your product or service. It might be that you have to alter your brand's philosophical message. Or it might be that you have to team up with external partners to ensure you harness the trust-creating factors that consumers want to see in your brand.

Trust me. The exercise will be worth every minute you spend on it.