FIVE WAYS FOR BRANDS TO HELP CONSUMERS NAVIGATE A POSTTRUTH WORLD

New Qualtrics research reveals CX has the biggest impact on brand loyalty, trust and awareness for customers in New Zealand and Australia.

Global Partnerships Director at Readly Rob Hanlon believes we’re living in a post-truth era in which fake news is yet to become old news, leaving many people increasingly looking to brands for help. He shares five strategies companies can use to build greater trust and support their customers to navigate the muddy media waters. 1. LET EMPLOYEES LEAD

‘Authenticity’ has almost become as much of a buzzword as ‘post-truth’. The issue isn’t really that it’s being overused, just that it’s not being backed up.

A ‘Bridging the Gap: Consumer & Marketing Perspectives on Content in the Digital Age’ report by Stackla revealed that although 92 percent of marketers say they think their content is authentic, consumers disagree, with 51 percent of those surveyed saying less than half of the branded content they see feels genuine. Brands can fix this disconnect by developing a brand purpose that reflects not the latest cause célèbre, but the actual views and values of their employees. Nike has built a brand purpose on social action that feels authentic thanks to internal initiatives that help staff with their personal purposes by supporting them in their own community volunteering projects.

2. KEEP IT CLEAN

If there’s a marketing phrase that sounds less appealing than ‘brand hygiene’, I’m yet to find it, but in the dirty world of post-truth, keeping your ads away from clickbait stories or questionable websites is a must. Third-party platforms and automated programmes can allow your content to appear next to fake news articles — which, if it happens, damages your reputation and can also give credibility to otherwise toxic content you don’t want to be supporting.

To mitigate this, be sure to shore up the defences put in place by the likes of Google by deploying a blacklist of fake news websites, and a whitelist to restrict where your content appears to credible publishers.

3. MAKE TRUSTED CONTENT COUNT

A key weapon in the battle against fake news is reliable, verifiable information that’s up to date. Knowledge is still power in this day and age, so keeping your site current with new content will indicate to consumers that your brand is on top of the information flow.

According to a recent Edelman study, 84 percent of global respondents like to get their news from multiple sources, including brands, who can partner with reputable publishers and platforms to deliver on this. Rather than generating content themselves, brands can also help their customers discover and access high-quality journalism that’s ‘brand safe’ through partnerships made directly with publishers — or through partnering with digital content platforms such as Readly. Our partnerships with brands like Coca-cola, H&M, Mcdonald’s and Samsung have helped introduce hundreds of thousands of consumers to unlimited quality editorial.

4. OPEN UP CLOSED DOORS

Consumer desire for brand transparency has spiked during the pandemic, with people around the world demanding that brands protect the wellbeing of their employees. Being open and honest with those inside and outside your company about your business operations, goals and supply chains can help demonstrate that commitment.

Being transparent isn’t always easy, particularly for larger companies, but social media is one low-effort way to help show you walk the talk.

5. SHARPEN YOUR FACT-CHECK TOOLS

It goes without saying that in the fight against fake news, brands have to avoid contributing to the noise and confusion themselves. Create an accuracy checklist to run your content against before it leaves the building, and empower your community managers and moderators to spot, delete and debunk fake news that appears on your channels.

Consumers expect their favourite brands to be gateways to legitimate, trustworthy information. These five steps aren’t just there to improve your own brand image — post-pandemic, brands have a wider societal role in giving customers the right tools to battle disinformation and help them tell fact from fiction.

Making sure the customer experience (CX) matches consumers’ expectations of your brand will be key to retaining customers in 2022, according to new research released by Qualtrics. More than half of the 1000 respondents in the Qualtrics study (54 percent) in Australia and New Zealand said they’ve switched brands because the customer experience they received didn’t meet the brand promise. This suggests that despite their best intentions, many organisations are failing to live their brand values in the experiences they deliver.

A lower product/service quality (88 percent) and dissatisfaction with customer service (68 percent) were also leading reasons people would stop purchasing from a brand, coming in far ahead of price increases (33 percent).

“Great customer experiences start with brand,” says Lisa Khatri, Senior Manager for Customer, Brand & Design Experience at Qualtrics Asia Pacific & Japan. “Your brand is defined by everything the organisation does. It’s embodied in the product and the customer journey, and delivered by happy employees who’re enabled to provide superior services. Take a delivery company, for example — if the company fails to meet a delivery window it promises to meet, then employees will have to proactively address issues that arise.

“Our research demonstrates the clear link between customer experience and brand experience in influencing buying decisions across Australia and New Zealand,” she continues. “Organisations that fail to live up to their promises and the expectations they create will be quickly found out, highlighting the importance of understanding, managing and addressing the expectations of consumers.”

The importance of customer experience to brand is further demonstrated by the factors increasing brand trust in 2022, with taking care of customers ranked at the top. This was followed by maintaining reasonable pricing and taking care of employees. Not taking advantage of a crisis and going beyond recommended safety standards rounded out the top five.

These findings represent a slight change from the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, when taking care of employees and not taking advantage of a crisis were the top factors increasing brand trust. Taking care of customers was the third most popular reason.

For brands wanting to stay relevant in increasingly competitive marketplaces, product/service quality (83 percent) and customer service (74 percent) have twice the impact on consumers that marketing and advertising (34 percent) and responding to public events (30 percent) do.

“To align the brand and customer experience, organisations must first understand and articulate their purpose and how they will bring

“To align the brand and customer experience, organisations must first understand and articulate their purpose and how they’ll bring it to life, while ensuring they have the right systems and processes in place to deliver it.”

it to life, while ensuring they have the right systems and processes in place to deliver it,” says Lisa. “After this, it’s about identifying the moments in the customer journey that have the biggest impact on their response, whether it’s at the point of sale or the support received through the contact centre. Equipped with these insights, organisations are able to show up in the ways their customers expect when it matters most, ensuring their brand promise, purpose and values guide every action they take.”