Three CMOs on how they gain their customers' trust

The old adage goes, trust is like a mirror, once it is broken it can never be the same again, so after losing a customer's trust, how do brands go about getting it back?

[L-R] Brent Smart, CMO, Telstra; Jo Boundy, CMO, CBA; and Zach Kitschke, CMO, Canva.

The chief marketing officers (CMOs) of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Telstra and Canva spoke to audiences at SXSW on how they would try and win their customers back after a break in trust.

Brent Smart, CMO at Telstra said trust is an emotional thing, not a rational thing.

“A lot of brands think we can rationally argue or persuade our way to trusting with proof points but it's not a rational thing, it's a deeply emotional thing. Think about the relationships in your life, the people you trust it is based on emotion,” he said.

Smart said trust takes a long time to build, can be lost in seconds, and will take even longer to get it back.

He explained Telstra is in an industry “with some trust challenges”.

“The telco industry does suffer from low trust and Telstra as a brand when you look at the different rankings on trust, we don't perform too well,” he said.

Smart explained the telco has a better relationship with younger customers than its older cohort.

“When we unpack our brand metrics, we [rank better] with young customers and all our trust issues are with older customers who have all this baggage of what we used to be and not what we are today,” he said.

“That gives me great hope and optimism that we can be trusted and have a different role in people's lives. But we've got all this baggage, which is hard to break down and takes a long time, it's something we're working on.”

Ultimately, Smart said it isn’t about what they promise in their advertising but what they deliver day in and day out to customers that will change their trust.

“It can be a very deep-seated, hard-to-move thing that certain brands struggle with, it's a real long-term thing to move. We want to be one of the most trusted brands in Australia but it is going to take time to get there.”

Trust helps solidify “icon” status

Jo Boundy, CMO at CBA  explained trust is “paramount” for every single brand and there are some industries where trust is “God”.

“The two [industries] I’ve had experience with, aviation, you’re trusting that brand with your life and banking, you're trusting that brand with your money,” she explained.

Boundy noted that trust is so important in some categories, that is not about how you build it but how you respond in a crisis which makes a brand iconic.

“From my experience, it is not just how you respond to your own crises, and that can be the make or break but also how you show up for other people's crises,” she said.

“How you show up for others and play a leadership role and support others is a huge component of how you build trust.”

Earned through each interaction

Zack Kitschke, CMO at Canva told the audience that trust is earned each and every day through every interaction a customer has with the brand.

“For Canva, it is a reality that we've got 150 million people using our product every month for important things like people presenting live on stage and if something goes wrong with the product, you'll lose that trust in an instant,” he explained.

“It goes to every touchpoint from the product up and the way that we've thought about that is, our mission is to empower the world to design and so, empowerment is the core essence of our brand and everything we do is trying to make sure we're delivering on that.”