Can you regain trust after you have let down your market?

As I have said in previous posts, in order to maintain your brand image, you need to constantly work on it, on and offline. Sometimes, however, things happen that you have literally no control over. These are the kind of things that make you lose your sterling reputation and most of all, the trust that you have built up with your dedicated customers.

Readers digest conducted a pole this year to discover the top trusted brands in Europe, which makes for extremely interesting viewing.

In order of most trusted to the least, the brands topping the poll which contained over 700 participants are:

Nivea (skin care)

Nokia

Visa

Canon

HP/HP Compaq

Ariel

Kellogg’s

Nestle

Miele

Nivea (cosmetic)

VW

Avon

Head and Shoulders

Toyota

Aspirin

Bosch

Centrum

Orange

T-Mobile

Yves Rocher

Sony

On this list, as unbelievable as it seems is a brand whose products resulted in a number of deaths, last year alone!

How did Toyota get its customers to begin to trust once again, despite a betrayal of this magnitude? Initially the brand did receive criticisms for its handling of the early stages of the disaster, but as the crisis developed they accepted responsibility and there was no one too high up in the business to address the issues with good honest dialogue. This stopped the customers from feeling like they were dealing with the problems alone.

Although Toyota utilised social media throughout the crisis, when the actual climax occurred, they were using their outlets constantly, updating statuses and making reassurances to the public with honest and truthful messages.

Another controversial entrant into the list is Nestle who have never been too far away from the headlines with some crisis or another, from melamine infected baby milk to sourcing palm oil from companies synonymous with illegal deforestation.

This understood, both companies, with constant threats of disaster in the air, are both in the list of brands that we most heartily believe in. How can such brands, notorious for letting their customers down, still command such trust and respect from their audience?

The answer to this is communication. It all comes down to the type of communication that they maintain during a crisis and whilst they are plain sailing. They have built up an approachable customer care brand image, and have maintained it throughout their business in all areas. Nestle and Toyota customers know that if a crisis occurs (which, lets face it, is entirely possible with these two conglomerates) that they will be there for the customers with the highest authority communicating honest messages that will help customers to solve their issues.

There is no defending the decisions that these brands have made, whether cost-cutting or otherwise, but they have proven this year, that mistakes happen but they don’t have to spell the end of your business if you employ the right crisis management.