The basic building block of any brand is trust. And when trust is betrayed, the bond between customer and company is broken, sometimes irretrievably.
Two high profile examples recently are Qantas in Australia (and around the globe), and Netflix in the US.
I had personal experience of the Qantas crisis. I was on board a jet last Saturday, pushing back from the terminal, when suddenly we reversed direction and reconnected with the aerobridge. A noticeably flustered pilot then emerged from the cockpit to inform us that the CEO had grounded the airline with immediate effect and that we all had to disembark.
At that moment, it felt like an act of betrayal from a brand (an “Aussie icon” as the papers put it) that I loved.
The shock and anger on the faces of my fellow travellers was visible. This was the final full stop on a paragraph of industrial unrest that had already caused many once-loyal Qantas flyers to defect to the competition. (As one of my colleagues commented, the Virgin lounges are now full of business leaders who used to frequent the fabled Qantas Chairman’s Lounge.)
It was totally out of character for the Flying Kangaroo; an un-Australian act, like a mate inviting you over for a beer and a steak at a barbecue, then slamming the door in your face.
Similarly, US movie home delivery service, Netflix, has infuriated its customers this year. The company was loved for its ability to deliver a simple and reliable DVD-by-mail service for US$8 a month, with an internet movie streaming service for an additional two bucks.
Then Netflix changed business tack and split both forms of delivery, charging $8 a month for each service. Upon hearing this news, social media channels erupted, and a million Netflix customers evaporated over a period of a couple of months.
Two case studies, two damaged reputations – proving trust is hard earned but easily burned.
Treat your customers with contempt and you’re likely to feel their wrath, particularly in an age where it’s easy to tell thousands how you feel with a single tweet.
Can Qantas and Netflix recover? Possibly. Keith Newton, national research director of BrandAsset Consulting Australia**, told me this week that Qantas is one of a group of elite brands that are “very resilient”.
Certainly though, years of “trust deposits in the brand bank” have been wiped out. And Newton says that trust is “more important than ever in differentiating brands”.
Martin Butler, author of “The Art of Being Chosen”, lists trust as one of his six “secrets of success” in retail.
“The successful retailers place an unparalleled premium on being trusted,” writes Butler. “Looking to be trusted in all they do. Looking to be trusted in all they stand for.”
Butler points to UK department store, John Lewis, as an example of a brand that benefits from its unquestioned integrity with shoppers and staff alike.
There are two lessons to be learned here. Firstly, work hard to build trust with customers, because it is a significant brand differentiator in these cynical post-GFC times. Secondly, protect your reputation at all costs once established, because it is easily trashed.
* Jon Bird is CEO of specialist retail marketing agency IdeaWorks (www.ideaworks.com.au), and chairman of Octomedia, publisher of Inside Retail. Email jon.bird@ideaworks.com.au.
** BrandAsset Consulting Australia is part of the Y&R Group of companies, of which IdeaWorks is a member.
Image from Boeing.
