Godwin Anyebe
The Chief Executive Officer of Kantar Millward Brown Nigeria, Mrs Ugo Geri-Robert has reiterated the importance of trust as a factor in building brand success especially in a competitive environment.
While noting that level of trust includes, aspirational, emotional, motivation and functional, she said trust is essential to brand building as one can’t thrive without it.
Geri-Robert made this assertion while delivering a lecture as the lead speaker at the World Consumer Rights Day symposium organised by the Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria(BJAN) held in Lagos recently.
Speaking on the theme ‘Building Trusted Brands: ‘The Nigerian Experience’, Geri-Robert explained that “trust is first established when brands demonstrate competence and integrity.”
According to her; “trust is not actually a football, it is not what you say, keep and just drop outside the gate, trust is a journey with knowledge at different levels, one level of trust will graduate to another until you arrive at that level of trust.
She added that if a producer doesn’t know the level that his consumer is with him, he probably would not be speaking the right language that the consumer would understand.
“Trust is currently number one leadership competency in today’s changing environment.
“It can help improve the results focus, communication, collaboration, leading change, innovation, strategy as well, as problem-solving.
Trust can be learned and measured, it is part of functioning mechanism of credibility and behaviour, and it is measurable and can be deliberately created”, she said.
Speaking further, the Kantar Millward Brown boss, giving an example of Toyota, said the car manufacturer had to recall many of its products (cars) off the streets and showrooms when it was discovered that the airbags installed in the cars were faulty.
According to her, the car manufacturer had to jettison profit while trying to ensure they build trust in the minds of their customers. “The first thing you’ll think of is ‘this brand actually has my back.
Also, using GTB as another example, she noted that consciously or unconsciously, most of the branches of the bank do not have a fence because they are trying to build trust in the minds of their customers.
“Why is GTBank still there today, it’s because the bank is a brand that consumers feel a bit more comfortable with.
“If you have noticed, the bank doesn’t have a gate or fence. You just walk through.
They didn’t advertise that but then it sends different signals of trust to the consumers such as ‘we are well equipped inside’ ‘nobody can mess with us,’ ‘we trust you, ‘our consumers are not thieves, but respectable persons,’ ‘GTBank is a friendly brand,’ and stuffs like that,” she stated.
She stressed that talking about financial inclusion, the penetration of people that have an account is still so low, but that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other financial bodies were working on it.
“As at date, GTBank is actually the bank that is ahead and they have put things in place to make financial inclusion a reality.
“Also, Zenith Bank has been working to join the race, but they have realized that this is not just about word, its about technology, the space you’re occupying, your staff, because when you talk about friendly as an ingredient of building trust, it has to be in the company’s DNA.
There are many customer service organizations whose staff don’t know the definition of customer service. This means helping customers efficiently in a friendly manner”.
“It’s essential to be able to handle issues for customers and do your best to ensure they are satisfied”, she said.
