Trust, Truth and You

By Mike Gutierrez, Senior Account Supervisor

In January 2012, Edelman released the global findings from the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer – the 12th year of the firm’s annual trust and credibility survey. As we heard, the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer shows an overall decline in trust globally, with steep declines in the levels of trust in government and business. Government is now the least trusted institution–trailing business, media, and NGOs. Business experienced fewer and generally less severe declines in trust, but has its own hurdles to clear – notably that CEO credibility declined 38 percent, its biggest drop in Barometer history.

A 38 percent decline in CEO credibility is very interesting. It causes corporate communicators to rethink how they use their CEO’s. Often, CEO’s are saved for big announcements that positively impact a large portion of their customers. Crisis of varying degrees are generally handled by the communications staff working with operations. But with a 38 percent decline, the data suggests considering a technical expert to explain the facts to media about a given crisis. Erasing the effects of a 38 percent decline and moving the trust curve up will take consistency over time. How will that trust be regained? What can corporate communicators do during a crisis to influence tight-lipped executives to open up with the media? How should media conversations play out during a crisis to increase likelihood of a positive message making the story, effectively neutralizing an otherwise negative story?

Here are some suggestions:

1. Lead with the truth. Telling a reporter upfront on background exactly what has happened, and admitting fault buys immediate credibility. Usually, a reporter will sense the transparency. That transparency will pave the way for the rest of the conversation, which should focus on what the company is doing to fix the situation.
2. Focus on the customer. It’s all about the customer. Corporate communicators should realize that the customer experience is what keeps executives up at night. After the fact-finding process, if it’s determined the company is in the wrong, influencing operations executives to apologize publicly is challenging. Often, executives don’t immediately see the business value in apologizing. As communicators, we can’t expect them to intuitively “get it”. They’re not engineered like we are. They need to be led down a path whose end has a company’s most important stakeholder in mind (the customer) by plainly explaining to them that apologizing upfront publicly, telling the media what happened, and offering a solution, will help build trust with customers. When executives are influenced to view a crisis as an opportunity to communicate with customers, and that media are simply the vehicle to carry their message, the decks are stacked in your favor that they will approve moving forward with a statement.
3. Words matter. Once a company has approved moving forward with a statement, realize that words matter. They will live in the online space forever. Striking the balance between being factual, concise, sympathetic, when the pressure is on is hard. Avoid words like “apparently” “as we understand it” “to our knowledge”. Reporters want to know what you know, not what you think might have “apparently” happened. And, executives want facts too, so that the same situation won’t happen again operationally. Using words like “apparently” usually will not comfort detail-oriented executives. When armed with the truth, it really will set you free.

In the end, telling the truth, consistently over time, will place CEO’s on a positive curve back to Trust!