The power of listening: Building consumer trust in challenging times

In some ways, consumers and brands are in the same boat when it comes to navigating these choppy waters: trying their best to embrace new technology, stretch their dollars and grapple with the implications of each day’s news.

Throughout all of this, one thing I have found remains constant is the tendency of consumers to seek comfort in what they know and trust. This behavior has been accelerating since the onset of Covid-19, when many consumers retreated to staple products and brands. This instinct shapes purchasing behaviors and impacts bottom lines. When consumers are less willing to take risks on unfamiliar products or services, brand trust can become the currency of loyalty—and a critical driver of business performance.

From my experience, brands seeking to differentiate and grow in this environment need to connect with consumers on a personal and emotional level, building lasting connections that will enable them to go further, faster. True consumer-centricity—the ability to deeply understand and respond to customers’ needs, values and emotions—has become a muscle that every brand should flex.

Listening is the superpower that drives lasting loyalty

If we can agree that consumer-centricity is a necessity for brand growth, the next question is: How? For leaders looking to revitalize consumer relationships and build trust, I’ve found that the answer is surprisingly simple: Listen.

As in all relationships, there’s profound power in listening to consumers. Understanding their personal context, aspirations and daily struggles can enable your brand to create meaningful experiences that improve their lives in both big and small ways.

This level of attention goes well beyond fielding a survey or responding to customer complaints; it involves creating feedback loops, acknowledging what is heard and acting on it. In my experience, consumers expect brands to not only listen but also respond. This is why it's important that brands take time to gather the “data” of demand, implement and enforce systems for analyzing that data, learn what customers respond to and translate that learning into better, more personal engagement tactics.

Many brands fall into the trap of reacting too late to market trends, or worse, adopting a one-size-fits-all approach that feels disconnected from their audience. I’ve seen clients place massive financial bets behind breakthrough ad campaigns or groundbreaking product launches. But the most innovative product or creative ad campaign can fall flat if it’s not anchored in an understanding of the values and motivations of your customers. As in relationships, it’s easy to talk, but it's not always easy to listen.

How can brands build their listening skills?

From a business perspective, there are many ways to build this level of intimacy and learn to evolve alongside your customers. Ethnographic research, online communities, intelligent use of AI and harnessing big data can all be effective tools for making your company into a listening organization.

Brands are generally adept at tracking backward-looking data like sales, shipments and revenue. But to be a listening brand, you need to look around corners and predict the future. Digest big and small data. Foster direct conversations with your target audience and maximize the value of loyalty data. Leverage AI to analyze consumer chatter from message boards, product reviews and social media, and shape this bigger data into powerful insights. To use a hockey analogy, sales and market data only show you where the puck has been; tools like these can help you skate to where the puck is going.

Listening tools are not new. Brands have been surveying consumers, running focus groups, analyzing loyalty data and building data lakes for a long time. But these tools are evolving rapidly, meaning yesterday’s approaches likely won’t be effective tomorrow. They may not even be as effective today.

Leverage AI to deepen, not diminish, customer relationships

Technology makes it possible to reduce the heavy lift of sensing and responding to customer needs. Across our client work, we’ve seen AI play a central role in elevating consumer engagement—unlocking deeper insights and enabling more responsive, personalized experiences. AI makes it possible to sift through massive amounts of pre-existing online data to understand consumers’ needs.

This is good news for the wary marketer scanning online product reviews and Reddit threads to find useful demand signals. It’s also good news for consumers; according to my company’s 2025 Brand Impact Index, 60% of those surveyed said they are comfortable using AI tools in brand interactions, and 40% felt that AI-driven experiences justify paying a premium.

The potential is great, but it’s not without risk. Despite AI’s transition to the mainstream, consumers remain wary of how their data is being used—or exploited. For this reason, brands should tread carefully to avoid alienating the consumers they’re trying to connect with. Turn on AI without turning off customers by using it to build great brand experiences.

Research shows that many consumers are more willing to share personal information if they understand the value they’ll receive in return. If you have a loyalty program, make sure it rewards customers with meaningful benefits in exchange for their data and attention while opening direct dialogue between brand and consumer. For instance, most streaming services offer highly personalized content recommendations. Similarly, fitness brands that curate relevant event suggestions, like local runs, demonstrate how data can be used to deliver tangible value and build community.

Conclusion

While uncertainty may be the new normal for many consumers, their desire to discover and connect with products and services they love remains unwavering. For brands, I believe the road to stability will be paved by customer intimacy, underpinned by reliability and exceptional value.

By truly understanding and listening to customers, brands can transform periods of volatility into opportunities for deeper loyalty and lasting success. In today’s landscape, trust is a new currency, and customer intimacy is how brands can earn it.

This article was first published in Forbes.