How companies can rebuild trust in an era of fraud and spam

An epidemic of fraud and theft has eroded consumer confidence, while the rise of AI and the never-ending hype cycle on social media have made it harder than ever to discern the truth. The combination spells trouble for brands of all kinds. Consumers no longer trust what they’re reading, hearing, and seeing, and as a result, businesses struggle to demonstrate that their communications are trustworthy.

The problem is a combination of medium and message. Fraud in one area causes distrust that spreads like wildfire to other channels. For example, globally, 5% of all text messaging traffic is fraudulent, created by bots or scammers. That contaminates consumer trust of email (where spam is still very much alive) and even text chat apps like WhatsApp. Meanwhile, consumer trust in businesses has been on a ten-year decline, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, which reports that 61% of consumers worry business leaders are purposely trying to mislead them.

In the age of AI, the barriers to creating content are lower than ever, which means we are now seeing a flood of low-quality information. This leaves consumers wondering about every message they see: Is this information trustworthy?

Re-establishing trust is critical for business survival, but more than that, creating trust drives engagement and adoption. When consumers trust your brand, ads hit harder, conversion rates soar, customer onboarding becomes seamless, and loyalty turns into advocacy.

We can’t build trust with words alone. To build trust in a meaningful way, companies need to follow through on their promises and take positive steps to improve the trustworthiness of their communications.

In my career as a customer-focused product leader, I’ve come to learn that there are three key pillars of a trust-building strategy: Earn the right to communicate by delivering value, not noise; prioritize transparency across the board; and eliminate fraud and data theft. Let’s look at each of those in turn.

PILLAR 1: EARN THE RIGHT TO COMMUNICATE BY DELIVERING VALUE  

Start by ensuring that your communications are delivering something your customers value, not just noise. And that starts with understanding your customers better.

According to a recent Twilio survey, 81% of brands say they have a deep understanding of their customers, but less than half (46%) of customers agree.

Do you really understand your customers? Are you sure? If your customer data is accurate, relevant, real-time, and has been collected with customer consent, you can use it to personalize every interaction, delivering messages that resonate with each customer, through the channels they prefer. If you do that, you’ll see your investments in personalization delivering real return on investment (ROI), not just hype.

For example, when Domino’s Pizza integrated all its customer communications across many channels and created a single, unified view of each customer, it was able to create more effective hyper-personalized audiences and deliver a massive 700% increase in its return on ad spend. Ultimately, that drove down its customer acquisition cost by 65%. This isn’t magic; it’s what happens when you honor your customers’ preferences, communicate authentically, and deliver personalized value.

Respect your customers’ preferences about how, when, and where they want to be engaged and communicate authentically. Do this, and your numbers will rise, too.

However, for this to work, your comms will need to be powered by rich, contextualized customer data, which brings me to the next pillar.

PILLAR 2: PRIORITIZE TRANSPARENCY ACROSS THE BOARD

Understanding your customers requires gathering their data with consent to better serve them. Naturally, consumers want that data to stay safe. Address these concerns by embracing transparency in all aspects of how you use data and AI. Communicate clearly about your data practices and provide your customers with easy-to-use privacy controls. Don’t just check the compliance box—go beyond it.

Transparency isn’t just good practice; it’s good business. According to the Twilio survey cited above, nearly half of consumers (49%) say they would trust brands more if they were open about how they used customer data in their AI-powered transactions.

When it comes to AI, opacity leads to confusion and mistrust. You can eliminate both by developing clear guidelines for using AI and sharing those guidelines openly. At Twilio, we developed “AI nutrition facts” labeling to make it clear what data goes into an AI model, how we use it, and what protections and safeguards we have put around it. You can use these labels, too. Federal agencies now have to be transparent about which AI tools they’re using and their risks. Federal transparency about AI may raise expectations for businesses to do the same.

Finally, Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a great example of how the industry can come together to build consumer trust. RCS is an improved protocol for text messaging that adds support for branded sender identities, rich media, longer messages, and interactive features. With RCS, customers using messaging apps can see a business’s name and logo on every message they receive, along with a verified sender ID badge. Many mobile phone carriers, Apple’s iOS, and Google’s Android all support RCS now, increasing trustworthiness for everyone. In fact, 75% of consumers who received a branded text said it increased their trust in the message, with nearly half (49%) expressing that they would trust brands “a lot more” if the business had a logo or check mark within a messaging or social channel.

PILLAR 3: STAMP OUT FRAUD AND DATA THEFT

Finally, companies have a role to play in rebuilding trust across the entire communications ecosystem. Customers need to trust that it’s really you when you reach out to them.

Companies can also leverage AI to combat fraud and reap the rewards. Twilio’s Fraud Guard has already saved customers millions of dollars and blocked more than four hundred million fraud attempts. These are not just numbers—they’re stories of trust regained.

As another example, Reddit has been using AI-powered user verification to help with new-user signups and account logins, eliminating fake user signups and stamping out fraud across its massively popular platform.

Finally, protect your customers—and your brand—by safeguarding their data. Invest in robust cybersecurity measures and ensure that customer data is given the highest levels of protection. It’s the right thing to do—and most consumers say that protecting their data is the top way to build their trust.

Yes, we are in a crisis of trust. But businesses have it in their power to do something about it. Start delivering value instead of noise, prioritize transparency, and smash fraud and theft, and you’ll see consumer trust return—and with it, your costs will shrink, and your revenue will soar.

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Inbal Shani is the chief product officer, communications for Twilio, responsible for R&D, product innovation, and resiliency and trust in the communications business. She is among the pioneering technologists who applied AI to solve complex technical and business problems.