Building trust in 2025: why public sector communications teams are prioritising listening

As part of BIG Social 2024, we asked our delegates an important question:

“Which level of the trust pyramid will play the most crucial role in your FY25 strategy for building trust?”

As a reminder, our Trust Pyramid consists of five elements: open and honest communication at the base; followed by listening; then engagement; experience and – sitting at the top – trust. Public sector organisations should work through each element in order to build the right foundations for creating trust with your community.

Our event attendees were invited to choose the part of the pyramid that most represented where they plan to focus in 2025. They could cast their vote by slotting a token into our real-life pyramid, selecting any of the four elements that contribute to building trust. Of course, they weren’t able to choose trust itself – it’s the holy grail, that would make things too easy!

Almost 200 public sector comms professionals cast their vote, representing a range of organisations across children and families; healthcare; housing; local and central government; policing and transport.

And the winner was…

The results were definitive. Next year, over half (52%) of public sector comms teams plan to focus on listening to their communities.

We need to listen more because we’re living in turbulent times. This Summer alone, the UK continued to experience a cost of living crisis; city-wide protests that disrupted communities; a new UK government; the ongoing challenges facing the NHS, rising homelessness levels and a social care crisis. Communities are grappling with new and often uncomfortable changes on a daily basis and public sector organisations must be responsive to their ever-evolving needs. The surest way to understand what someone needs, is to listen to them.

And from the perspective of public sector organisations, 2025 budgets are tight. Teams are under increasing pressure to prove the return on investment of their activities, as well as boost efficiency and productivity – while maintaining the quality of their services.

Until recently, social media has been used primarily as a channel for broadcasting important news and information, and many public sector organisations have also relished the opportunity to engage with communities. However, in some ways we’ve skipped the listening part.

Many public sector organisations are now of the opinion that they need to listen more and talk less. As the saying goes, “we have two ears and one mouth for good reason”. And there’s no shortage of good reasons why 2025 should mark the year of active listening, in order to truly understand your community’s concerns and priorities. Through listening, public sector organisations can:

Better understand the nuances within their distinct communities

Many public sector organisations are united in their goals – creating safe streets and securing the wellbeing of the children in their communities, to take just two examples. However, the best strategies for delivering these missions will depend on the shape of their individual communities. For example, the challenges faced by the people of Hackney will be totally different to those in Telford – and these two communities will likely respond to the same campaign in a totally different way.

Put simply, the best way to understand the people we serve is to listen to them. Public sector comms professionals have the opportunity to use listening tools to get to know their communities deeply – not only in terms of demographic data, but also their interests, sentiment, priorities, concerns, how they like to communicate and where they spend time. By listening closely, organisations will be able to respond to their communities’ needs and communicate effectively.

Save costs

To take an example from the healthcare industry, the average cost per year to achieve good health is £3,800 versus £13,500 once an issue has been detected. If healthcare organisations can predict a health crisis in their community, they have the opportunity to intervene to reduce its impact – thus saving significant costs long-term. It’s clear that the more you know the people you serve, the better you’ll become at crafting relevant campaigns that will change behaviour.

Additionally, social listening enables comms teams the ability to measure the real-time reaction to their digital campaigns and make tweaks to ensure maximum results for the available budget.

Improve customer satisfaction

You can make assumption after assumption, but if you fail to listen to communities’ feedback about your service then you’ll never get the chance to solve their problems. For example, Julian Pike from housing organisation United Welsh described how, through regular surveys, his team identified an issue in how they acted on residents’ comments regarding repairs and maintenance. They discovered that they were overpromising but under delivering. This insight enabled the team to focus on transparent communications, and on closing the feedback loop in order to boost resident satisfaction.

Promote a culture of continuous development

Active listening to your audience can also promote a dynamic culture of learning within your organisation. By tuning into the views of their communities, teams can shine a light on areas that may need work – uncovering blind spots and enabling teams to be truly community-led.

In selecting ‘listening’ as their next priority, the public sector comms professionals surveyed signalled a deep understanding of the power of social media as an effective real-time tool for deep diving into what communities care about. Without listening, there is no meaningful engagement, and therefore no opportunity to create positive experiences for your communities. However, we cannot build trust through listening alone.

Once you’ve listened to and understood the challenges your community is facing, the next step is authentic engagement – chosen by just under a quarter of those surveyed. When public sector organisations engage with their communities in an open and honest way, acknowledging their own failures and limitations, they can start to build a two-way dialogue that forms the foundation of trust. The truth is, building trust takes time and dedication. There’s no shortcut – we’re in it for the long haul.