Customer Stories
Digital empathy is the new gold standard for building trust
When Basildon Borough Council felt the brunt of residents’ frustration over cancelled elections, it turned a moment of extreme distrust into a foundation for future engagement.
Basildon Borough Council (Basildon BC) is a forward-thinking local authority dedicated to serving its residents by delivering essential services and fostering community development. Operating on the core principle that resident voice is the primary pillar of communications, the council measures its success on how well it is understood by the community. In 2026, the council launched its ambitious ‘6 in 26’ campaign, utilising targeted sentiment segmentation with the Orlo platform to independently track, manage, and respond to public engagement across its key strategic aims.
The challenge
In early 2026, Basildon BC found itself at the centre of a significant communications storm following a central government announcement that local elections would be cancelled. While the decision-making sat at a national level, the brunt of residents’ frustration landed squarely on the council’s digital doorstep at a time when public sector trust was already fragile.
By the end of January 2026, resident anger had peaked, and the council’s digital channels were flooded with critical, unfiltered conversations regarding voting rights. Basildon BC needed to move rapidly from an anecdotal feeling of public dissatisfaction to hard, quantifiable data. This evidence was crucial in demonstrating the severity of this systemic collapse in resident confidence and trust to internal stakeholders and MPs.
The solution
Rather than just monitoring the crisis or simply broadcasting standard corporate updates across their channels, Basildon BC used Orlo’s social listening, sentiment and emotion analysis tools to actively listen to what their community was saying. The council implemented a comprehensive strategy centred on the Insights available with the Orlo platform to help manage the sudden influx of data.
The communications team actively tracked indirect conversations where the council wasn’t explicitly tagged, ensuring they captured the true, unfiltered narrative of what was happening across channels, including X, which they identified as their primary channel. By utilising Orlo’s Trust Indicator to measure levels of trust in the council, they were able to turn qualitative noise into a quantifiable Trust Score that leadership could readily use to inform strategic planning.
Orlo’s ability to identify trending topics and themes meant the team could filter out background noise and isolate key community concerns from thousands of inbound messages. The rich data from Orlo’s Insights solution was interpreted and translated into actionable briefing notes for planned ‘meet the leader’ events and public sessions, effectively closing the feedback loop.
“Misinformation spreads like wildfire, so we were mindful that we needed to consistently provide the full facts, linking back to government decision-making where possible. We used Orlo to track ongoing, real-time conversations, ensuring that our communications and messaging reflected and answered the questions that were regularly popping up.”
Basildon Borough Council Communications Team
The results
When the government eventually reversed its decision and reinstated the elections, Basilon BC’s close monitoring allowed them to map the real-time, ‘emotional pivot’ and attribute it to the reinstatement announcement. The team tracked an immediate shift in emotions from anger and confusion to excitement, validating their transparent approach. The recovery was as dramatic as the decline, with the council reporting a 73% recovery in trust as its Trust Score climbed from its lowest point of -100% back up to +23.91% following the announcement.
The project successfully demonstrated that social media sentiment and emotion data are vital metrics for gaining a clear, comprehensive picture of an emerging situation. Within the organisation, social media has now been integrated as a permanent, official contact and reporting channel. And, by identifying uncomfortable themes early, the council stayed human on difficult channels.
“Not ignoring these emerging themes, even when they were uncomfortable and hard to listen to, helped to present a transparent perspective throughout. This wasn’t a magic bullet, but helped to show that we were listening and taking action.”
Basildon Borough Council Communications Team
This experience by Basildon BC shows that while councils can’t always control the national narrative, they can control how well they listen to their residents. By providing a platform for the community to feel heard during a challenging time, the council turned a moment of extreme distrust into a foundation for future engagement.
Outcome
260
hours saved
Outcome
7-minute
average response rate
Outcome
62%
of responses within 0-5 minutes
Outcome
13-minute
reduction in response rate quarter on quarter
Engagement
18.1k
inbound messages dealt with over a 30-day period
”
We are fully aware that even as we share clear, detailed information about these situations and the governance surrounding it, people can easily fill the online space with their own narrative. Misinformation spreads like wildfire, so we were mindful that we needed to consistently communicate the facts, linking back to the government decision-making process, where possible.
We used Orlo to track ongoing, real-time conversations, ensuring that our communications and messaging reflected and answered the questions that were regularly popping up. By employing this tactic, our trust score and engagement increased significantly.”
Jude Mason, Campaign and Creative Design Manager at Basildon Borough Council
