Messaging builds trust: what the numbers really say

For years, companies have measured their customer relationships by web traffic, email open rates or satisfaction scores. Those indicators remain useful, but they miss something essential: the quality of the connection.

A study published in September 2025 by Kantar, commissioned by Meta and conducted among more than 11,000 consumers across 22 markets, gives a concrete measure of that connection. 75% of consumers want to be able to contact a business the same way they write to their friends and family. And 72% say they are more inclined to buy from a brand that offers messaging as a channel.

That isn't a statistic about technology. It's a statistic about trust.

From channel to connection

Messaging, and WhatsApp in particular, isn't seen by consumers as a mere customer service tool. It is a familiar, personal space in which they agree to engage with a brand because they feel they are in a real dialogue there, rather than passive recipients of a broadcast message.

73% of consumers worldwide say they prefer messaging to communicate with a business. That figure reflects a deep expectation: a relationship that is direct, responsive and contextual, the opposite of web navigation funnels or contact forms that stretch the distance between a brand and its customer.

What this means for brands

The operational consequence is clear: companies investing in conversational experiences are not simply making a channel choice. They are building a different relationship with their customers, one in which responsiveness, personalisation and continuity of exchange become measurable commercial assets.

But deploying messaging effectively is not just a matter of switching on a WhatsApp Business account. It means integrating exchanges into existing systems, meeting European data protection requirements, designing conversational journeys that deliver real value at every step, and not reducing AI to a generic chatbot that erodes trust instead of building it.

The implementation challenge

That is precisely where most messaging projects fail: not in the intention, but in the execution. The gap between the technological promise and the reality of a deployment at scale is often underestimated. GDPR compliance, CRM integration, data governance and team training are not details: they are the conditions for lasting trust.

With the Sandra platform, we start from the principle that conversational messaging is not an IT project. It is a customer relationship project, demanding as much business expertise as technical mastery. That is why we combine platform and support: so that brands don't just deploy a channel, but build an experience.

The 75% of consumers Kantar identified in September 2025 who expect that closeness will certainly notice the difference.