CAN YOUR CUSTOMERS TRUST
YOU?
Imagine
you were walking down the street and you saw a vendor selling snack
food such as hot
dogs and chips. The smells made you realize that
you were hungry but as you got closer, you
could see that the caravan looked rather dirty. In
fact, the man himself looked quite scruffy, even
disreputable. When you got to the counter, you
had to wait while he had an argument with a
customer who believed he had been cheated. Of
course the vendor denied it and the customer
walked away feeling very dissatisfied. Would
you buy from this man?
This answer is probably no, because you would
not trust him. As you know, trust is very
important in business. In fact, trust between the
customer and the vendor is critical to any
business being done at all. If the vendor does
not trust the customer, he will not sell. If the
customer does not trust the vendor, she will not
buy.
Can your customers trust you?
I am not suggesting your place of business is
unsafe or unhealthy, nor am I suggesting you
are disreputable or dishonest. But my experience
as a customer is that businesses do things every
day that cause their customers to distrust them.
The problem is, they do these things
unintentionally, and they do not realise the
impact doing them has on their customers.
Take, for example, the experience I had with
Budget, the car rental company, in Brisbane at
Christmas. I had booked a 4 litre Falcon through
my travel agent in Auckland. I wanted this
particular car, which was advertised in their
brochure, because my family and I intended to
drive from Brisbane to Sydney and four of us
are over six feet tall. When we got to the
Brisbane airport to pick up the car, we were
given a different car. When I questioned this, I was
told that they just do not have Falcons at the
Brisbane airport. Never have had. Do not intend to.
Then I was shown the fine print in the contract
which allowed the company to substitute vehicles.
Budget was right and I was wrong. I hope they feel
good about being right because now I do not trust
them and I will not do business with them again.
Would you?
Then there was the time we went to Planet
Hollywood in Sydney to have dinner. We looked at
the menu in the window. It looked good so we went
inside, past the greeter who wished us good
evening, and up the stairs to the restaurant. There
was no one to seat us. In fact, there was hardly
anyone in the place. I went up to the man behind
the bar and asked for a table for 5, please. “I am
sorry, sir,” he said, “but we are not serving food
tonight.” I asked why and was told that the
restaurant was under new management and they
did not have the kitchen operational. Fair enough,
but why not put a sign up downstairs by the menu
saying so? The advertising of a menu is the
promise of an offer, in my view, and management
was breaking that promise. The next time I walk
past Planet Hollywood in Sydney, I will look at the
menu, think it looks good, but then wonder
whether they are serving food that day. The doubt
is enough to make me walk past. After all, it is not
far to the next restaurant.
Can your customer trust you? Do you advertise
specials and then run out of stock? Do you promise
to be there at 10 AM or deliver the goods today,
and then show up late? Do you leave a message on
your voicemail saying you will call back, and then
not get around to it? These things are easily done.
In themselves, they are no big deal, or at least they
don’t look like a big deal to us. But they do cause
our customers to be let down or disappointed, and
that makes it hard for them to trust us.
Can we succeed if they don’t?
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