WHY THERE'S SO LITTLE TRUST
If
there’s going to be a long-term relationship between you and your customers,
then they have to be able to trust you. Trust is the essential ingredient
in any successful and enduring business relationship.
But when we say, trust, it’s trust who to do what? Your customers need to
be able to trust you to look after them. They need to be able to trust you
to put them first. Consequently, there are three steps to creating trust between
your customers and you.
Step 1. Be competent. For your customers to trust you, you’re going to have
to show them you know your stuff. Your staff will need to have product knowledge
and understand how your business operates. No one is going to trust an organisation
where staff don’t understand what they’re selling or don’t know how their own
company does things.
Because most companies have spent the last few years cutting costs, this
is exactly what happens. I bought a digital camera last year and needed some
advice about how to connect it to my laptop. The retailer couldn’t help me.
The wholesaler had no idea. The importer was at a loss as to what to do. I
walked up to the counter of a retail shop the other day to pay for something. “Are
these any good?” asked the chap taking my money.
“You should be able to tell me that.” I said. “After all, you’re selling
them.”
“I’ve always wondered how well they worked,” he continued ignoring what I’d
said.
How much would you trust any of these businesses to look after you?
Step 2. Be reliable. If you want people to trust you, you must do what you
say you’re going to do. That’s all customers want. They don’t want excuses.
They don’t want apologies. They don’t want explanations. If you say you’re
going to deliver the parcel Monday morning, deliver it Monday morning. If you
say you guarantee your product or service, give them their money back if that’s
what they want.
I once gave a speech to a public audience and during the question time some
fellow asked: “I’m a plumber. People have lots of plumbers to choose from,
how do I get a competitive advantage?”
“Just show up when you say you’ll show up,” I told him. “You’ll blow them
away. But if they’re elderly, you’d better ring first. The shock of a tradesman
arriving on time could kill them.”
Step 3. Tell the truth. Customers today are pretty sophisticated. They can
tell the difference between marketing and lies. They know the difference between ‘PR
spin’ and deceit. A few weeks ago, Telecom tried to convince the public that
the offer they made to people who had switched to Vodafone was always available
to the customers who’d stayed with them. “Yeah, right!”
I got an unsolicited credit card in the mail the other day from GE Finance
with a letter saying that all I had to do was ring a certain number and the
card would be activated. For 20 minutes I listened to a recorded message apologising
for “the unusual delay.” How ‘unusual’ can this delay be if they have a pre-recorded
message to handle it? I cut the card up and sent it back.
Step 4. Care. If you want your customers to trust you, you have to put them
first. Very few companies do. Are your policies and procedures designed to
protect your customers or protect you? Have you set your business up to work
best for your customers or have you minimized your costs?
I went into an office in a high rise in the CBD last week. I got off at the
right floor and found the doors at either end of the hallway locked. There
was a phone to ring and you just hoped the person you were coming to see was
there to answer it. Clearly this company doesn’t care enough about its visitors
to invest in a receptionist. That said it all.
How many companies do you know that follow these four steps? Me neither.
Perhaps that’s why there’s so little trust in today’s marketplace.
|
