The Importance of Building Trust

The importance of building trust-based relationships is more important now than ever.

Your clients need to know that you understand their challenges. However, they also want you to be proactive about protecting their interests after the consulting engagement. Being proactive and providing alternatives that benefit the client builds trust, repeat buyers and the coveted “word-of-mouth” referral. This is a fundamental truth in any relationship, and it carries over into our consulting lives, as well.

To build trust, you must provide value. One way you can do this is to help your client discover ways to make it easier, friendlier and faster for their customers to do business with them. To be extraordinary, make sure it’s easy to do business with you, as well.

Do something today to start listening to your client's customers. Their frontline retail sales associates, bank tellers, contact center agents, and anyone who participates in the delivery of their products and services are a great place to start. Exploit social media and other feedback loops to tap into this knowledge. However, any market researcher will tell you that the best research is primary research. Get firsthand accounts about what your client's customers want, directly from the customers.

“Most importantly, everyone in the organization should understand how their contributions impact customer satisfaction.”

Everyone in the company should know what their customers want. Dashboards are an effective way to monitor customer satisfaction and to communicate results to the client and their organization. Just like any good information vehicle, keep these dashboards simple and highly visual. Everyone in the organization should be able to instantly tell how well the company is doing in meeting customer expectations.

Help your clients use this information to drive product development, marketing, sales and service to deliver what customers want. Companies who can tap into this knowledge will have an edge on their competition. However, companies who take action on this knowledge and use it to differentiate the customer experience will dominate their marketplace.

Copyright © 2013 | Howard Leary