Growing a business is hard. Finding your niche, winning new business and retaining customers isn’t easy. Trust between you and your customers takes time to build and is easily lost. The same applies to suppliers. There are many ways to build and maintain trust. It starts with your employees and extends to your customers. The 5Cs summarises good practice as follows;
Commitment
A committed business is loyal to the cause, the vision, and the customers they supply. They are companies who persevere despite setbacks. When account managers are committed, they can build the trust of their customers by staying present, engaged, and positive. Commitment is the number one thing a business can demonstrate to build trust.
Connection
A trustworthy business is well-connected to customers who rely on them. They don’t get bogged down in the day-to-day and forget the needs of their customers. Account managers are always contactable and visible, never distant or detached. They take time to get to know their customers in a meaningful way. This helps customers to see businesses as people who care about their requirements and who value the relationship.
Compassion
A trustworthy company takes time to understand the needs of their customers, their requirements and concerns and responds in a meaningful way, each and every time. If a service goes down businesses take positive action to update customers and let them know when services will be restored.
Consistency
By being consistent across your business your customers know what to expect from you, which helps to build trusted relationships. By trusting you, customers are much more likely to share their issues with you and allow you to help them solve them. Being calm, collected and professional under fire is important, as well as reacting in a consistent and timely manner.
Competency
Spend time getting to know your customers, issues and skill sets. Don’t pretend to be an expert in all areas but find trusted suppliers who are. Be open and honest with your customers, it’s ok to bring in experts, under your own brand if it helps. Be open to continuous learning, go on training courses to skill-up on the solutions you feel would benefit your customers the most.
Once trust is established it is important to manage. Your customers trust you, you need to trust your employees and they need to trust their suppliers. Monitor and manage this and take action required to maintain the cycle of trust.
Jola is a trusted supplier of internet connectivity, hosted voice and 4G solutions. We are committed to helping our partners grow their businesses and to reduce their churn. To find out more..
