Customers often prefer to deal with a handful of companies – their “preferred suppliers” – because it’s easier then juggling many. But to become “preferred” you need to develop trust with customers over time. Here’s how.
Building trust from the first point of contact to the most recent customer service interaction is critical to customer relationships and loyalty.
Create strong relationships
When customer experience professionals focus on using the “Five Trust Builders,” they can deepen relationships with customers, according to Ted Barrows, president of Barrows Associates, a sales and marketing company in Bristol, RI.
Encourage front-line employees to use.
- Candor (truth of your words). What you say needs to agree with what customers knows to be true. The proof you use to support your words is credible, perhaps backed up by research, online sources or documentation. What you say will happen must happen.
- Dependability (predictability of your actions). What you do fulfills the promises you made to customers and fits a pattern of dependable actions and words you’ve already established. You can’t promise what you can’t deliver.
- Competence (ability). You need to display technical command of products and applications. You have the skill, knowledge, time and resources to do what you promise and what customers want. Your words and actions are consistent with your personal and company professional image.
- Intent (placing the customer’s interests on a par with your own, a commitment to be there, to be responsive, etc.). You understand your customers’ needs and place them in line with what is best for them and the company. You treat all customers fairly and balance the attention you give them. You don’t want to ever push a product or service your customers don’t need.
- Likability (showing your sincere personality). Customers want to deal with people they enjoy. This doesn’t mean you should develop the personality of a stand-up comic. It does mean you remain courteous and polite and make efficient use of customers’ time. You may even share and talk about areas of commonality, sometimes extending to non-business topics.
