Establishing trust with your customers isn’t something that just happens. It’s important to every business and is one of the leading factors for building your brand’s credibility. When customers trust your business, they are more likely to return as they know the business will deliver or execute at or above an expected level. Here are 3 ways that can help build trust with your customers:
1.Be Authentic
Be authentic, or being real, occurs when a business is honest and trustworthy. This starts from the top with leadership, stating the mission of the business. Be clear, be honest and be transparent in the mission of the business. The mission, and how it is communicated, will impact how employees and customers interact with your business.
It’s vital to look at your business’ core values to ensure the mission and what the company stands for are in alignment and communicated from the top down. Your customers will care if your team cares. Customers gravitate towards brands and businesses that are real.
Recently, during the pandemic it’s been critical for businesses to be honest and real with their customers to ensure they’re taking precautions to keep their employees and customers safe. Organizations have been authentic in their communications to customers.
A clear and consistent mission, will build trust.
2. Deliver
Deliver what you promise. This seems like a basic concept, but this is critical to building trust. Communicate the expectation between both parties and deliver on those expectations. If challenges occur, address them immediately.
The pandemic has created additional hurdles for businesses to deliver timely, due to changing regulatory guidance as well as sourcing issues. Be up front with your customers on these challenges and set the expectation for when delivery will occur. It’s essential to not make a promise your business can’t fulfill but to overdeliver with the expectation of what your customers purchased when possible.
Delivering the product as promised builds trust.
3. Listen
Listen to your customer throughout the entire sale process. After the product or service has been delivered, follow-up and listen. If your customer had an unpleasant experience, understand why, so it can be corrected going forward. If the customer had a positive experience, understand why and share it with your team. Listening and understanding the why will make you brand stronger. Listening will also make the customer feel heard and they may be more willing to share this experience with others.
These items may seem logical, and they are because at the end of the day, we’re all people that want to be trusted and treated with respect.