It all comes down to trust

This week I went to a top industry conference (my industry - customer relationship management). It was amazing. Top speakers came from around the US and inspired customer-centered practitioners to keep at the charge.

My biggest take-away was how important developing trust with customers is. It comes down to this: trust will grow your business, make you money and increase your customer retention.

So what does trust really mean? And how do you build it?

There are various ideas and approaches but it comes down to being authentic. (See my last blog entry on how to be authentic). Being authentic, like being genuine or being ethical, is just what you have to do. I realized that I often just assume this is the case – it is a demand of the times at a minimum. You can’t play in the business space if you don’t act ethically and build trust.

One of the founding fathers of CRM, Don Peppers, talked at this conference about the growing importance of trust in today’s business environment. Trust is the bedrock of customer relationships and loyalty. He said, “to maximize customer value you have to earn trust first.” And who doesn’t want to maximize the value of their customers?

He cited from the book “The Speed of Trust” by Stephen Covey, that trust includes: (a) credibility; (b) reliability; (c) intimacy; and (d) self-orientation (toward the customer - not a self-seeking business approach).

Don made the point that you need competence and character – you need intent AND action. BOTH.

I love the approach of focusing on trust first. How can you act and communicate so that your customers will trust you? Examples abound: you could be timely, proactive in communication, sensitive to specific needs, empathetic, sensitive to confidential information and so on.

I’d suggest really breaking down how you are building trust with customers. What elements of your business, communications and interactions build trust? Take the time to think about what it would take for you to trust a company.

It might be how you interact to customers, your tone, your openness and honesty (what is called transparency in the Customer Relationship industry). I’d think about the four elements from the Covey book: credibility, reliability, intimacy and orientation to the customer.

I’ll post more on this in future blogs. Please post a comment below if there are areas of trust you’d like me to focus on.

(Also here is another blog that includes highlights from other speakers at this conference.)