5 ways to earn it from your customers!

TRUST IS A DIFFICULT THING TO MEASURE, but one thing is for certain, one surely knows when it is gone. According to a recent Gallup/BBB survey, Americans are less trusting of business than ever before. Some highlights of the survey:

• 18 percent of adult Americans say that trust in the businesses they regularly conduct transactions with has decreased in the last 12 months.
• Size does matter in a company profile, and responses indicated that Americans trust small business over large business by 73 percent.
• Women are more trusting than men: 52 percent, compared to the 45 percent, say they have a great deal of trust in businesses.
• If you are over age 65, you trust business more than your counterparts under age 35.
• Online companies lag behind brick and mortar businesses in trust, but younger consumers are more likely to trust online business.
• When asked what 14 attributes were most important regarding trust in the marketplace, 93 percent stated that a reputation of honesty and fairness was the top quality, followed closely by dependable and reliable products or services. Oddly enough, price did not make the list until number 5.

Looking locally at what drives people to complain to the BBB about a business, this survey is not much of a surprise at all. The number one reason people get frustrated or angry enough to contact the BBB is a breakdown in trust, meaning:

• The company fails to show up for an appointment as scheduled, and nobody calls to communicate this.
• Delivery dates are set but are not met.
• Prices and services are promised, yet the actual experience falls short of the initial expectations.
• Phone calls are not returned and email goes unanswered, especially when there is a problem to relay.
• Appointments are set and the professional service provider, especially in the medical industry, does not keep its end of the bargain.

The relationship between a business and its customers is just like any other relationship where trust is a key factor. Let’s assume we all begin with trust in place, but someone drops the ball and a phone call does not get returned, or the installer is two hours late and does not call the customer.

It is the simple things that erode trust, but once it starts to erode, it gets harder to repair if some consistent effort is not put forth by all parties involved. (In dispute resolution, we call this starting “with the spirit of resolve in mind.”)

Five Ways to Ensure Your Customer Will Trust You

Communicate early, often and clearly. – Much can be mitigated if you just keep people informed. Don’t make your customer run to you. Call them, give them status reports, and tell them the truth, especially if or when something is not right. Simply return calls and answer e-mails, keeping the lines of communication open.

Verify information before you pass it along. – If you have information that a product will be available, be sure to verify your facts before you pass it along to your customer. They do not care if your supplier lied to you. All they see is you breaking the trust.

Never promise something you can’t delivery yourself. – If something falls apart on the chain, can you physically step in and fulfill your commitment to your client? If not, it is your reputation on the line.

When something goes wrong, tell your customer the truth. – Too many times, business owners avoid a conflict by simply telling a client what he or she wants to hear instead of the truth. All this achieves is delaying and feeding the anger. Tell the truth, not what the person wants to hear.

Take responsibility when a mistake is made. – This action is a refreshing change in today’s society. It is so easy and typical to blame someone or something else when an error occurs or something goes wrong. Your client does not care who else did what or when; they are doing business with you.

My father, who was a successful salesman for 3M, taught me many lessons in customer service, commitments and trust. One year, he sold readymade gift package bows to one of the large department stores in Denver. He told his client they would have thousands of bows for the holiday season, already made and shipped to each store.

But the supplier fell through and in early November, my father found out his order would not be shipped. To protect his reputation he came up with a plan. Dad contacted all the other 3M sales people, borrowed their sample bow makers, and ordered cases of red and green ribbon and bow pins. And with his family’s help, including all five children, he set up an assembly line in the basement.

He paid us to help, and we made bows for weeks. The order ended up being fulfilled, and his reputation remained intact. But I learned a lesson from that experience that I still remember to this day. And that is why my dad was trusted by his customers and had such success in his career. He delivered when he said he would.

The BBB/Gallup Trust Survey will become a regular tool in which to measure certain trends in marketplace trust over time, so that we can all measure change and mark improvement.

You can impact your trust factor immediately by simply improving communication and insuring you have a culture of trust within your organization. If your employees work in an environment of trust, they will pass that along to your customer.

So ask your customer if they have a high trust factor when they do business with you. Sometimes simply asking the question is the road to the answer.

Jan Quintrall is the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Eastern Washington, North Idaho and Montana. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For a more detailed look at the full BBB survey, go to www.bbb.org.

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