Over the years here at BiP, we’ve had a few conversations about vendors who lost the trust of their customers – as well as some who earned it in magnificent fashion.
Earning, retaining and regaining the trust of your customers is central to what Business is Personal has been about from the beginning.
We talk about a lot of different things that all come down to creating an atmosphere of trust with your clientele. That trust will build a relationship and that relationship, even if impersonal, is what makes business personal to your customers.
A few questions came out of recent conversations on these topics and the best ones were these:
- How can an impersonal business relationship truly be personal?
- How does a vendor recover from a massive loss of trust?
Come on, Steeeeve
How can an impersonal business relationship truly be personal?
Easy…it starts with trust.
For example, I have a relationship with Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
Do we know each other personally, like I do some of my readers? No.
Despite that, I know enough about him from his behavior and the behavior of his company to trust him – at least enough to invest in his company’s products and recommend them to others who trust me.
His behavior and the behavior of his company over time tell me a few things:
I trust that when he walks on stage to speak about new products:
- He is going to announce things will often seem as if they were designed specifically for my use. Not because he has me on speed dial, but because his company has habitually built products which do just that.
- He is going to announce products that will be publicly available today or very soon.
How is that different from others?
Some companies build something not to fill a need their customers have expressed, or a need that they’ve discovered through vision and research, but because (for example) they compete with Apple in some other way and perhaps feel obligated to compete there too.
Those conversations seem to start with “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” or “Well, if so-and-so did it, so can we…”
When you come to market with a product with that much R&D behind it and no one blinks… somewhere, somehow, your company simply isn’t listening well.
Example, HP just cancelled WebOS and their TouchPad tablet one day after Best Buy publicly complained they’d only managed to sell 25,000 of the 270,000 devices they ordered from HP. While it seems to me that this is a strategic buying error on Best Buy’s part, it isn’t as if HP can’t be held accountable for making a product that can’t compete in the marketplace. No question that the iPad and other devices hurt them badly, but they’ve known about the iPad since at least January 2010. Hint: Listen well.
Some vendors announce new products years before they plan to ship – and in some cases they never deliver them. In the most extreme cases, they pre-sell them and then fail to deliver. Some repeatedly toss out anticipated release dates and never meet any of them. Try recovering from a misstep like that, even if it wasn’t intentional.
Start with the mirror
How does a vendor recover from a massive loss of trust?
At the risk of being Mr. Obvious, you start recovering by earning back the trust you lost (or earning what you never had).
Start with this: Say what you’ll do, then do what you said. If you stumble, own up to it.
Too simple? Laugh it off if you like, but as Tom Peters says “There’s not much traffic on the extra mile.”
Some of you will point to Jerry over there and you’ll say “He’ll never come back no matter what we do.”
You might be right, but more Jerrys will leave if you keep acting the way you do now. Even if you don’t get Jerry back, there are others who will recognize your efforts with each bit of trust you earn.
Each customer you lose because of something you did to lose the trust of that customer. You delivered late. You didn’t deliver at all. Your quality was poor. You treated them poorly.
These problems can be repaired. Just like trust.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.