Build trust and meet customer expectations?
If customers trust you, they will do extraordinary things.
Trust in a business is like oil to a car engine. It keeps the moving parts from seizing up and stopping the car’s forward motion. Customers’ expectations will include being comfortable with and confident in their decisions. No one makes a buying decision when uncertain, just as a buyer who lacks trust will usually stall the buying process.
Working on your business’s promises is an excellent place to start managing customer expectations. There’s nothing more infuriating than overpromising and underdelivering. Deliberately underpromising the customer will help automatically increase the likelihood of exceeding customer expectations. Remember that underpromising has some risks, as it can reduce your competitive position.
Be aware of your competitor’s market positioning.
Customer preferences will be just as necessary online as offline. Your positioning will be critical because there is no longer any real difference in the purchasing behaviour of today’s online and offline customers.
You can’t take trust for granted. Some people seem to have a knack for receiving and building confidence. Others take them at their word, and people speak well of them in their absence. Even when they make an error, others give them the benefit of the doubt. Some people are just the opposite, distrustful of what they say and are suspicious of their motives.
If you need to build trust in your customers’ expectations, there are some key things you can do and encourage your people to do.
- Be reliable; keeping your word helps.
- Always tell the truth.
- Values play a significant role.
- Caring.
- It’s never about you.
- Be transparent.
- Enthusiasm is infectious.
- Be authentic.
- Give without strings being attached.
Move your ‘free line’ so you don’t have to charge for every minute of your time. Become a giver, not a taker, ensuring you’re always valuable and helpful, as nothing will build trust more quickly.
Buyers need your honest advice, credible promises, and, of course, resolution of their issues. Building trust takes months, sometimes years, but unfortunately, you can lose it in a heartbeat. Building trust is key to discovering and understanding customer expectations and their real motives.
If you want to be the best in your field, remember that building trust will always take time. It doesn’t matter what else you have, a great product or service, money, or contacts- time must always be a critical factor in building any relationship that will meet customer expectations. Even in times of limited supply, customer expectations must be respected.
Quotable quotes.
“The first step in exceeding your customer expectations is to know those expectations”. Roy Williams
“Congruent values and trust take years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair. Breaking a customer’s trust is like crumpling a piece of paper. You can smooth the paper over, but it will never be the same again without good content”. Peter Sergeant