Are You Building Trust?
Creating Trust Through Empathy & Credibility
Gaining someone’s trust is not easy. Building a trusting relationship with a client is GOLD. We’ve all had a few – those clients who drop off projects and allow us to design and build them without any input. This is an amazing feeling when it happens.
But how does trust occur? What has to happen in a relationship before one party trusts the other? Two very important things. The first is empathy. Empathy is established when the client truly knows that you care about them. Empathy is created when you put the best interests of your clients ahead of everything else. When someone knows that you care, then they will care about what you know. If your clients know that you really care about their satisfaction, then you are half way to building a trusting relationship.
Creating trust with your clients should be the ultimate goal in business.
But empathy is only a part of it. The other half of a trusting relationship is credibility. Credibility is walking the walk. It is the ability to consistently accomplish what you say you will do. It is the ability to meet goals and deadlines. Without credibility, there is no reliability and therefore no trust.
I think many business owners have the ability to be empathetic to the needs of their clients. They’ve learned that listening and educating their customers is a big part of growing a loyal customer base. However, most small business owners seem to struggle with credible performance. Due dates, follow up and consistent performance are often inconsistent and less urgent. Although intentions are good, too many things are allowed to interrupt consistent performance.
Consistent performance through team members is even more difficult. The only way that credibility becomes part of a company culture is through ongoing training, documentation of company policies and accountability. Building credibility into a company culture is a lot of detailed, hard work and it’s often ignored by overwhelmed business owners.
Creating trust with your clients should be the ultimate goal in business. If you truly care about the experience you offer and build consistent performance that can be followed by everyone on your team, you will create something very special.
