Earning the trust of your marketplace is simple. It might not be easy, but it’s not exactly rocket science either. A few key morals are guaranteed to earn the trust of shoppers everywhere, and they’ve all been proven effective in a wide range of circumstances.
Keep Your Word
One of the easiest ways to lose the trust of customers is to lie, tell half-truths or fail to deliver on a promise. People want to be able to trust the businesses that they are buying from, and when they see those businesses making false statements, it causes them distress. This distress then leaves them with lingering negativity towards the business that will drive them away.
Be honest, and deliver consistently. If you can’t deliver on a promise that you’ve made, be open with the customers about that failure. Be humble, ask for forgiveness and try to make it up to them.
Be Transparent
As with failing to deliver on a promise, a business needs to be open with people to earn their trust. Businesses that keep secrets, operate mysteriously or hide critical details from the public will always be subject to scrutiny and investigation. As an example, thousands of slaughterhouses have been infiltrated, shut down or boycotted for their practices after trying to keep their methods hidden from the public eye. A lack of transparency is a call for public skepticism.
Be willing to prove the legitimacy of your business. There will always be trade secrets, questionable risks and varying public opinions, and these make complete transparency impossible at times. However, being transparent about what must protected will still earn trust. Telling people that something must be protected for competitive reasons is better than telling them nothing at all. If you can’t be transparent, be transparent about what you can’t be transparent about.
Show, Don’t Tell
Businesses need to be more prepared to demonstrate than to explain. Words simply fail to make the same impression that a legitimate demonstration will. Imagine an infomercial that was just a bunch of writing on the screen: it could say that the product will work quickly, accurately and inexpensively, but a demonstration carries more weight than mere words on a screen.
If a customer asks about typical results, show them genuine results that people are getting. If they ask about the business’s impact on the environment, be willing to show them ways that your business is greener than the competition. People are much more willing to trust visual explanations than words alone.
These are not complicated, cutting edge ideas: they are simple facts that speak of human nature. If a business lies, keep secrets and has nothing to show of their claims, it won’t matter if they are trustworthy or not. People will not trust them.
Author Bio
Hayley is a freelance blogger. Discover how you can significantly improve your business decision making with executive dashboarding.