NATIONAL SMALL BUSINESS WEEK 5: Trust = Loyalty = Growth
April 25, 2008 by ren
Filed under Corporate Finance
In the 2008 edition of the annual Reader’s Digest Trusted Brand Survey (since 1999), the top trusted brands in Asia have maintained their position in the list for the past 10 years of the Survey –showing customer loyalty to the brand. These brands have also sustained their growth through the years.
How do you create TRUST?
Bridget Wright of Biz Chicks Rule (http://www.bizchicksrule.com/), writing a guest post in Slacker Manager of Phil Gerbyshak & David Zinger, shows one way:
By over-delivering your services.
Become totally consumed with the idea of customer service and stop focusing on the bottom line and desired profits. Trust me, this will take care of itself, I promise. To customers, being genuine and real in your approach is the ideal way to get their business and create a loyal customer base. Customers want professionalism, but they also want to do business with people who are genuine in their business approach.
Read the complete article in http://www.slackermanager.com/2008/04/give-more-to-get-more.html.
image from Microsoft Clipart
I have to agree that underpromising and overdelivering is a key to develop trust in your clients. But they key is not to make them think you’re going to deliver a crappy product. Underpromising isn’t degrading your services. It’s telling them that you’ll have what they need on Wednesday and giving it to them on Tuesday instead. It’s saying you’ll deliver 5 lbs. of a product and giving them 2 extra as a bonus. It’s giving value added to make them feel like they really matter to you.
Thanks, Kristen, for dropping by & adding a meaty footnote on how to develop trust in clients.
Underpromising / overdelivering is an effective way of, not just selling a product or service, but of cementing a mutually beneficial long term relationship that leads to growth of the business.