Be There For Your Customer: Follow These Basic, But Brilliant, Rules

Relationships are the cornerstone of any successful business. Your clients, your employees, and your customers are all what makes you successful. But if you don’t ensure that they trust you, your business is not going to last long. It might sound very simple, but trust is the bedrock of any relationship. And while we know this within a human context, the idea of doing it in business can feel a little like an alien concept. But by increasing your ability to be trusted is going to pay off in so many different ways. If a customer doesn’t trust a business, then it’s not going to get any custom, it’s that simple! So, if you are looking to increase your trustworthiness, how can you do this?

Be There For Them
Interaction is a vital commodity for any business to implement. You need to be available to your customers- you need them to interact with you, and for you to interact with them. Have you ever had that sense of frustration when you’ve been ringing a company, and every time you’ve called, the phone has just kept ringing and ringing? You don’t want to be like this for your customers, so, be there for them in every way possible. Not just in terms of the usual telephone or email methods, but if the customer journey requires someone to help every step of the way, then make it so. If a customer is buying a product from you, and they are limited in terms of their knowledge, perhaps because it’s a technical product, then you need to provide every answer in an easy-to-understand manner, even if they didn’t ask the question! It’s vital for you to be there for them every step of the way, because they will be more trusting in your abilities to provide good service, and they will come back to you.

Be Easy To Use
Because customers interact with businesses in every different facet now, it has never been more important to be easy to use. From the website design being well laid out, to 24/7 care over the telephone, customers need to see that sense of transparency in your business. If you are user-friendly, not just on your website, but in terms of human contact, the customer is always going to come back to you. Nowadays, it’s far easier for customer service representatives to blindside a consumer with pointless jargon, and serve to confuse the customer even more. Be easy to use, and you’ve got a relationship for life.

Be Truthful
Honesty is always the best policy, and when you are a transparent business, this means you are open to admitting your strengths and weaknesses. So many businesses suffer from data breaches now, and this is one of the biggest ways a company loses its customers’ trust. If you suffer from this, it’s far better for you to admit this at the outset, explain what you have planned to solve the problem, and what you will do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Sure, you might lose a few customers, but if you admit to them first that you’ve done wrong, rather than them having to find out via a news report, this will earn you some bonus points with the customer.

Be Consistent
And as you develop trust with the customer, this bond can strengthen over time. Being consistent is expected from every customer because they know exactly where they are. You can maintain consistency by communicating your values again and again, developing a company culture that isn’t stuck in the stone ages, and by delivering what you promise. Consistency is always going to win new customers. An inconsistent and precarious business isn’t one that’s going to be trustworthy. So once you’ve figured out your ethos, culture, and the right way to build a relationship with the customer, you need to keep doing this.

Trust is something we all need in life. It may sound really simple, but it’s hard work to gain the trust of a customer, which is why you need to develop a worthwhile relationship with them. It’s not just about clever marketing techniques or having a shiny website, it’s about the human relationships you develop with each and every consumer. If a customer doesn’t trust you, you might lose them forever. And now, where competition is so feverish, you have to work harder to keep a customer on side. And how can you be there for them? By following these four basic rules. They are basic, but they are brilliant for any business.