How do you build trust towards your company?
Tytti Sandström
20 replies
I've come to understand that one key element in successful sales is trust between you and your customer. Once the trust is there, everything feels easier. Do you feel the same way?
In what ways do you build trust in your customers? Do you focus on this topic in different phases of customers' journey with your company? What methods and tools do you use? Is this a topic you talk about in your company?
Replies
Sri Gokul Krishnan. @sri_gokul_krishnan
Astusx
Once you land a customer. Keep your word, provide value to the work. Ask the problem statement and how you can help them, explain the different possibilities how you and your team can solve the problem. Be truthful, If the customer isn't satisfied ask for some time and give your best. Customer satisfaction is everything.
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@sri_gokul_krishnan thank you for your thoughts :) Do you think there's a way to build trust withour being in contact personally with the customer?
@tytti_sandstrom Yes absolutely, We can. I have a client I don't know much about him. I never seen him or met him. He ping me if there is a job, once I finish, he pays me. We speak a lot about a project and the we have long discussions. Once he was struck with a design , I talked him out of the idea and I gave him 10 different designs. The whole company loved the design and he loved the experience. Now I have a long term client.
Early on the buying process: offering useful information in google searches.
Later on: Case studies and testimonials
..By being human to human :)
I also believe that it all starts with sales. I also think it is very important to take care of the customer afterwards. This includes responding quickly to customer questions, communicating regularly with the customer and asking for feedback on cooperation at different touch points. It is also good to have metrics in place to monitor the relationship with the customer.
@petteri_puumala Thank you for your thoughts. Some of the strongest trustbonds with my customers i've created with them first being unhappy with something and then fixing it :)
If doing outbound sales, the trust is usually (IMO) between two people. It's also a time-consuming process to build trust, but nowadays it's way easier thanks to all the references, LinkedIn, review platforms etc. For a salesperson, the key is to be honest, authentic and genuinely interested in the customer's business and to solve the customer's problem. If you leave a good impression, it's more likely that those people recommend you and your service again and again. That's the baseline of trust, in my opinion. When the trust is well-built, the social proof will follow and for that, there are lots of nice apps and platforms, such as LinkedIn.
@vylimaki hmm. building trust can most definitely start between two people, especially if one has never heard of the company before. But i also think (like you sait too) that building trust can start way before that. It's really nice to hear examples and thoughts on this. Trust is such a strong bond.
I usually try to be friendly, curious, positive, and empathic. When I do my first contact I ask questions about customers, to open up the connection, simply like "how is it going?" "Do you feel this is something you see important or how you do this usually?" etc. Or later phases, if we have already discussed before, simply speak about something not related to work. To listen and understand the customer´s situation and be personal. Then I pitch if the customer is open to listening to me. Sometimes it goes differently, but this is something I try :)
In our company trust is what we build every day, that is part of our business and mission ;)
@sini_katariina thanks for sharing your thoughts on the topic :)
@tytti_sandstrom thanks for starting a conversation on the topic!
good question that is hard to answer
@samanta_kleo @samanta_kleo Thank you for joining the discussion. We've already heard some good thoughts from various people. Statements in forums and social networks, personal approach to one-on-one discussions, references and reviews, authenticity and interest to customer's business + problem solving approach, bulding a trust so that your customers recommend you to others, social proof, customer care, communicating regularly, asking for feedback, excellence in customer service... Trust is most definitely at least in most cases not built in short time and a lot of things can help it!