Opinion - the Bluedge blog
Stick Together
Posted by Jayne Espley, January 2008
STICK TOGETHER
The first question to really ask yourself, if you are on the brink of giving serious thought to your company’s approach to relationship building, is ‘are you really committed to your customers?’ That might seem like an odd question. Of course you’re committed to them; that’s what drives your business…they pay the bills, without them, no business, right?
Of course it’s right. But you might have noticed that we’ve dropped the jargon and we’re not talking about ‘relationship marketing’, we’re talking about relationship building.
Good relationships are reciprocal, involving mutual benefit built and build on mutual trust for the long term. The more trust there is in a relationship, the more your customer values the relationship and values you, your company, the services and input you provide. As a result they will be less likely to defect, because that means risking the uncertainty of starting again and building a new relationship with a new supplier. This involves time and effort and, therefore, money. Bear in mind that whilst we talk about clients, customers and organisations we are, ultimately, just talking about human beings with their own workloads, goals, targets and complicated masses of stress and tension points. They prefer to build a team around them; to know they can pick up the phone and get you to take care of a problem for them. They want to feel safe in the knowledge that their business relationships can be relied upon, not just when things are going well, but almost more importantly when issues arise.
Building business relationships is a process you need to have well understood by everyone within your organisation who is client facing. The goal of doing this is to ensure a position as Trusted Partner. It should be the goal of every business. We have stated that the main building block in relationships is trust. Marketing theorists refer to trust as the ‘social glue’ that binds a relationship together. Hence we’ve called this Blog entry ‘Stick Together’. Stick close to your clients and they’ll stick close to you.
TYPES OF TRUST
For sure, you will perceive that trust already exists between you and your clients; or that you’re ready to start building it in the case of new clients. We’re going to stick with this theme of trust, and run it into the next Blog so we thought it might be a useful intellectual exercise for you to think about the nature of the trust that exists between you and your clients.
Here’s a brief guide to the types of trust most prevalent to varying degrees in business relationships and varying in the quality of relationship that they engender. You might want to have a think about where you sit within these categories.
FIVE TYPES OF TRUST
- Calculative- this is when a relationship continues because the client understands the cost benefits of staying (as we mentioned, it involves time, effort and money to investigate new suppliers).
- Verifiable- this occurs basically when a client suspects his suppliers until they offer proof that they are above suspicion.
- Reciprocal- ‘I’ll trust you if you trust me’; both parties benefit from shared trust…the essential ingredient for a collaborative partnership.
- Earned- Based on experience, where trust comes naturally as a result of the actions you undertake and the behaviour of your company within the relationship.
- Blind- Blind trust is unquestioning, pure and innocent. In a commercial world it is also irrational. It’s not something you’ve earned through your own professional excellence, so you can never take pride in it.
Without a shadow of doubt, trust builds relationships. Much more important than that though, is the quality of trust, because that will strengthen and guide the nature of developments between you and your client long into the future. Have a long hard look – hand on heart, what kind of trust do you believe exists between you and your clients? It goes without saying that some types of trust are more desirable than others. This Blog will help you get there. Don’t forget – the ultimate goal is to secure the status of Trust Partner; it’s a perfect goal and a perfect driving principle…
TRUSTED PARTNER.
