

Simple and Effective Ways to Build Trust - jason_tko
http://blog.webnet-it.co.jp/2010/05/03/simple-and-effective-ways-to-build-trust/

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dpatru
Good salespeople will create trust by deliberately making promises and then
keeping them. So for example, if a client requests some information, the
salesperson will promise to send it by a certain time, say in ten minutes, and
then send it, even if the information could have been provided immediately.
The act of making the promise and delivering on it builds more trust than just
responding to a request.

I heard this on a video presentation awhile back. I've forgotten the source
but the concept has stuck with me.

Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits for Highly Effective People, also points
out that you can become a trustworthy person by making and keeping
commitments, even if the commitments are to yourself. He suggests starting by
making a commitment to yourself to rise at a certain hour tomorrow.

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Xurinos
Great article!

One of the article's points that hits home for me is something I had learned
in the first month of my first job outside college where I had to work with
customers over the phone and email: Never make a promise you cannot keep.
Manage customer expectations; they are the customer's perception.

The article suggests getting things done early for the customer, and that is
great, but the customer is also comfortable waiting until the exact time that
you specified, too. That early stuff is good bonus cookies, but the core trust
issue is doing your thing on time. And if, for some reason you cannot make it,
as early as you can figure that out, tell them, and give them a reasonable new
time.

As a customer, time is a very important thing to me. For example, when my ISP
has told me their tech is going to show up between 8 and 10 AM, 10:15 AM is
completely unacceptable to me -- I usually call in for that. If they had told
me 8 to 10:30, I would not have had a problem. Even better, if they had called
to tell me they were going to be late as opposed to me having to call and find
out after the fact that they were going to show up an hour later, I would have
been happier.

This stuff is amazingly simple to do, too. I think it relates to an implied
point in the article: customers appreciate when you admit your mistakes and
arrange ways to resolve them rather than hide/ignore them when they are
obvious to the customer.

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altxwally
"The amount of trust you build is directly correlated with the difficulty of
your situation when you do the right thing by someone. Your short term loss
will translate into incredible future opportunities when you’re surrounded by
people who know you’ll do the right thing no matter the situation."

I think this is a very good advice in general. Doing the right thing can be
difficult given the constraints that we usually have, but it is definitely
worth it. It will sound silly but I truly believe that one way of doing the
right thing is to think whether doing it will change the world or not. Once I
have that idea on my head, doing the right thing gets easier I think, no
matter the context...

