For any new consulting business, gaining the trust of clients remains an important form of business retention. Several aspects of a brand correlate to building trust with your client to do business with you. Factors like the brand image, location of the business and service offered play important roles in defining client trust.
In this article, we will discuss various parameters that help build and retain trust among your clients.
Value Clients Time
Time is money. This overtly used phrase actually holds true in any business setup. Respecting your clients time and sticking by it provides a great deal of value for your clients. When your client gives you a time, you must adhere to it. A 9 o’clock meeting must start by 9 o’clock. Stick to the deadlines as promised by you and your company. This may seem like basic etiquette but holds true value in the real world.
Your clients will respect your sense of time commitment as for them time is of essence. Few points to follow when dealing in timelines with your clients are as follows:
- Prompt reply to emails, calls, and texts – A quick response to a phone call, text, or email from your client helps build trust.
- Maintain deadlines and schedule time – Ensure to stick to the deadlines and schedules as set forth.
Show and Tell about your Brand
Your brand have to be synonymous with the word ‘trust.’ This is why brand building is critical. Fortunately, branding doesn’t have to be resource-intensive.
Start with your business name and identity. Well-chosen name goes a long way. You can’t name your business or brand “Shady Sam” when you’re selling insurance. Joke aside, your business name needs to be catchy, easy to remember, and of course, feel trustworthy. The same goes to your brand identity. Your design choice, color picks, and overall vibe matters much more than you think.
Also, your business location or address matter. A residential address or a P.O. Box address doesn’t bode well when it comes to trust. You need to have a physical office address, even if your business operation is fully online. You can make use of a virtual office address to save money.
Being Available
Now being available is not necessarily about responding to queries and questions. The idea is about your brand being available as a competitive force always in the sector. Your brand should be the next option upon the minds of your potential clients. This helps in establishing your brand reach into the sector of your expertise.
Having multiple channel for communications help ensure ease of access for your clients. If a client is a high prospect, enable a personal line of communication to make them feel special and handle escalations personally.
Have Clear And Concise Communication
There is no issue that cannot be solved with proper communication. Therefore, having clear and concise communication is important. Never really leave your clients in the dark when dealing with them. Always ensure to inform them regarding any changes to the schedule, upcoming important dates and events. This keeps your clients well-informed regarding their project and how you are handling it.
Be honest and straightforward with your priorities and procedures. If anything goes wrong, or there are shortcomings, accept the mistake proactively. If you are caught hiding information or disregarding the relationship’s interaction aspect, whatever confidence you might have established may break down.
Client Servicing Is The Key
Once you crack a deal with a client, your purpose is to ensure your clients are happy with your service. This requires ensuring complete customer service, maybe even go overboard in order to keep them satisfied.
Trust gets unstable when a consumer has a problem with anything. If they face an issue, offer timely, supportive and unforgettable customer support. They will surely remember of you as a reputable company.
But if you miss the ball, you’re going to lose a client permanently, and you’re sure to suffer a dip in the popularity. As often as you can, have plenty of support for your customer service. You cannot simply move to the most cost-effective way to fix an issue. Try to ensure your consumers are noticed and respected, and go all out then you normally would to make them comfortable.
Promise Less And Deliver More
Clients don’t trust brands quite like how they used to before. One explanation for this change is that clients believe that they have been manipulated into. Any moment the consumer realize that they have been misled or tricked, in any manner, that client is most likely to part their ways with the brand they believe is accountable.
It is also in the utmost importance to under-promise and deliver more in all aspects of consumer requirements. If you need a week to deliver an order, notify your clients that it will require two weeks. If the item lasts for 10 years, say it lasts for 8 years. In this manner, you would never risk the possibility of compromising your commitments (at least, with most of your clients).
Social Media still Matters
Keeping active upon social media platforms benefit you in a variety of ways. It helps create awareness for your brand, gain more fans, and realize that the fans you do draw have a greater feel for “what” your company is. The more times you show this aspect of your business, the easier you will be able to develop that confidence.
One of the positives of creating exposure across social media seems to be the amount of versatility you have. You can invest your days syndicating the on-site contents as well as contacting new and former followers. Alongside this you can share photos and video, or communicate news and updates to consumers. The objective is to be involved and to be visible on a networking site.
Your Website Needs To Feel Secured
First of all, ensure that your clients are comfortable when they purchase via your website or with you. Although if you don’t sell your goods across an e-commerce portal, consumers can always visit the website. The extent of security they experience will play a huge role as to how much they value the brand.
For instance, if you bombard them with ads, sustain a shopping experience that is tedious and difficult to monitor. These can deter your consumers to assume that your service is unsafe. Enhance your defenses with simple SSL safety, use trustworthy payment gateways and proudly show your trust badges. Trust seals are probably the single and the largest on-site component that strengthens customer confidence.
The measures explained above are only some of the various measure you may undertake to ensure your clients take your business more seriously. Building trust with your client is an ever evolving process and requires efforts daily and annually.
