How trust builds business

As companies navigate the human and economic impact of Covid-19, our group commercial director Ashley Kirk discusses how businesses can grow from a foundation of trust:

“Trust is key to our relationships. It’s defined with a very clear ‘yes’ or a ‘no’” says Ashley. “There’s never a ‘well I trust them a little bit’ or ‘maybe I trust them’. With everything we say or do, we are growing trust or breaking it down…

Let’s start with ‘what you do’- your product and your services:

A great service delivered by a highly trained and hardworking team is essential. However, it’s certainly not just about getting as much done as possible for the lowest price. A willingness to try a new solution is essential to support client pain points; operational efficiencies must add value to the service; while trust and open and honest conversation must underpin a quality customer experience.

Next is the ‘how you do it’ – your promise and your story:

Don’t make promises you can’t deliver on. Failing to deliver what you’ve said you’re going to can seriously harm your relationship with customers. Be realistic about meeting expectation and, if it can’t be done, work together to find a solution.

If something goes wrong, don’t try to conceal it. Hiding problems causes greater trust issues further down the line.

Respect the customer. Listen to and welcome new ideas, respond kindly, whether these are feasible or not.

Establish credibility by being consistent in all you do, from mobilisation to management, health and safety, and communications.

And finally, there’s the ‘why you do it’ – your brand purpose and beliefs:

Any one individual within a business can build a great relationship of trust with their customer. However they need the backing of the solid shared values of the company to make this work, and without  any commercial pressure to act in a way that is not aligned with core values.

The three points of the triangle above – action, intention and values – need to feed into one another to effectively create trust.

Our experience at AM Services Group has demonstrated that a value added service; open and honest communication; and clear, strong values and vision, which are embedded in our culture, have resulted in 60 per cent of our clients trusting us sufficiently to take at least one other service line with us”.