You get to the restaurant, and are greeted by a young man with an inviting smile. “Please follow me; we have a table ready for you now.”
You follow after him, glancing around at the scene. There are couples on dates, business associates discussing a proposal, and friends enjoying themselves. As you come to your table, your party settles into their chairs and starts browsing the menu.
That’s when you notice the smudge on your glass. You lean in for a look, and it’s obviously lipstick. You call for the server and say, “my glass is dirty; could I please have a different one?”
As they leave to get you a new drink, you catch yourself checking your fork and your plate, and you also give a cursory scan of the other dishes on the table. You say to yourself, “What else was not cleaned?”
Like Lipstick, Trust Comes in Streaks
Have you ever noticed that your level of satisfaction with a business tends to change in streaks? In the story above, you never seemed concerned with how clean the plates and forks were, until you found lipstick on your glass. That made you worry about the restaurant’s cleaning habits. It opened your eyes to some issues with the restaurant’s trustworthiness.
Now, part of this can be attributed to the tendency for confirmation bias that we discussed in another article. However, since you know that others are subject to confirmation bias when they interact with you, the need to solidify your trustworthiness becomes much more apparent.
It’s Like Managing a Bank Account in Reverse.
Every interaction you share with customers or clients is like a bank transaction, except the number of deposits and expenses are reversed. For a lot of people, they get a deposit occasionally, but it’s a large deposit. Perhaps their paycheck comes biweekly or monthly. Between those deposits are several days with multiple small transactions. With trust, it’s more likely you will do many small things to build trust in you within a customer, and occasionally that something will “withdraw” some of that trust. These withdrawals are expensive, though. If you have more than a couple, or if some are recurring, you will fast realize that the customer is losing faith in you. They start checking for smudges on the other dishes, so to speak.
How Do We Prevent Overdrafts in Trust?
- Acknowledge, apologize, assure. Realize that although mistakes happen, you should acknowledge them, apologize to the customer, and assure the customer that this mistake is an exception rather than a rule. By “assure,” I do not mean that you should make promises. I mean that you should show them through all of your other interactions that this was just a mistake and not typical.
- Give your processes and practices a careful inspection. See which areas are in the greatest need for improvement, and work on those. This is where workforce training like MLT offers can make a profound impact.
- Take advantage of every opportunity to make a deposit. Because the withdrawals are so large each time, do not let your trust balance remain low for long. If you have to disappoint, do so in a way that highlights strength. For example, if a customer has an unrealistic expectation of deadlines, tell them that meeting such a deadline would seriously degrade the quality of the end product, and that you take pride in ensuring product quality. The end result is the same as if you promised by that deadline and did not deliver. (That is, they did not have it at the deadline they wanted.) The difference is that they know you are not slacking on their order. If the deadline is a hard one, and they still need it, you also have prepared the customer to experience some quality degradation.
Do you have any questions we did not address above? We succeed by helping you to succeed, so please reach out to us!