“I like what I’m hearing but can we trust them?”

Perhaps you are finding that this recession is producing similar outcomes to previous ones. Sad to say that unfortunately some good companies are going to the wall or at least have become severely diminished versions of their former robust selves. As well as this sad fact you may also be seeing the demise of the poorly managed, ill financed, the dodgy and the rip off merchants too. Hurrah and adieu to the last two fly by nights.

So if you are riding this out, surviving and on the odd sunshine filled day feeling that you may be seeing the dawn of some real new opportunities then you may be in a great position to find more customers and fill the gap that may have appeared. That is you may if the nature of buying hasn’t been radically shaken up or in fact new rules written. Perhaps there is greater conservatism in the buying process, more concern for the small print and getting the contract right.

Buying on price certainly prevails in a good number of scenarios and the pressure is on to offer value and be clear on that. Beyond that how do we win over the new customer or in fact court the previously somnolent one? The  offer of the latest, newest, fastest, would seem to hold less apppeal. The product or the service itself is becoming or is a “given”. What else will tilt the balance?

 TRUST.

“OK so the product service sounds about right for the price but who are these guys? What have they done before? What management resource are they putting into this? Who have they worked for? Who owns them?”

A series of trust questions are now elbowing into the sales and buying negotiation. Underlying this are a set of three elements of trust

1. Trusting competetence

2. Trusting reliabilty

3. Trusting their motives

The intention of all is not under question more an insidious worry about how they will deliver. Even in good times a ton of business is lost not because of fundamentals of business intention but by confidence and trust being lost by the neglect of the little things, the build up of small failures of delivery or the lack of caring response.

One major antidote that is working for clients is the use of “Customer Expectation” statements. These are a set of fundamentals for presentation and discussion with customers and a set of live or die conditions for managing your company’s delivery. As clients and I have been finding so few companies have such things and there is good news – this is a competitive opportunity and those who have been working with this are very well positioned to “Compete on Service”. Contact me to find out more about how to make this happen.