Without deep and lasting customer trust, a long-term relationship is simply not possible. Build confidence in your technology’s ability to deliver results. It’s trust in you, in the people behind your company, that sets direction and creates value. This type of trust exists only between humans.
This level of trust can only be earned. It depends on your customers’ trust in your commitment to their current and future success, especially when times get tough.
I was interviewing a senior executive from one of my clients’ key accounts. At the end of our discussion, I asked, “What is the greatest value you get from the company I represent?” The executive responded, “Our salesperson. He’s part of our team. He understands what we need and gets it.”
If the humans behind your key customer base believe in you, as demonstrated by your words and actions, and trust you with their future, you possess the greatest competitive advantage and driver of customer lifetime value. CLV is the main driver of long-term profitability, especially in B2B SaaS.
Hint: You can’t go back on this one. Earning trust requires keeping your words and being human.
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How much are you gaining customer trust?
Here is a short survey that will identify the gap between where you are and where you would like to be in business to earn the trust of your customers. It is based on the seven best practices of B2B companies that have established long-term profitability and those that have not.
Where are you in each of these best practices? Score on a scale from 1 (minimum) to 10 (maximum).
- Conduct regular qualitative research (e.g., improved NPS) to better understand your customers’ progress, market threats, and satisfaction with your service and support.
- There is a central resource for all team members that includes mission and vision, customer personality and needs analysis, messaging, use cases and detailed case histories.
- You engage in an ongoing program of researching and publishing leadership content to help clients be more successful.
- Your team has deep experience in your clients’ market sector.
- Internal measurement includes metrics that are critical to customer success.
- Incentives are both revenue-based (short-term sales) and profitability-based (innovation, customer lifetime value), and all team members participate.
- Key team members are regularly in client offices for meetings, strategic planning, problem solving and liaison.
If you score a 10 in any of the best practices, or a 70 overall, we should invest in your company. A score between 5 and 7.5 and you have work to do. At 5 or less and you have a great opportunity.
The crux of the matter is the heart
Let’s not forget that deep and lasting trust is exclusively between human beings. Artificial intelligence builds the platform of reliability, but then it is us, and our willingness to put ourselves on the line, to invest our humanity in someone else’s success as the best way to guarantee our own.
Every single person on your team earns, or doesn’t earn, the trust of your customers every day. It must be a mantra. If there is a fork in the road, if a decision has to be made, the criterion is to earn trust. The outcome is incremental and the reinforcement is constant. It’s the journey, not the destination.
Everyone must follow the words. Here are three steps that will educate, equip, and motivate.
Step 1: the speech
Everything you’ve done about brand, mission, vision, and positioning is shaped into the story of how your organization, and every single team member, focuses on accelerating the success of your best customers as dedicated professionals and human beings.
This is rooted in how the client defines success, the challenges they face, and how they describe the future state they desire. This gives them reason to believe.
Be careful, this is only for those who match your ICP or ideal customer profile. External ones tend to be more expensive to maintain, generate less revenue, and leave early.
Don’t assume you already know this, because it blinds you to the reality that their success is not caused by your success. It’s the opposite.
Phase 2: The walk
This is how you want your team members to behave every day. It is the embodiment of speech, because it provides logic. It equips your team with the knowledge needed to help your customers succeed with your products, services and humanity.
For example:
- How are they organised? Who are the decision makers and influencers and what do they need to succeed both personally and professionally?
- How exactly do you deliver value today, as illustrated through detailed use cases and case histories?
- How should this value be conveyed to customers and potential customers?
It’s best if this compendium of information is published and easily accessible, such as on a pillar page. You can’t expect everyone to sing the same hymn unless you release it.
Step 3: Put everything together and take it on the road
This is the cultural change of walking and talking. You need team members to expand and internalize. In my experience, every successful change effort shares one goal: educate the culture on how they will benefit from the future state and give them the tools to excel.
First, every team member must have a solid answer to the question, “What’s in it for me?” This answer, to be credible, must be about measurement and reward and start with a dollar sign. Money talks. Without this reason to believe, the training and tools will not be enough. Requests?
Here’s the answer. This level of trust only happens between humans. Everyone on your team needs to be on the same page, working in unison, and focused on building profitability by gaining trust.
