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Trust meWatching
the news lately has me thinking about one word: trust. It started with
Tiger Woods admitting in a press conference that he messed up. Now he's
trying to regain the trust of his sponsors, fans and – last but not
least – his wife. And speaking of screwing up, what a mess Toyota has
on its hands! The company has a huge hurdle to overcome to regain the
trust of its customers. Whether in your personal or business
relationships, trust is critical to your success. If you break a trust,
regaining it can be difficult if not impossible. You can say "trust me"
or "trust us" all you want – but it is your actions that really speak
to whether or not you can be trusted. In business, trust can be broken
in a number of ways. If a business makes claims and promises and then
breaks them, trust is broken. Do not claim you offer "easy returns,"
"quality products," "affordable prices," "relaxing atmosphere" or "fast
service" unless you are certain you can live up to those promises. If
you don't, you will break the trust of your customers and likely lose
them for good. If you do mess up and betray someone's trust, you
can regain it if you promise to make it right and then do so through
your actions. Remember, actions speak louder than words. We've all
experienced a situation when someone let us down and betrayed our
trust. Most of us are willing to forgive and forget if that person or
business "makes it right." Case in point: I recently ordered a product
that did not work as promised. I called the company and they
immediately shipped me a replacement product at no expense to me
without requiring me to return the defective product. They trusted that
I was telling them the truth about the defective product and they made
it right ASAP. I will continue to do business with them. They took
immediate action, they made it right – they regained my trust. For
Toyota and Tiger it won't be so easy. It's going to require that their
actions over time demonstrate that they can be trusted again.
Deb
Neuman is director of the Target Technology Incubator at the University
of Maine, and host of WVOM’s “Back to Business.” Send your feedback to
dneuman@maine.edu or visit her website at www.bizbuzzradio.com.
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