As mentioned earlier I believe that we are in a trend where Trust is devaluated rapidly while at the same time there is a need for organizations to work on their trust as a digital revolution is setting transparency fully open. To be able to prepare for this future, organizations need to understand what the elements of trust are and how to configure them for their organization.
When it comes to Trust, the main differentiator between a startup and an existing organization is History. It can’t be ignored what promises were made in the past and in what way the organization was able to deliver according to this promise. The history of an organization is nine out of ten times something to be proud about. This is something that is missed by the organization itself, but respected by the audience;
When a new promise is made, the history must be kept in made to create an authentic promise that will lead to tolerance from your audience. If you have no tolerance, the proof must be flawless, which is near to impossible when you try to do something new. Other factors that influence tolerance are modesty and credibility in your promise. In the end it is the audience that will decide wether you are authentic or not and if you have any tolerance.
Take time to set the promise and validate it with an audience that holds a high tolerance. Until then, keep your promise to yourself, because once the genie is out of the bottle, it becomes part of your history and it will become more difficult to come up with a new one.
For your audience to get familiar with your new promise, they must be able to find proof. Again, authenticity is crucial. If you try to influence this and your audience finds out, this will have a big negative impact on your trust and familiarity will turn negative. Modesty in your promise comes very handy because under promise and overdeliver is always better to build proof. Big promises mainly result in disappointment and once they are met it will not result in extra credit, because why would it? Promise was made, nothing more;
Once the audience gathers more and more proof of the promise, familiarity will grow to trust and turn into loyalty. Once an organization reaches this stage with their audience, value can be found in:
- Increase in tolerance and therefore forgiveness from your audience. Resulting in lower customer complaints and loss of clients;
- Transactional cost will be lowered as customer know what they want, trust you to deliver what they want and will have no doubt you will deliver;
- Your audience will act as an ambassador for your organization which will add to the proof of the promise and lead to new customers;
What do you think are examples of organizations that were able to come up with a promise that prepares them for the future, respects their history and are able to come with proof? And what are examples that you believe still have a lot of work todo? Looking forward for your response.
