KEY POINT: PROMISES are the secret ingredient for CREATING OR ERODING TRUST in any organization. Keep the PROMISES you make, and you will build Trust…guaranteed!
KEY QUESTION: Do you know how the percentage of PROMISES YOU KEEP as an organization?
Everyone wants you to keep the PROMISES you make them…whether they are EXPLICIT or IMPLICIT. The problem for most businesses is that they have no clue how many promises are being made daily by their employees. When leaders don’t know how many promises are being made by their employees, it’s impossible to know how many are being kept.
Here’s an interesting example to help you see what this means in the eyes of your customers. Let’s say you are going out on your first date. You tell the other person you really like them and want to build trust and a relationship with them. They love hearing that and are also interested in seeing where the relationship will go. But...then you tell them that you will only be keeping about 40% - 60% of the promises you make to them (the average for most businesses)…and you don’t know exactly which ones you won’t be keeping. If they didn’t just get up and walk out on you, they most likely wouldn’t be answering your calls or going out with you ever again. The opportunity for the relationship to go somewhere just vanished. This is, in essence, what we are saying to our audience when we don’t keep our promises.
Trust can’t be built if promises are not being kept…period.
While this example might sound farfetched, it is precisely what most organizations do to their customers…keeping some of their promises but not telling them which ones. When this happens, the customer is usually not interested in a TRUSTED RELATIONSHIP and is forced to buy from you based on COMMODITY FACTORS because they can’t trust you.
No one will ever trust someone (or a business) who doesn’t keep their promises. It is critically important to keep your promises if you want to BUILD TRUST with your customers and others in your audience. What exactly does it mean when we use the word PROMISES?
Any commitment (explicit, implicit, or implied) in the eyes of your customer (and general audience) is viewed as a solid promise from their perspective.
While you may not use the actual word, PROMISE, this is the word your audience (customers and others) hear whenever you make a commitment directly to them, or one is implied. When you’ve talked to as many customers as I have over the years, the one word they use a lot when telling me about their experience is “promises.”
Customers tell me, “Well, they promised they would have it to me by this date, and it never showed up.” Or, “They promised me they would get back to me with the details on these orders, and I didn’t hear from them until I called them back again.” I could go on and on with many more examples, but you get the point…make any type of commitment in the eyes of your customer, and they hear the word PROMISE. And when they feel these promises were not kept, they become dissatisfied with the organization, and the chance of building a TRUSTED RELATIONSHIP is gone.
I will share more in the area of Promises in future posts. The more you know about Promises and what you can do to improve in this area, the more Trust you will build. It is imperative that you know what promises are being made and which ones are (and aren’t) being kept. This is how we know if we are BUILDING or ERODING TRUST.
Every organization needs to know if they are creating Trust or eroding it. And more importantly, if you aren’t creating more Trust, you can’t generate more ADVOCATES. To develop more advocates, you must build more Trust.
I created a model almost two decades ago to help organizations learn how to BUILD MORE ADVOCATES…the Promises Architecture™.” I encourage you to check it out…it will give you a rock-solid foundation for how you can build TRUST, RELATIONSHIPS, LOYALTY, and ultimately ADVOCACY...the Holy Grail for every organization. It always starts with “keeping the promises you make.” It sounds simple…it isn’t.
There are a variety of tools that can help an organization better understand what percentage of promises they are actually keeping…by person, by department, or by the organization. Unfortunately, the number of PROMISES KEPT is always substantially below the number of PROMISES MADE. On average, most organizations we analyze only keep between 40% and 60%...far less than customers expect. Customers, not surprisingly, want us to keep 100% of your promises.
There are TWO SIMPLE THINGS every organization can start doing today if you want to find out how much Trust you are building or eroding.
Keeping PROMISES is absolutely essential if an organization wants to eclipse its competition, and it is a critical component to GOING BEYOND DIFFERENTIATION™. If you want to be truly DIFFERENTIATED in the eyes of your customers, you absolutely, positively must keep your promises.
Today, in our highly competitive world, customers view most organizations as commodities…buying from them based on PRICE, TERMS, AVAILABILITY, or LOCATION. To rise above competitors, an organization must demonstrate they are different and should not be shopped as a commodity. When an organization builds MASSIVE TRUST, they rise above these COMMODITY FACTORS and demonstrate to their audience they are different. TRUST is the first component to building this level of DIFFERENTIATION.
What To Do Next...
Start by understanding more about how TRUST IS BUILT. You can get this on my website (WOM10.com), by reading my latest book, and by reading more about it from other sources. Solid knowledge of what it takes to build Trust is a critical first step in the process.
As part of this process of understanding the promises you are making and keeping, I would spend some time walking around your organization and LISTENING TO YOUR EMPLOYEES. Hear what they are telling your customers and others daily. In a very short period, you will hear a tremendous number of promises being made. Then ask yourself how many of these you think are being kept. This will start you on your journey to understanding your organization.
As usual, if you have any questions or need assistance along the way, feel free to shoot me an email or give me a call, and I’ll be happy to answer your questions or give you some guidance…complimentary, of course. I want to help you become a TRUSTED ORGANIZATION and KEEP YOUR PROMISES. I want you to be truly DIFFERENTIATED.
