Interaction takes place everywhere. We interact with our customers through marketing, client services, products & services and more. What do you think is the most important common ground you should focus on? Is it the common message, the strategy, the right placement (time, place, person) or… ?
Have you ever noticed that you are doing something really great but the success is not this you expected? Do you feel that there is something in the background you can not grab?
We can tell that we are great, that our products & services are great… but do people trust us because we tell it? What do we need to do to get the trust to be successful?
Goal of Trust
Within business we want to connect with clients and customers, connect in way which is based on values. One value is trust which is the foundation for a great experience, an experience containing the elements premium, connected and personalized.
Premium is about showing respect and inspiring love for the brand and desire for the products.
Connected is about taking all touch points (online & offline) and interact in a consistent way.
Personalized is about respecting the interactions we have had together across any touch point and bring in which is relevant based on the actual context and the individual profile.
Trust will be build through different elements. Which ones we see now.
Elements of Trust
Trust is based on these three pillars. Sounds easy, but all of them can crumble or just be not that strong as it is needed. Let’s have a look at the two main things in each we need to pay attention on.
Logic
Quality of logic. Arguments must be stringent which they are often not enough.
Communication of logic.
Authenticity
To much attention on what people think about us. This is not conducive and makes that we are not ourselves and interchangeable.
Room for being authentic. Authenticity must be save and welcome.
Empathy
Typically people do not to believe that we are mostly in it for them. They believe that we are to self-orientated.
We all have much to do, high targets and many things to think about…. we have less time for empathy.
We talk about customer experience, but first of all we need to be a trusted person, a trusted company. Have you every measured your (customer) interaction on authenticity, logical and empathy?
I’m sure you say “for sure our customers trust us”. If you answer this you think maybe on an overall level, but what is about a very detailed level? Think of this 6 topics, integrate them in everything everyday and prove them at the end of each day. Improve them in direction of customers, colleagues and…. friends.
Personally authenticity is most important for me within trust. Authenticity is when thinking, speaking and acting is in-line.
Added: Just got a hint on vulnerability. Think about someone who is vulnerable and someone who is invulnerable… what impact does this have for you in direction of trusting this person?
But let’s focus on the three main topics, let’s have a look what logic, authenticity and empathy means in a different context in part 2 – 4 (links down).
This was the first part of a series of four. Have you seen the other once?
I spent most of my career in the digital realm. The key theme in my career is understanding the customer. From my early roles in leadership functions at various digital agencies to my roles at Coremetrics/IBM and Kenshoo in the solution consulting and sales area, I’ve always approached the topic of selling with a customer centric approach. I don’t just want to sell to them, I want to understand them deeply and help them with vision, strategy and execution towards solving their pain points. I aim to challenge and at the same time be a trusted advisor to the customer, aligning the discovery process with the strategic aims that he pursues in order to be able to fully articulate his desired future state vs. the current state.
After spending many many years employed in the industry, I wanted to take my passion for CX even further and decided to double down on myself and the topic of customer experience by opening my own consulting practice. I’ve been successfully running this business for many years now and have grown a small but very loyal following on my blog and other channels as well. The reason why I’m considering moving back to into employment is twofold. I am very self sufficient, but I am also team player and I want to come back into a team environment.
As you see here, I don‘t fit in a single drawer. Generally there will be no 1:1 match between a CV and a job description, but a very good fit between your business and my person. Trust me, let’s talk !! >> Contact me here <<
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3 – Vision
Vision is one of the most important things for me, even if it takes not much time and requires time only once. The vision is to reach the top (of a mountain)! It’s about what we want to achieve. This must be the same for all departments. This means all departments needs to work in the same direction.
2 – Strategy
The strategy is the timing, the route and stops we are planning. It’s about the way we reach the vision. This overall strategy needs to be adopted to the department AND to the current situation. Therefor I don’t see a strategy that fixed as a vision.
1 – Implementation
Success is just prepared by vision and strategy, but the success is coming from implementation and the daily doing. I’m happy to dive in as deep as needed and focus 80% of my time in implementation and daily operations.
Direction
3 – Marketing
I’m a marketing native by heart !! This is my DNA and what’s driving me. Here if have brought experiences in doing it day by day.
2 – Product
With a deep passion for my topics and an holistic market understanding I always have ideas how to make things different and how systems need to support this. I worked within product management but also as a pre-sales / technical sales with a strong connection to product management to bring client needs into the product.
1 – Sales
Love to be out in the market and exchange with others. Adopting to clients needs and show them how to win with the right solution is challenging me.
I’m not following a typical sales methodology. I’m selling through my deep knowledge and passion for the topics around Change, Marketing and CX. I never would be as good in selling other areas like finance for example.
There are minimum 6 drawers you can place me in. Drawer #7 would be that I’m not interested what is state of the art today. I’m interested about the day after tomorrow and how to prepare this today.
But always… the core for me (and each drawer) is around the topics Marketing, CX, Change. Here I have brought experiences. It doesn’t matter if I build the best marketing suite as a product manager, sell the marketing solution to clients or use the solution by myself. The core topic is what is important for me and this is my success factor.
Even if I’m within a brand and lead the marketing. Maybe the marketing strategy is going into the direction 12:05 than the sales can be at 11:55 but never at 6:30. If this would be the case my success within marketing will be blocked in some way. This is why I think out of the box and my area to sync with colleagues.
