Let’s begin by defining the word, “trust,” to give us a general idea of what it means for a person to trust another person or business. The Cambridge Dictionary defines trust as “to believe that someone is good and honest and will not harm you, or that something is safe and reliable.” We can substitute “something” for the word “business.”
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Trust, rephrasing, is when someone is willing to rely on another or business, via maybe their actions, for something that is important to them, hoping that they would come through.
Trust comprises many important components, which can be grouped under the ABC of trust. These components are:
A) Awareness: one should always trust their own instincts because they are correct most of the time, and could guide one on the right path.
B) Balance: one should always strive for a balanced relationship based on mutual trust.
C) Choices: one has to always trust the decisions that one makes if one wants to follow through with them.
And this brings us to a very important question:
Why Is Trust So Important In Life?
Trust, once lost, could imply that everything related to you, including your business, is dead to society–paraphrasing from one of my favorite people, Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank. George MacDonald even alluded to the importance of trust when he said; “To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”
And so, by using the word, life, this post implies in every aspect of society. Be it, for example, in friendship, in a relationship, and especially in business. Trust is the solid building block of all these aspects of life.
One needs to have a certain degree of reliability, responsibility, and dependency on the other person if one wants to have a happy and successful relationship. One has to own and share in the actions and consequences of the actions of one’s partner.
Trust is important in relationships because it helps folks get comfortable with each other. This is because real comfort breeds a seamless connection in everything that one does, including communication and business transactions.
These trust-building attributes apply especially in a friendship, where both friends can rely on each other, be responsible for each other’s actions, and depend on each other for certain needs.
This also works great in a business partnership. And not just between the folks involved in running a business on equal partnership, but also between a company and its customers as well.
A trust relationship between a company and its customers is one of the most sensitive relationships that have to be built on a strong foundation and held together by an invincible trust thread from both parties.
A client has to put trust in the company when requesting the services of a company. Customer trust is a very important factor for companies, and successful companies will do anything and everything to keep the trust intact.
One of the ways that companies do this is by being responsible when providing their customers with great products and services.
So, we see that both customer and company have to be dependent on each other—a customer for his/her needs to be met by the company, and the company is dependent on the client for their revenue generation especially through patronization and great reviews and referral.
How Do We Lose Trust?
In as much as most of us now know how important trust is, sometimes, we make mistakes as individuals and or as corporations and lose the trust of people, which could have significant consequences such as companies going bankrupt as the public no longer have any trust in them. Or great partnership or friendships, which could have led to something meaningful, breaking up due to lack of trust.
These mistakes usually happen when we prioritize ourselves so much above others that we become selfish. We do not care about the needs of other people. Businesses lose trust when their sole focus is on earning money such that they have little to no care about their client’s satisfaction, which could lead to a very bad experience for the customer.
And yes, people are very quick, these days, to sharing such experience(s) on social media platforms, which could be very damaging to a company or person
Here are a couple of other reasons, in addition to the above, which could lead to the loss of trust.
A) when one takes on or promise too much but deliver little to nothing.
B) when one is no longer grateful for things that people do or are doing for us.
C) previous negative reviews about one or one’s company.
D) when one always thinks and acts negatively no matter how much effort someone else is putting in to help us or look after us.
All these reasons can get people fed up to the extent that they easily lose any trust that they initially had, which could result in a negative relationship that may never return to how it used to be.
How To Gain And Win Back Trust
But, fortunately, even after losing the trust, there are definitely a number of ways to win trust back.
The first thing first, is to identify the reason(s) why you fell out of trust, as this could put you in a position to begin to remedy the situation.
Communicate honestly with whomever you have fallen out of trust with. That is, come clean and consistently keep future communication sincere so that no misunderstanding ever breaks the trust again.
Another way to win trust is by taking responsibility. This is also one of the key points to winning back trust. You have to take responsibility and apologize for your mistakes, and you have to promise to rectify and never repeat them again in the future. This is most especially great for companies, as you want to keep your customers happy, and talking positively about you and/or your brand.
Try and rank positive reviews about you or your company over negative reviews in search engines or on social media. You can hire freelancers or a great reputation-fixing-companies to do this for you. You can also reach out to influencers in your field to help spread positive vibes about you
Do something philanthropic so that people may see you or your company in a new trustworthy light.
Lastly, it is important to keep all the promises that you have made to win back a partner’s or customer’s trust.
Businesses, as already noted, can use the above tips to win back the trust of their customers. Businesses have to put the customer’s needs first before their own. They have to value customer feedback and work to rectify any shortcomings that they have especially with regards to their products or services.
Yes, it may take some time or in most cases, a very long time to build back trust. But trust can always be gained back as long you consistently implement these tips
Tags: Brand Business Business Reputation Business reputation management lose trust Reputation Trust Trusts win trust
