How to build trust with your customers
If a customer doesn't trust you to solve their problems, they won't be your customer for long.
Welcome to A Founder’s Life for Me! I’m Alek, and I provide practical recommendations on how to build your company (or career) through my experiences building tech companies. To get free access to all past and future posts, please subscribe.
Why am I writing this now?
Following “Four principles for successful, long-term customer relationships,” I promised deep dives into each principle. The principles were:
Trust - is the customer confident that you will deliver what you promise?
Value - are you solving a valuable problem for the customer?
Personal Relationships - does the customer enjoy working with you?
Cost - what will they give up (i.e., money, time, effort)?
Today, we’re talking about trust. I’m starting with trust because it’s the biggest challenge for people and companies as they start out. You don’t have a track record of success or a long list of customer references, so building trust is hard. You’ll leave this with an understanding of why trust is important, strategies for how to do it yourself, and ideas for how to navigate phases when trust is naturally low.
Trust directly impacts your ability to achieve the promised outcome.
[This section is recycled from a prior article, I’ve included it so this article acts as a standalone, holistic discussion of building customer trust.]
Typically, a customer relationship is organized around some customer expectations. For example, I’ve worked on long-term customer relationships in support of:
driving revenue through business intelligence (BI) and analytics
building a content platform to sell online educational courses
providing a SaaS platform to increase revenue and lower costs through A/B tests
These were outcomes that the customer paid my company to deliver, but all of these still required something from the customer (Cost). If the customer loses trust that you’re going to deliver on what you’ve promised, they will be less willing to invest in the work you’re doing. Whether it’s money, or just time, if the customer disengages, this will hurt your ability to effectively deliver on what you promise.
For example, in a current consulting relationship, I “drive revenue through BI and analytics,” I’m working in partnership with members of the C-suite to understand what’s important to them and answer relevant business questions. If they focus on driving revenue in one line of business, that’s where I focus. If they focus on driving revenue through other lines of business, I shift my priorities accordingly. This takes my customer’s time, but they know it will be worth it because they trust that I’ll be able to deliver what I’ve promised (driving revenue through BI and analytics).
If, for whatever reason, the customer did not trust that I would deliver on my promise to drive revenue through BI and analytics, they would disengage. As a result, I wouldn’t know where to focus. I would work hard to uncover insights, but I might answer questions nobody cares about without understanding the priorities. I could find a way to drive revenue, but in practice, it’s not feasible or not a priority.
So, in customer relationships, trust is crucial because it often directly impacts your ability to achieve the promised outcome. I’ll expand on specific approaches and stories in my newsletter about building customer trust. I’ll also talk about how you can inspire trust before (sales) and during (delivery) a customer relationship.
How do you build trust that you’ll deliver what you promise?
Typically, a customer relationship is organized around some customer promise that you will deliver value to the customer. Customer relationships come in three forms:
(Type 1) Relationships where the value is continuously demonstrated (i.e., producing an analysis every week that will help grow revenue)
(Type 2) Relationships where the outcome comes in less frequent increments (i.e., building a platform that won’t be ready for several months)
(Type 3) Relationships where both of the above are true (i.e., it involves an up-front implementation, and transitions to a continuous demonstration of value)
Each type of relationship needs to be treated differently to build customer trust. I would use a “two week” benchmark as the breakpoint between a Type 1 and Type 2 relationship. This means that if you’re not able to demonstrate value in less than two-week increments, you should treat it like a Type 2 relationship.
Type 1: How to build trust when you can continuously demonstrate value.
My contractual deliverable in one of my consulting relationships is to drive revenue through business intelligence and analytics. This is a good example of a Type 1 relationship because I can continuously do analysis and generate insights. I produce new insights frequently (at least once per week).
So, to build and maintain trust that I’m always delivering value, I have a weekly checkpoint with the key customer stakeholder. We review the progress we’ve made through a value-tracking document. The document is a simple table with the following columns:
Business question that we wanted to answer
Answer to that business question (link to slides, dashboards, etc.)
Date the question was answered
In-line summary of how the insights drive a revenue outcome, and the corresponding revenue outcome1
It’s my responsibility to continuously tie the insights to revenue-driving actions so that the customer has a clear understanding of the value I’m creating, and they continuously trust that their investment in me is paying off.
Type 2: How to build trust when you can’t continuously demonstrate value.
When you can’t continuously demonstrate value and build trust early on in a customer relationship, it can be hard to build trust that you’ll achieve their desired outcome. To build trust, you need to continuously measure and communicate the progress you are making toward the valuable outcome. For these types of projects, you will want to:
(Before or as the relationship starts) Explain the milestones upfront, including clear definitions and dates of what they should expect. If possible, provide examples of what the final output will look like upfront.
(During the relationship) Establish some form of frequent communication (i.e., at least once every two weeks) to review progress against the milestones. If possible, provide previews of the in-progress final outcome.
(End of the relationship) Share the final outcome. Clearly demonstrate how it solves the goal you set out to achieve at the start of the relationship. If applicable, outline how you could continue to provide value in the same milestone format used at the outset of the relationship.
If you adhere to the template above, your customer will maintain trust that you will ultimately deliver what you promise.
Type 3: How to build trust for relationships that don’t fall cleanly into Type 1 or Type 2.
Any guesses on how you handle relationships that shift between Type 1 and Type 2? You have to do both! For these types of relationships, you need to consider what phase you are in and pick your trust-building strategy accordingly.
When the relationship is in a Type 1 phase, you treat it as a Type 1 relationship… continuously demonstrating how you are driving valuable outcomes. When the relationship is in a Type 2 phase, you treat it as a Type 2 relationship… continuously measuring and communicating the progress you are making toward the outcome.
Six bonus strategies for building trust.
(1 of 6) Under-promise and over-deliver
Sends the message: “Trust that I deliver what I promise.”
Building trust that you’ll achieve the customer’s desired outcome is crucial, but it can also take a long time. Fortunately, there are also plenty of other opportunities to build trust with the customer along the way. Every customer interaction, or lack thereof, is an opportunity to build or break trust. If you fail to deliver on day-to-day trust-building opportunities, your customer will lose overall trust in your team.
When working with customers for my consulting relationships and for SolidlyAI, when I say, “You’ll have that in your inbox by first thing tomorrow.” I make sure that I honor that commitment because it’s an opportunity to build or break trust. If I’m late, the customer loses trust in my reliability as a partner. So, by consistently setting expectations and meeting them, I have the opportunity to continuously build trust.
In my first customer-facing role, we used the phrase “under-promise, over-deliver.” It set the bar high. If you told the customer you’d send the follow-up by first thing tomorrow, then send the follow-up by the end of the day today. Customers quickly realize how reliable you are when you consistently exceed expectations. Early demonstrations of reliability will help set your customer relationship off on the right track. Under-promising and over-delivering over a longer time frame will establish yourself as a highly trusted partner.
(2 of 6) Send agendas and summaries
Sends the message: “Trust that we are on the same page and I will be respectful of your time.”
Agendas and summaries are a simple and often-overlooked trust-builder. When working with a customer, I always want to dispel any uncertainty about what I want to talk about. A clear outline of “Here’s what we need to figure out in this conversation” (could be a meeting, email thread, or something else) helps build trust that the customer and I are on the same page about what we need to talk about. For a meeting, ideally, you send these the day before the meeting. My “no later than” timer would be to send these at least an hour ahead of any planned meeting so the customer has time to read it.
Similarly, summaries after the conversation ensure the customer and I are on the same page about what was discussed. It’s easy to forget what was decided in a conversation. If the customer doesn’t remember what was decided, how can I be confident that we are on the same page? Conversation summaries provide clear documentation that the customer, and I can always reference back to.
(3 of 6) Ask great questions
Sends the message: “Trust that I have the expertise to solve this problem for you.”
If you’re working with a retail chain and you ask, “What do you mean by ‘shrink’?” The customer will lose trust in your expertise because ‘shrink’ is a very common term in their industry. I’m NOT suggesting that you pretend to know things that you don’t. But you can answer that question on the Internet. In general, I avoid asking customers any questions that I can find the answer to myself. You can still ask questions, but ask better ones, “Just to confirm, because different companies have different definitions of what’s included in ‘shrink,’ how are you defining it?” This strategy also lowers the “cost” your customer has to pay because it lowers the time and effort that you are requiring them to put in. More on that in the Cost article, coming soon!
(4 of 6) Guarantee the outcome
Sends the message: “Trust that your downside risk is minimal and I believe in what I’m doing.”
If you are asking a customer to pay you upfront for an outcome that they don’t know they’ll receive, you can add guarantees or similar strategies to de-risk it for them. In a prior role where we did marketing analytics and execution, we applied a revenue share model where the customer only paid us based on a percentage of the revenue that the marketing brought in. This signals to the customer, “We believe in what we are doing,” and de-risks the relationship for them because they only pay if they benefit.
(5 of 6) Demonstrate how you solve their problem
Sends the message: “Trust that what I deliver will solve your problem.”
It helps customers trust you will solve their problems if you can clearly and succinctly paint a picture of how working with you will solve their problems. This can be hard to do. It’s natural to talk about the features and not the benefits. For example:
“SolidlyAI has an AI assistant that helps you complete tasks.”
I built the AI assistant, so it’s natural for me to talk about it like this. But, this requires the customer to do extra work to figure out how my product solves their problem. Instead, a more effective way to build trust that you can help solve a problem for them would be to say:
“SolidlyAI will help you more efficiently manage customer relationships. Our AI assistant automates day-to-day tasks such as meeting notes, follow-ups, and task management.”
In this structure, I clearly explain the benefit up-front. Then, I provide the supporting argument on how I help achieve that benefit. Ultimately, a customer will leave this statement with more confidence that I can help them, even though I’m talking about the same “feature.”
When demoing your product or service you should keep the above in mind. During a demo or trial of your service, the customer will be continuously evaluating how it solves their problem. If you do the work for them, tying the features to the benefits, the customer will more actively trust that you are solve the problem.
(6 of 6) Provide applicable testimonials for the customer’s desired outcome
Sends the message: “Trust that what I deliver will solve your problem.”
Testimonials help prove to the customer that you know what you’re doing because I’ve done this before. If testimonials demonstrate how you’ve solved similar (or identical) problems for customers similar to them, they will put more trust in you. If you provide testimonials that don’t relate to that customer’s experience, you can actually hurt trust because they won’t feel you really understand the problem they need you to solve.
How trust evolves over time.
Typically, in the early days of your company or a customer relationship, trust will be low. If you’ve done all you can with the trust-building tactics above, then you’ll have to rely on other the other principles for strong customer relationships:
By leaning into personal relationships, value, and lower “costs” you will be able to build customer relationships in even when trust is low.
If you’re new to solving a problem, the people who will give you a chance are the ones who you have strong personal relationships with.
If you’re new to solving a problem, people will be more likely to take a chance on you if it’s a very high value problem.
If you’re new to solving a problem, people will be more likely to take a chance on you if your cost is low.
When trust is low, you need to lean into the other areas of building customer relationships. As you build trust, you can put less emphasis on personal relationships, solve less valuable problems, or raise your prices.
How SolidlyAI helps build customer trust.
Trust is hard to build and requires constant thought and investment. If you’re curious about the intersection between customer trust-building and technology, here are ways that SolidlyAI helps companies build trust with their customers:
For Type 1 customer relationships, Solidly evaluates the frequency and strength of value discussions.
For Type 2 customer relationships, Solidly evaluates the update frequency and milestone progress.
And, for Type 3 customer relationships, Solidly provides the relevant metrics based on the phase of the relationship.
Solidly helps continuously under-promise and over-deliver by tracking action items and helping your team quickly act on them.
Solidly dispels customer uncertainty going into and out of meetings by building agendas and sending summaries.
Solidly helps maintain a customer’s trust in your expertise. Our AI assistant helps answer your ‘easy’ questions, allowing you to focus on asking great questions.
Build trust with your customers
Trust is essential in developing and maintaining any customer relationship. Customers won’t want to work with you in the first place if they don’t trust you. When they do start working with you, trust directly impacts your ability to achieve the promised outcome. The ways you build trust depends on the type of customer relationships. There are three major categories:
(Type 1) Relationships where the value is continuously demonstrated
Strategy: Continuously (at least once every two weeks) demonstrate value.
(Type 2) Relationships where the outcome comes in less frequent increments
Strategy: Continuously (at least once every two weeks) demonstrate progress.
(Type 3) Relationships where both of the above are true
Strategy: Deploy the relevant strategy depending on whether you’re in a Type 1 or Type 2 phase of the relationship.
Regardless of the type of relationship, you can also build trust along the way by:
under-promising and over-delivering
sending agendas and summaries
asking great questions
guaranteeing the outcome
demonstrating how you solve their problem
providing applicable testimonials for the customer’s desired outcome
When you can’t deploy any of the strategies above, you can offset the lower trust by investing in the other principles of strong customer relationships (Value, Personal Relationships, and Cost). SolidlyAI helps build customer trust by assisting with a lot of the strategies above. If you have ideas or questions, feel free to reach out!
Recommendation: Invest in building trust with your customers before and during customer relationships. Identify what type of customer relationship you’re in and apply the relevant strategies to grow trust. If you can’t grow trust, lean into other aspects of your customer relationship (Value, Personal Relationships, and Cost).
If you are interested in more content like this, subscribe through the link below. If you want to discuss how to apply this, email me at newsletter@alekhagopian.com.
When writing this, I had not been taking the last step of the process until I did this self-reflection. I included a TLDR of why the analysis was valuable in the value tracker, but I didn’t simplify it down to a single revenue number that the customer could then compare to my “cost.” I will start doing that now.