Why Businesses Need to Prioritise Trust

The world isn’t completely run by AI and robots… at least not yet.

As long as humans are running the show and the technology, it will always remain important to ensure that business relationships support business needs. After all it’s a well know truism that people buy from people and at the cornerstone of those relationships is trust and the establishment of business value.

While you may not expect a technology company to discuss topics such as trust, its critical to our business. We have access to our clients most important and confidential information as part of the services we provide. In fact, it is so important we have trust as one of our business vaules “Be Ethical, Honest and Trustworthy in all we do “Trust us with the keys to your business”.

In this blog post, we’ll concentrate on why business need to prioritise trust, and how technology and processes can help build trust with employees and customers. We hope this post will help you in your organisation.

Roadmap to trust-building

According to Forrester Research, trust is confidence in the high probability that a person or organization will spark a specific positive outcome in a relationship.

Since trust has a significant impact on the future course of your business, take extra care while nurturing it. Consider the following six actions when striving to improve organizational trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders:

1. Place extra emphasis on trust-building. Without a strong level of trust that supports collaboration and innovation, no firm can achieve long-term success. The most effective leaders foster an environment where employees feel free to discuss the latest, groundbreaking topics.
2. Understand the concept of trust from both inside and outside the company. Trust can only be fostered inside the organization if the leadership is competent and has the employees’ best interests at heart. Employees must feel as if they are part of a team working toward a common goal. Transparency can earn trust from the perspective of an outsider. This entails being honest, open and accountable. In our organisation another of our values is “Be dedicated to the wellbeing and development of our staff”. We felt that unless we look after our staff and their wellbeing, how can we expect them to look after our customers? Here’s a challenge for us; next time one of our team visit you, ask them if they feel we do deliver on our value.
3. Determine stakeholders to build trust with. Your target stakeholders should be the ones who care about your product or service. They might be customers, clients, employees or partners. This brings us to another of our values “Foster a partnering relationship with our suppliers”. If we want to deliver “Professional Attention and Care” to our customers, then we need an eco-system of like minded stakeholders. So when we pick a new partner, we don’t just look at the technology they bring, but also how they would work with us. ESET (our partner for security software) is a good example here. They have a local team based in Bournemouth and have always been ready and able to support us by phone, email and in person. Once you’ve identified your target stakeholders, it’s crucial to understand what they want from you. Then, it’s time to reach out to them with the intention of trust-building in a way that resonates with them.
4. Express trust quantitatively. To begin quantifying trust, start by answering the following questions: What are the criteria and elements that go into deciding whether or not to trust someone? In a given scenario or relationship, how much trust is there? What factors contribute to increased or decreased trust?
5. Invest in building, mending and improving trust. Investments made to strengthen trust must be seen as an investment for the future. This is because the benefits of safeguarding and nurturing trust extend beyond the company’s internal operations to its relationships with customers and other external partners.
6. Realise that trust management is not a one-time exercise. The digital world has introduced a new challenge for businesses of all sizes: trust management. For leaders, this means an ongoing effort to assess and rebuild trust, sometimes from the ground up. This may seem like a daunting task, but it is inevitable and something that businesses must proactively undertake.

Are you confused about where to begin?

Many businesses do not value trust-building without realising that it can make or break their organizations. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) must strive to build trust among their customers, employees and partners to survive and thrive. However, keep in mind that even a careless mistake can damage trust, and when it happens, it can be difficult for a small business to bounce back.

To learn more about the topic, please download our free eBook titled “Trust Matters: SMBs Can Prosper by Prioritizing Trust-Building” by clicking here.

Or for a free no-obligation discussion, call us on 01428770290