How to earn customer trust in the age of AI

Without a deep and lasting trust of your customer, a long-term relationship is impossible. It builds confidence in your technical ability to deliver. It’s trusting you, the people behind your company, that sets the tone and creates value. That kind of trust only exists between people.

This level of trust can only be earned. It depends on your customer’s belief in your commitment to their current and future success, especially when times get tough.

I was interviewing the CEO of one of my client’s key accounts. At the end of our conversation, I asked, “What is the greatest value you get from the company I represent?” The executive replied, “Our salesman. He’s part of our team. He understands what we need and he gets it.”

If the people who support your core customer believe in you, as evidenced by your words and actions, and trust you with their future, you have a strong competitive advantage and a driver of customer lifetime value. CLV is the single biggest driver of long-term profitability, especially in B2B SaaS.

Note: you cannot go back to this. Gaining trust requires you to communicate and be human.

How well do you earn the trust of customers?

Here’s a quick survey that will identify the gaps between where you are and where you want to work to earn your customer’s trust. It’s based on seven best practices of B2B companies that have established long-term profitability, and those that haven’t.

Where are you in this moral? Score on a scale of 1 (least) to 10 (most).

• Conduct regular qualitative research (eg, improved NPS) to better understand your customer’s progress, market threats, and satisfaction with your service and support.
• There is a central resource for all team members that includes mission and vision, customer personas and needs analysis, messaging, use cases, and detailed case histories.
• He is committed to an ongoing program of research and publishing leadership content to help clients become more successful.
• Your team has extensive domain knowledge in your customer’s marketplace.
• Internal measurement includes metrics that are critical to your customer’s success.
• Profits are both revenue-based (short-term sales) and profit-based (innovation, customer lifetime value), and all team members share.
• Key team members sit in client offices for meetings, strategic planning, problem solving, and collaboration.

If you score 10 on any of your best practices, or 70 overall, we should be investing in your company. Score 5 to 7.5 and you have some work to do. 5 or less and you get a big chance.

The heart of the matter is the heart

Let’s not forget that deep and strong trust is only between people. AI creates a platform for trust, but so do we, and our willingness to put ourselves out there, investing our humanity in someone else’s success as the best way to ensure our own.

Every single person on your team earns, or doesn’t earn, the trust of your customer every day. It should be a mantra. If there is a fork in the road, if a decision has to be made, gaining trust is a prerequisite. Success is increasing, and reinforcement is constant. It’s the journey, not the destination.

Everyone should speak. Here are three steps that will educate, equip, and inspire.

Step 1: Speech

Everything you’ve done with the brand, mission and vision, and positioning is built on the premise that your organization, and each team member, is focused on accelerating the success of your best customers as dedicated professionals and people.

This is based on how your customer defines success, the challenges they face, and how they define their desired future state. That gives them reason to believe.

Note, this is only for those who match your ICP or ideal customer profile. Those outside tend to be more expensive to service, make less money, and leave early.

Don’t think you already know, because it makes you blind to the fact that their success is not due to your success. It’s another way.

Step 2: Travel

This is how you want your team members to act every day. It is a figure of speech, because it provides a foundation. It equips your team with the knowledge to help your customers succeed with your products, services, and personality.

For example:

• How are they organized? Who are the decisive and powerful, and what do they need to be successful both personally and professionally?
• How exactly do you provide value today, as illuminated by detailed use cases and case history?
• How should this value be communicated to customers and prospects?

It is best if this information is published and easily accessible, such as on the main page. You can’t expect everyone to sing to the same song unless you publish it.

Step 3: Putting it all together and taking it on the road

This is a change in the way we walk and talk. You need team members to expand and internalize. In my experience, all successful change efforts share one goal: teaching the culture how they will benefit from the future, and giving them the tools to succeed.

First, each team member must have a strong answer to the question, “What’s in it for me?” That answer, to be believable, must be about measurement and reward, and start with a dollar sign. Money talks. Without this reason to believe, training and tools will fall apart. Questions?

Here is the answer. This level of trust only occurs between people. Your team should all be on the same page, work collaboratively, and focus on building value by earning trust.