Trust-building

There are brilliant behavioural science wizards across the world unfortunately employed with companies that have them busy finding behavioural science tactics to quickly build trust among customers. And maybe it works sometimes.

To my knowledge though, the cleanest way to build trust, is to go with trustworthy intentions, and be absolutely transparent in matters.

What might that look like?

A few years ago, I had accompanied someone to a surgical devices store. A lot of the stuff on the shopping list was priced in the INR 100–500 range. And the last product cost about INR 4000. I can’t seem to recollect what it was, but it also needed consumables every once in a way.

However, it was something this person required, and was conveyed to the proprietor.

The proprietor though, this oldish Parsi gentleman, still pulled a calculator and a paper and pen, and said, ‘let me explain the costing to you.’

And he did! Simply so a customer could take a well-informed decision.

Even though the customer was already sold on the product!

Ever tried something crazy/ counterintuitive like that?

I do. From time to time.

I think it started with one prospect who was in some mighty hurry to have me start consulting them on something. Instead, I told them to take a few days and meet or speak to other consultants or firms, and then pick one.

This exercise gives client teams an interesting understanding of how differently people and firms will approach their challenge, but more importantly, it gives them a refined understanding of their challenge itself.

Is it unnerving, doing something like this? Hell no! I mean, it wasn’t like prospects were flocking up at my door that I could afford to do it for kicks.

And I am always on the lookout for great clients and challenging projects.

But I believe great clients and great projects eventually find their way to the right place. So, I’d suggest such scouting exercises when I was convinced I could help them, but needed them to get a better clarity of what they needed solving, and if I was their best bet. Even if it meant risking a project that was literally in my lap.

This would go against the logic of many consulting firms and independents who’d assure you they can solve it before you have finished giving them a 2-sentence gist of the challenge.

Or you might have experienced it in the invisible urgency you sometime sense, however subtle, in some dealings. Where the other party just wants to close the deal, despite the big misleadingly calm smile plastered on their face.

While departments at larger organizations that use behavioural science to “quickly build trust” might argue that given the shrinking windows they have between the customer choosing them or a competitor online or in a store, that it is necessary.

I believe otherwise. Offer the trust, people will send more your way.

Fake it, and the ecosystem has its own ways of balancing things out.

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