Trust - In Client Management

We all hear that "Trust" necessary in successful client management. I have been always intrigued by how customers percieve trust?

Few years ago, I was introduced to David Maister. David wrote a classic book - The Trusted Advisor. I thought this month, I should share few of his key ideas and my interpretations of those ideas.

THE COMPONENTS OF TRUST in a business relationship setting.

Credibility - Are you telling truth? Are you honest? Are you telling client when you don't know?

Reliability - Are you meeting your commitments? Are you managing Client Expectations? Are you meeting agreed goals not delivering as per specifications?

Intimacy - Do you understand customer situation? Do you know psychological and business aspects of the situation? Are you genunienly interested?

(A low level of) Self-orientation - Are you focused on yourself? Do you quickly jump to conclusion before listening/understanding client? Are you 'pompus'? Are you perceived to be arrogant?

TRUST = (C + R + I) /S

Once we understand the components of Trust. We can follow a structured process to gain and maintain trust in every situation.

The process goes as follows:

• Engage: Use language of interest and concern “I’ve been thinking about your competitors, and…” “Your people have been telling me about..”
• Listen: Uses language of understanding and empathy “Tell me more...” “What’s behind that?” “Gosh, that must feel...”
• Frame: Uses language of perspective and candor “I see three key themes emerging here...” “You know, what’s tough to do here is..”
• Jointly envision: Uses language of possibility “Wouldn’t it be great if...”
• Commit: Uses language of joint exploration “What would it take, for each of us, to……..”

I found the most difficult problem be a good listener. We are always trained to speak for ourselves. To make matters worse popular media programs like "The Apperntice" or the movie "The Wallstreet" create wrong perceptions and wrong concepts about what it takes to move forward. I will writing about Movies and Leaderships soon, but wait till then.

Another interesting challenge in Global Delivery world is ensure that your team follows the same process and has same value about gaining customer trust. Most of the young people I engage from India has misperceived notions about business development and it is very difficult to correct the damage when your team is focused on transation than relationship.

I have been attempting the skills David taught me through the books, I have been fairly successful (at a smaller scale), I hope, I am practice this even with my India team some day.

Enjoy !

BTW All material referred in this article is copywrighted as follows
Source: Maister, Green, Galford, The Trusted Advisor, Free Press, 2000.