19 May 10 How to Build Customer Trust
As a meeting planner, it is essential for your customers to know that your services can be trusted. Many customers are wary of placing important details and information into the hands of a meeting planner. This is especially true if the customer is accustomed to taking charge of situations and being in control.
However, circumstances often arise in which planning a meeting becomes something beyond their control. That is when a customer will turn to a meeting planner for assistance. There are a few ways you can ensure your client has complete trust in you, and this trust will build repeat business.
Open communication is an important aspect of meeting planning. Customers should feel that they have a rapport with their meeting planner and should feel free to check the status of the upcoming event within reason. Communications with customers should be clear, focused, and concise.
Transparency will help put the customer at ease and provide them with a sense of much needed security. Meeting planners should remember that customers not only entrust their event to the meeting planner, but their financial resources as well. Once trust has been established between a meeting planner and customer, the customer is more likely to use their services again in the future.
Tags: Circumstances, Complete Trust, Customer Trust, Event Planner, Financial Resources, Meeting Planner, Meeting Planners, Meeting Planning, Open Communication, Repeat Business, Transparency
16 Oct 09 Gaining and Keeping Your Customers Trust – Part 2
Customer trust is built on job performance – yours to be exact. Are you a competent meeting planner? Do you deliver on promises? Are travel arrangements and accommodations precisely what you have led the client to believe they would be?
Your track record is your best asset. Satisfied customers are quick to speak your praises to their peers, but unhappy clients are even faster to cry about their disappointment on a sympathetic shoulder.
If you do not know the answer to a client’s question, find it or find someone who does. Clients are more patient and trusting when they sense your determination to give them the information they need.
It’s been said before but bears repeating, honesty is the best policy. If something goes wrong and you can’t deliver on services, the client needs to hear it from your own mouth and as quickly as possible. Do your best to resolve the situation or come up with a satisfactory plan B and don’t be afraid to enlist the client’s help to brainstorm over the situation. Don’t expect them to come up with a solution, however, a direct approach may make their plans more flexible in the case of disaster.
Trust takes time and energy to build and it’s well worth it. Inspire loyalty and your efforts will be rewarded.
Tags: Customer Trust, Customers Trust, Disappointment, Disaster, Honesty Is The Best Policy, Job, Loyalty, Meeting Planner, Peers, Plan B, Praises, Promises, Satisfied Customers, Travel Accommodations, Travel Arrangements, Unhappy Clients
14 Oct 09 Gaining and Keeping Your Customers Trust – Part 1
Building customer trust is key in any business undertaking and all the more so for meeting planners. Did you know that approximately 70% of revenue comes from established customers? Established customers trust your business. They are comfortable coming to you because of your shared history and track record.
Attracting new customers can be difficult. For one thing, consumers are more savvy than a decade ago. Increased knowledge combined with increased financial worries makes it difficult for new customers to take a risk on your services. That does not mean it is impossible to win their business, meeting planners just have to be more mindful of establishing customer trust.
Building a rapport with new customers takes time but is well worth the effort. New customers must have a way to contact you whenever a question arises. That may mean sharing your personal cell number and indulging in some hand holding.
Keep your communications clear and to the point. It is vital that both sides understand the demands of the upcoming event and maintain their focus. Too much information can be as big a handicap as too little. Sell the first event before you plan the second.
Part 2 of this blog will explore other factors in gaining and building customer trust.
Tags: Attracting New Customers, Blog, Building Trust, Business Meeting, Business Undertaking, Consumers, Customer Trust, Customers Trust, Decade, Financial Worries, Focus, Handicap, Meeting Planners, Personal Cell, Personal Number, Rapport, Risk
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