The 3 ways to quickly build trust with your customer and why it is so important

How would you describe your current relationship with your Buyer? Amicable? Or transactional? Or strained?

The role of Account Management is rollercoaster of highs and lows.  The status of your relationship with your Buyer will very much depend on the objectives of your respective businesses.  Chances are that your relationship is great when both parties are aligned on a mutual growth plan to win share from your respective competitors.  When you are trying to land a cost price increase or your customer is threatening to reduce your range, your relationship is more likely to be strained or antagonistic.

As you probably already know, you can’t have a happy relationship with your Buyer all the time.  The more important question to answer is: “Does my Buyer trust me?”

Stephen Covey Jr’s book “The Speed of Trust” speaks to the importance of trust in business.  If there is trust in the Account Manager-Buyer relationship, then strong consistent results can be achieved regardless of business objectives.  The good news, as shown by Covey Jr, is that there are ways to earn trust and do so quickly.

1. Build integrity by doing the “right thing” for the customer and putting them first

Now to be clear, this is not to say that you should be prioritising the customer’s interests ahead of your own business’ priorities.  However, what this does mean is listening deeply to and championing your customer’s needs. 

A good example of this might come about when presenting NPD to your Buyer.  How many times has your business instructed you to present every single NPD SKU to the customer? If the customer’s main strategy is to grow their category through premium products, and you present low cost, value SKUs this is going to frustrate your Buyer and erode your integrity.

Brand or NPD days are often time-consuming for busy Buyers and the more focussed you can be, the more they will respect and trust you.  Therefore, in this particular example, it is your job as the Account Manager to challenge your business that you want to omit certain SKUs to show the customer.  You know your customer better than anyone else, so have the confidence to stand by your convictions.

This is also why businesses with Category Management teams are more trusted than those which don’t have that function.  Category Managers are impartial and make recommendations as to the best ways for that customer to grow their category, with lower regard for their business’ objectives.

Whilst you can’t be as impartial as a Category Manager, try to see through the lens of your customer as much as possible, rather than blindly follow business directives.

2. Do what you say you are going to do

Being congruent in your motives and behaviour will paint a picture of your character for your Buyer. 

If you deliver on what you say you’re going to do, then you will quickly build trust with your customer.  There is a lot of wisdom in the saying “under-promise and over-deliver” since if consistently exceed expectations, you will quickly build trust and credibility with your Buyer.

I personally think that this is most important when faced with difficult situations, for example your customer pushing for an exclusive product or requesting additional stock on a strong performing SKU which cannot be produced.  In these scenarios it is common for Sales Leaders to try to “manage the message” which involves kicking the can down the road to avoid confronting the truth of the situation until it is absolutely necessary to make a decision..

If you know that it is impossible to fulfil a customer’s request, then face into this conversation with the Buyer and manage their expectations.    Don’t give them false hope with non-committal “maybe” responses, since over-promising and under-delivering will damage the relationship. 

3. Consistently deliver on the basics

Stephen Covey Jr says that trust is a function of two things: CHARACTER and COMPETENCE.  Even if you strive to do the right thing for the customer and you are congruent in your motives and behaviour, this will all count for nothing if you display incompetency and don’t deliver on the basics of Account Management.

What are examples of the basics I’m talking about? Submitting accurate promotional forms and New Line Forms on time.  Being up to date on Trade Spend, so your Buyer knows exactly what they have invested and how much they have left.  Giving your customer regular updates on their performance vs their JBP targets, and how this impacts their terms earnings.  Ensuring that they have the right levels of stock for big promotions.

One thing I know from 15 years in Account Management, is that Buyers HATE having to chase Account Managers for this information.  If you cannot keep up with these day-to-day basics, then you will be perceived as an incompetent Account Manager.  Underperformance in these areas on a long enough timescale, will erode the trust in the relationship and lead to the worst outcome, which is the customer asking for you to be removed from their account.

Why is building trust so important?

Establishing trust with your Buyer is critical because when trust increases, speed and costs are lowered.  Similarly, when trust decreases, speed and costs go up.

I worked in a huge blue-chip company which unfortunately did not trust its Sales Team to sign-off Trade Spend for any promotions.  There was so much red tape and ridiculously, the promotions always had to be approved by the Global President.  As you can imagine this slowed the approvals process to a snail’s pace, and consequently I missed out on so many opportunities to drive sales with this customer. 

On the other hand, when managing a prominent Grocery account for a Hot Beverages company, the trust I quickly built up with the Buyers by putting them first, being congruent and delivering on the basics opened so many opportunities.  It was the most successful period of my career and I’m humble enough to admit that I profited from the fact that my Buyers did not trust the two larger competitors.  I managed to double my range in the account within the space of a year, as the customer fell out with the other Hot Beverages brands.  I also achieved these results whilst putting through two back-to-back cost price increases!

Hopefully these examples illustrate the impact of trust on speed and costs.

How building Mental Fitness can help you establish trust.

Building Mental Fitness will give you the tools to establish the necessary trust with your customer.  Having stronger mental muscles will help you to ruthlessly prioritize the critical tasks which are most important for your customer, and help you influence your business to be as customer-centric as possible.

As is true of any lasting habit change, this takes at least 6-weeks of intense work.  If you are interested in this game-changing program then take the Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ and then book a free 30-minute coaching call with me at https://www.expcoaching.co.uk/ to find out more!