CRM and ERP News

Here are several excerpts from a post in Gar Reynold's Presentation Zen weblog, Can I Trust You If You Do Not Trust Me?:

Many years ago a Japanese friend of mine was dining in Tokyo with her mother in a famous five-star hotel. After they paid and lingered a bit in the elegant lobby, they began walking out the front door when the assistant manager came and stopped them asking them if they had paid for their meal, subtly implying that they had not. They were taken aback by this and shocked that they had to explain that they had of course paid. After some conversation the assistant manager accepted their word. But it was too late. The joy of the mother-daughter birthday lunch was now replaced by a very bad taste indeed. Later the hotel would try to apologies by phone (but only after the daughter wrote a formal letter of complaint), but even screwed that up by "appearing insincere," she said. Today my friend will not only never enter that hotel again (in any country) but has since influenced many of her friends with her story. "They didn't trust me and my mother," she said "so why should I give them my business ever again? I hate the very thought of that place." Trust is a big deal, and what a fragile thing it is.

All the services you offer, all the hours spent on employee training, and all the details your business or organization sweats can all be for naught if people sense you do not trust them. Trust is not everything in a relationship, but it's the first thing. Interpersonal relationships without trust fade away pretty quickly. Can not this apply even to teachers and professors? Will not even the best lesson plan fail if a student feels that the teacher does not trust the student. If you don't trust me, how can I trust you?

Gar concludes his post by noting that:

My default is to trust, yet this is a risky and fragile thing. As John Maeda points out in his book, "[I] trust unquestionably...but I am open to UNDO-ing that trust whenever deserved."

As a service provider, I can truly say that I trust my prospects and on-going clients.  But as an employee and consumer, I've just been burned so many times that for me, trust is something that has to be earned.  It's critical to understand that regardless of your own personal approach to trust, the people you deal with may trust you at the get go or require that you earn their trust; so, the golden rule always applies: teat others as you would want to be treated.

For more on this subject, be sure to check out Gar's complete post.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 5:39 pm and is filed under CRM and ERP News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.