Corporate Training
Got Credibility?
By Jason Louis
Oct 11, 2006

Discerning what your customers may not be telling you.

Credibility: The perception of being believable and trustworthy. Successfully branding your company as credible will garner gold for your business, attracting the best customers—those who pay top-dollar, allow you to do your work in peace, and refer other prospects to you.

Lacking real credibility has obvious and opposite outcomes. We pre-screen Austin’s home-related merchants and tradesmen for ethical business conduct before presenting a directory of the trustworthy businesses to Austin’s homeowners, so we routinely hear about the best—and the worst. In one case, a roofer’s angry customer had distributed a letter like this to several Austin neighborhoods: “[name] Roofing did a horrible job for me. They never returned to complete the contracted work I had paid for. Don’t ever use this company for your roofing. They are thieves that lack any decency.” Not surprisingly, the company soon went out of business.

Yet if your company is credible and nobody knows it, your trustworthiness will not help your bottom line. You must actively promote your credibility so customers perceive it. Failing to brand your genuine credibility results in a shortfall of revenues as your former customers fail to refer others to you, or worse, disparage your reputation to everyone within their circle of influence.

To build your credible business brand, you must first discern what the perceived reputation of your company is today. How do you know whether your business has credibility among your target customers? Fortunately, the discovery process is straightforward and low-cost.

You can implement these ideas immediately:

1) Business leaders, ask your customers:

Although many business owners we encounter are passionate about the quality of their service and product, this very passion may blind them to asking for another viewpoint—namely, the customers’ perspective. Companies often assume their business has high credibility with their clientele because their customers aren’t complaining to the company owners and managers. Unfortunately, the absence of proactive customer complaints is insufficient proof of perceived credibility.

Yes, dissatisfied customers complain loudly and in detail—but not necessarily to you. If they complain to your subordinates, company leaders may never hear about it. Most unhappy customers will quietly conclude business with your company, only then expressing their complaints to friends, family, and associates.

By asking your customers how they experience your company, you maintain vigilance over your reputation. You get the feedback you need in order to control your perceived credibility.


2) Examine your referral history:

The customers who praise you in your presence are silver, but the customers who refer you to others are gold. Make that platinum. They’re your company’s best brand-builders, and a healthy index of your business’ credibility.

Examine your company’s referral history. Are you receiving referrals from your clients? If the answer is “no” or “I don’t know,” your business’ credibility is at risk. Satisfied customers will send you business proactively. A failure to obtain referrals indicates that your company is leaving customers dissatisfied.

And if you don’t already have a method of tracking where your business leads originate, it’s crucial to implement one. Whether you adopt a system as simple as asking “How did you hear about us?” or as complex as a hired survey, you need this information now.

3) Search the web:

Disgruntled customers may not express dissatisfaction to you, but they willingly share these experiences with the world—as in, the worldwide web.

Conduct a periodic search on the internet for your business to see what people are saying about you. Whatever feedback you find, good or bad, will be invaluable to discovering your business’ actual branding among your customers, yielding a roadmap for improvements to service, product, and perceived credibility.

4) Review your competitors’ credibility:

Is your competitor obtaining more business even though you offer a superior product or dollar value? A “Yes” could indicate that your customers aren’t experiencing the level of service most beneficial to your perceived credibility.

Customers often value the experience of doing business as much or more than the quality of the product being provided. If your competitors offer an inferior product but a more trustworthy experience and service to the customer, their credibility may rate better than yours among your prospects.

If you can, review your most successful competitors’ credibility. Two simple approaches involve talking to competitors’ customers when you come into contact with them, and searching the web for your competitors’ customer feedback. You may learn how to boost your own company’s service and credibility.

In conclusion, credibility is the core and key to your company’s future revenues, a commodity that must be garnered, grown and guarded. Allowing your company’s credibility to be damaged, or failing to brand your genuine credibility, is far more costly than establishing and maintaining a reputable business. It’s worthwhile for you to take simple and inexpensive steps to discern whether you have credibility among your current customers—and to do all you can to build that credibility based on the knowledge you glean.