What do you do if your clients and customers don't trust you?

Trust is vital, and mutual. If you're "singing from the same sheet" it's very easy to engage. As the text suggests, if nurturing a new client relationship, it might be best to listen very carefully during the first few meetings, and allow them to dictate the agenda, until you can positively contribute. It's also useful to query whether the relationship will work? If it's apparent that trust is not mutually shared, it might be worth terminating a potential client relationship before it really starts.

Without trust you cannot do business Re establish your trust by reaching out, and communicating openly, and sharing that you are concerned about the apparent lack of trust and asking what you can do to make things better

Open communications are one of the first elements of a relationship between all parties. I recall some years ago a senior manager talking to my line manager about communication issues with a new client that our firm was attempting to onboard. These issues carried on for a couple of months. Eventually the client dropped out. The senior manager admitted there were communication issues which were leading to trust problems. I was involved with a client some years ago, who complained my firm wasn't doing some work correctly (as far as they were concerned). I passed this on to my manager, who escalated it to a senior client relationship manager. It appeared a mistake had been made in the "onboarding" agreement. It was resolved without fuss.

Reliability and consistency are key. If a client can see the physical evidence, and they can communicate candidly with you, it always helps. A robust client relationship often depends on delivering the service you've already promised, and developing a better service. One way is developing a tailored service for a client, as you promised them when they first came to you. I've worked for a client centric operation that worked very closely with a high-net-worth client. We had to be extremely flexible in our business arrangements, and accede to their requests in the business, whilst remaining consistent in our delivery.

In many firms "adding value" to our service was a main priority, and is designed to garner trust among clients, and potential clients. Put simply, it can mean working overtime to guarantee finishing work on a busy day, or finishing a long-term business project ahead of time to increase revenue, etc.

Actively seeking feedback is also proactive, and shows a sense of professionalism. A client who provides good, objective feedback should be valued, and also suggests they want to keep their business relationship with your firm on a long-standing footing. It is worth being wary of negative feedback because, through my own experiences, these clients are either trying to garner a discount for your services, or are looking to terminate a contract in order to onboard with someone else who has promised to charge less for their services.