It Starts With Building Your Trust Bank
I want to talk about TRUST.
I believe it’s powerful to look at client relationships as a bank of trust, and every interaction is either a deposit or a withdrawal.
But what does that mean?
Whenever you give attention to your prospects or clients’ needs and keep your promises, you’re making a deposit.
On the other hand, when you make excuses and break deadlines, that’s a withdrawal.
This dynamic is essential for your business, as the way you handle those deposits and withdrawals will determine the level of trust that client has in you and your travel agency industry, and the longevity of your relationship.
It’s pretty simple:
Building a deposit-rich bank of trust will yield well-paying and loyal clients. On the other hand, withdrawals will cause you to lose that client – and probably others who hear about it. It won’t be long before that relationship is completely drained of any trust, respect, or communication.
The opposite holds true. The more deposits you make, the more your client will trust your agency. They’ll stick with you through thick and thin because they know that if you say you’re going to do something, then it gets done.
When I talk about building a bank of trust for travel business, I’m not just talking about doing what you promise to do. You need to go that extra mile and do more than you promised.
I remember reading an article about Southwest Airlines that talked about their philosophy of “No Put-Downs”. They never respond to criticism with anger. Instead, they simply say, “Thank you for your input.”
The businessperson who wrote the blog post said that they tried the technique with customers, and it worked like a charm. Customers who were previously angry called back to apologize for overreacting after receiving this new type of response.
When you make deposits into your trust bank, do more than you promised. It will yield huge results.
Building your trust bank is not complicated, but it does take some work on your part. The key is to constantly think of ways you can do more, what else you can offer, and how you can improve the relationship with your client.
Every day, try to make at least one deposit with one client by going above and beyond what was promised.
I’m confident that if you do this diligently over time, your trust bank will yield some incredible results.
The trust bank is only as strong as the most recent deposit or withdrawal.
If you make a single withdrawal, it will cost you a lot more time and money to recover from that mistake than if you hadn’t made any withdrawals at all!
A Word of Caution: Your client’s trust account is not the same as a personal credit account.
Clients don’t care how good your intentions are, or the fact that you made a big mistake and feel bad about it. All they know is what they see in front of them. If you make a withdrawal from their trust bank, then regardless of your intentions or how badly you screwed up, that’s the amount of trust they have in you now, and it’s up to you to rebuild that account.
It will be much easier for you if over time, the majority of your deposits outweigh your withdrawals.
Please pay attention to what you are taking out of the relationships with clients!
It’s simple but it makes perfect sense, right?
What do you think? Do you agree that making deposits into a trust bank is vital for maintaining good relationships with clients? And what are some ways that you can make more deposits into your client’s trust bank? Feel free to share your comments with us.
