Credibility and Integrity
We conduct ourselves with uncompromising integrity and honesty as individuals, as teams, and as a company. We strive to earn enduring credibility with others, which we believe is essential to long-term personal and business relationships:
Cultivate credibility - be worthy of belief Do what you say you will do - always follow through
Be responsive - return your phone calls, e-mail, and other requests for action in a timely way
Communicate status and decisions - openly, and in a timely manner
Remember the fragile nature of credibility - it takes time to build and moments to lose
Be authentic, genuine, and true to yourself - so that people can take you at face value
Listen - seek first to understand
Act with integrity and honesty
Stand up for what you believe in and be willing to put yourself on the line
Speak up or take responsibility for something that's wrong, even if not in your area
Put values ahead of short term results
Tell the whole truth - deliver the complete message
Be forthright with bad news and difficult issues
Credibility and Integrity
ReplyDeleteWe conduct ourselves with uncompromising integrity and honesty as individuals, as teams, and as a company. We strive to earn enduring credibility with others, which we believe is essential to long-term personal and business relationships:
Cultivate credibility - be worthy of belief
Do what you say you will do - always follow through
Be responsive - return your phone calls, e-mail, and other requests for action in a timely way
Communicate status and decisions - openly, and in a timely manner
Remember the fragile nature of credibility - it takes time to build and moments to lose
Be authentic, genuine, and true to yourself - so that people can take you at face value
Listen - seek first to understand
Act with integrity and honesty
Stand up for what you believe in and be willing to put yourself on the line
Speak up or take responsibility for something that's wrong, even if not in your area
Put values ahead of short term results
Tell the whole truth - deliver the complete message
Be forthright with bad news and difficult issues
There is something about this electronic medium we operate in every day that makes people skeptical. It's not just having to enter your credit card number into cyber space, or worry about having your identity stolen. Those problems are all too real and we learn to shield ourselves from them, so that we can carry on. But, even when we do, it's still hard to make judgments about people, or about another business, when you only deal with them in the online environment.
ReplyDeleteIn the offline world we have the benefit of looking others in the eye and using our experience to make a judgment about them. Even in our initial encounter with someone, we get to size him up - to have a first impression. But, how are visitors to your web site assessing your credibility and integrity? How do you overcome the basic inconsistency that trust is something that you earn over time, with having only seconds to convey it on the internet?
There are studies out there that provide some excellent thoughts about how to design and build a web site to enhance its credibility and foster trust; you can do a Google search under "web site credibility" and see these for yourself. What they will tell you, though, is that there are a few key design things that go a long way to establishing your credibility online and making it easier for site visitors to trust you and your business. Make sure the site looks professional, is easy to navigate, and that everything works properly. Make sure you provide a clear path for online customers to communicate with you. Make sure that your content establishes both your own credibility and that of any other contributors to your site. Make sure that you change your content frequently and keep it up to date.
These are all common sense steps and they are important; any good site designer will advise you on them and implement what he can for you. Spending the time, or the money to build a site that is flawed in the way it works will clearly undermine the credibility of your business over time and site visitors will never trust you as a result. But, there is more to the issue of conveying integrity than site design.
Given the nature of my business, I spend a lot of time online and see many other sites. I am constantly checking to see how others do things and collecting the best information I can find for my customers. I suppose each of us has our own opinion about what constitutes a "good site," or what makes us distrust any site. There are several things, though, that tip the scales for me and make me immediately suspicious, or not trust the people that are presumably behind the electronic facade they are asking me to use.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that makes me most distrust any online business is feeling "tricked" by them. Some sites are designed to force the user to drill down into the site to find what he wants. When you get to what you’re looking for, though, you discover that you have to register, or provide information about yourself and / or your business, or worse yet pay for something you expected to get for free. When this happens to me, I leave immediately. I don't mind that someone wants a little information, or charges for a product or service that they provide; they just need to tell me that upfront, if they want me to trust their business.
Second, I do not like to be presented with any obstacles in communicating with an online business. It amazes me how many of them create these roadblocks - not making the contact process obvious on the site, not providing an e-mail address and forcing you to go through the site, not being able to communicate with a person, not having an easy way to follow up with them, if they don't respond, not having telephone contact available, etc. You know it's intentional. You know this process is designed to make things easier and more efficient for the company, than for you, the customer.
Third, it frustrates me to no end to be disappointed by the quality of the supporting material on a site. While there is a huge amount of information to be found online, frankly, most of it is useless and it's there because the business owner read someplace that he should have a lot of "content" on his site to draw people in and to enhance his search engine placement. For me, it totally undermines the credibility of a site, when it provides "articles" that have no substance, or worse yet, when the articles are just blatant commercials for the company's products. That's why at Business Advisor Online we read every article before we post it, include less than 20% of what we read, and provide both a summary and a rating of every article, so the reader doesn't waste his time.
Fourth, when I see a lot of advertisements on a site, my first inclination is to bolt; I try to dig a little deeper, but my antenna goes up when I see that I am going to have to wade through all those ads. I understand that letting other companies advertise on your site is a viable business model and, if it's done reasonably and the site is still providing me with real value, I'll tolerate it. But, sometimes the ads are so pervasive that you can't easily tell what the site can actually do for you, or what its purpose is; and the worst situation is not being able to clearly see the difference between an advertisement and content. Just remember - when you see a lot of ads on a site, the person paying for them is the real customer, not you!
ReplyDeleteFinally, not being able to clearly discern what the site's business model is and how it makes money makes me suspicious. I understand that most people are not going to have this one on their list; but, I believe there are only a three reasons to have a web site to begin with - to sell more, to enhance efficiency, and to provide better service - and if I can't figure out which one the site is trying to accomplish, it makes me a little uncomfortable.
At the risk of oversimplifying this credibility and trust issue, the real solution is to pay attention to it - to make it a point to probe how credible you actually are. As your site changes and evolves, keep testing it and find ways to get feedback from visitors about what they think. Give them a way to "look you in the eye" and you'll have a better chance of earning their trust.
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ReplyDeleteThis year, 83 per cent of respondents to the CR Index said they engage with customers concerning social and environmental issues and 80 per cent said that they encourage positive behaviour change.
The most common methods used to engage and influence consumers were putting out information through company websites, reports and guides (37 per cent); abiding by a set of industry standards or a company code of conduct (22 per cent); and enhancing the sustainability of existing products and services (12 per cent).
“Trying to influence customers on social and environmental issues is not new,” notes Georg Vielmetter, European director at Hay Group, a management consultancy. “The pioneers started 20 or 30 years ago in areas such as organic and fair trade food.”
This is a crucial time for brands. Marketing is changing, trust is transient and customers could desert a business if it fails to respond to social and environmental challenges.
“Customers want to see that the company they are buying from is responsible and has a good ethical spine,” says Mark Stuart, head of research at the Chartered Institute of Marketing. “Brands must build trust by being credible and authentic and giving customers accurate, complete and consistent messages.”
One way of influencing customer behaviour is to promote more sustainably produced goods and services: this may involve the creation of new, sustainable brands or using marketing to communicate the integration of sustainability into existing brands.
Credibility and Integrity in the World of Web
ReplyDeleteThe list of new challenges that are presented by Web 2.0 initiatives is quite extensive. One of the most critical challenges, though, is credibility. In the absence of credibility, and/or integrity, your content becomes worthless.
Web 2.0 empowers us to leverage the collective intellect. When information is posted in good faith, it can drive value for everyone. That collective intellect is the basis of open source. By building on ideas and premises that have been set forth, it's possible to develop better ideas faster.
Critical Integrity Protection
Critical Integrity Protection includes:
•The integrity of your authentication mechanism, to ensure that people are who they say they are.
•The integrity of your platform, to ensure that your content cannot be erroneously or fraudulently changed.
•The integrity of your authors, to ensure that they are providing their opinions and guidance in good faith.
What happens when Collective Integrity is Breached?
Accountability is an important part of any information management plan. People need to be held accountable for what they write. Anonymity is valuable in some concepts. As we talked about in the Enterprise Blogging article, sometimes anonymity can be a useful tool in helping to teach an organization more about candor. But ideas posted anonymously carry much less impact as there is no accountability.
By the same token, there are some out there that choose to write disingenuous content. Or even content that can be readily proved false. If that occurs, your credibility may suffer even more so than that of your anonymous colleague. Does that make sense?
With an anonymous comment or entry, the author is simply unknown. But if you compromise your integrity and/or credibility…YOUR identity is known to be soiled.
How Much of the Dividend do You Earn?
ReplyDeleteYour effectiveness in relationships depends on how much people see you as living by your word. Where they see it strongly, people trust you more, listen more closely to you, and allow you to influence them. This form of credibility is necessary to lead, to sell, and to address conflicts. It shows up on the bottom line as the integrity dividend -- and I can prove it.
But managing credibility is not a trivial challenge; it is hard work. Most of us undermine the power of our words in a thousand small and large ways.
This website, the book, the organization, and I are dedicated to helping managers and companies build credibility so they can earn more of the integrity dividend.
Corporate Integrity & Credibility
ReplyDeleteIn the last three years, companies throughout the Western world have once again gone through a period of extreme difficulty. Following the events of the TMT [1] bubble and then of 9/11 [2], sales have plummeted, profits have declined, unemployment has grown considerably in many sectors and the pressure has increased on businesses everywhere.
Corporate scandals around the world have destroyed confidence and amply illustrated that survival is not compulsory.
Lose trust and you can go bust.
Trust is at the heart
Time and time again the message that comes through is that issues around Trust are at the very heart of survival and growth. At the very basic level, all businesses have to deliver a fundamentally better product or service just to be in the game these days.
Having good quality products and services on their own is not sufficient difference to make a difference. As one of my friends told me recently — with a hint of a profound statement coming my way — there are no bad cars any more. We reflected on the frequent feeling of adventure when undertaking a long journey even as little as 20 years ago.
So, what’s the point?
The point is that we need to trust in the basic functionality of a product or service, but we have come a long way past that. Now, in a world where standards of basic performance are high, the market place more competitive and increasingly little difference between products and services, you had better gear up your organization to understand that there is a whole new level of trust demanded if you are to stand out from the crowd.
If it’s basic product or service you offer, then price will be the differentiator. But if you want to make a real difference, then you need to find the keys to earning trust at a much higher level of tangible and emotional engagement and to do that you need a whole new level of customer centricity at the heart of your business.
Build trust, build the company
Logically, there are 3 key components for successful financial performance in any business.
Business success comes from successfully building brand equity — loyalty from customers so that they are loyal to your brands and are advocates for you.
To get to that point you have to reach new heights of customer satisfaction — to build trust between you and your customer.
To get to that, you need competent well-motivated employees, properly supported with the right resources, and at the heart of this is building trust within the company at all levels.
It’s chicken and egg!
Research proves the obvious point that well-motivated staff are much more likely to want to improve customer service and deliver high levels of customer satisfaction than those who lack trust.
Building a successful business that achieves its financial goals demands that management builds trusting behaviors and actions that are customer centric, with everyone in the business understanding that they have to go much farther these days than the base line of the past.
The goalposts in terms of customer expectations keep moving to new levels that are harder to achieve for many brands. People need to be united in their commitment to process and performance improvements that can only be achieved by working with trusted leaders, trusted managers, trusted teams and trusted individuals.
The one constant ingredient in the mix is customer centricity as the engine for growth.
The risks of not building trust
ReplyDeleteSometimes the risks are blindingly obvious.
It would be a fatal mistake to think of your people as a production line where instructions are given and demands made and that they will automatically be grateful and deliver what you need. There is now a greater awareness of the sophistication of people with an innate desire to be listened to rather than be talked at. If you do not engage properly with your people, you will not build trust.
If you only see business as a numbers game, then at its worst (as it would appear happened with Enron, Andersen, or WorldCom), your manipulation of the financials may sooner or later lead to dramatic failure.
It’s the human aspects of issues that matter.
The challenge
The real challenge in the new world is the same as it was in the old but with a need for greater speed of action. The bottom line is — how do you take the new demand for an even higher level of trust with customers and trust internally and build it into the business on a daily basis?
How do you take what for many is the "soft stuff" and make it tangible?
The essential combination
As stated before, business performance derives from the essential combination of strong brand equity, demonstrable high levels of satisfaction and loyalty with customers, plus trusted and trusting employees at all levels. This has led to our 3-tier model for Trust building:
The Trusted Organization
Trusted teams
Trusted and trusting individuals.
In this article, I deal principally with the first with only a passing reference to the other two. But clearly, whatever has to happen to build a trusted organization requires trust-building collaborative teamwork of the highest order. It needs a committed workforce whose individual values and behaviors work well together to communicate well, build relationships well and consistently use their combined skills to achieve the business goals.
Where to begin?
The one consistent theme that we have seen as a fundamental for building trust in companies large and small is behaving like a truly Customer Centric Company. Everybody tells you that they are customer centric but the reality is very often far from this because management teams fail to correct process failings that go beyond the basics.
In the smaller company, with senior management engaged with customers and listening to their workforce, it is easier for them to see the disconnects that can exist and work to put them right.
For the larger organization, the challenges are multiplied dramatically.
The biggest challenge is often the development of functional silos where the disease of silositis can breed unchecked unless management and the workforce are very careful. Barriers of language, different interpretations of customer needs and behaviors, displays of a differing sense of urgency and lack of trust are all too common in organizations where the focus on true customer needs is weak.
This chart illustrates the challenges often faced.
Impact of a focus on customers
ReplyDeleteIt can be quite difficult to find hard evidence of the impact that customer centricity has as a lever on building business success. It is a complex mix with a lot of variables. However, there are a number of studies that all seem to confirm that customer centricity is the key, and employee attitudes and satisfaction are pivotal in delivering this.
Some challenging questions
Revelation comes for management teams when they sit down to examine their behaviors on issues that directly affect customer centricity.
Among the tough questions are:
Does customer centricity get quality time on the management agenda with a sense of urgency to identify priorities for process and behavioral change?
Does the leadership team inspire the entire workforce by walking the talk on customer issues, particularly when difficult choices have to be made that affect Trust?
Do they engage with teams and individuals to help remove the barriers that stand in the way of improved customer service?
Do people throughout the company feel able to make decisions for the good of the company and its customers by feeling empowered rather than being afraid to take action for fear of being punished?
How good is communication throughout the company?
Does the top team recognize that good communication on a personal and team level is vital?
Is there a "one company" culture rather than myriad silos getting in the way of change?
Do the people inside the company see cross-functional barriers being broken down?
What needs to be done to generate greater openness and less fear for people to take initiatives that build trust?
To what extent does bureaucracy stand in the way of delivering high quality customer service?
How much encouragement is given to people to innovate and learn new ways of performing their jobs for the ultimate benefit of the customer?
These are just some of the difficult questions that good companies ask as they develop action plans that directly impact on customers and the level of trust they have in the business.
It is simply the start point. But it is an important start point because from that follows the understanding of how important trust building is in other areas of the business.
Transformation of an organization from self-centered to customer centered is a journey where change cannot be achieved alone by a brilliant single leader or even a great management team. All the teams in the organization need to examine the degree of collaboration that exists right across any enterprise if they are to improve behaviors that build trust amongst customers and by implication, trust amongst themselves and across functions
ReplyDeleteIt is also a matter of individual trust. Again, integrity and ethics, values and attitudes lie at the heart of what builds up to the customer’s perception of a trusted organization.
There are many lessons to be learned that lead to an entire workforce having a better understanding why customer centricity matters and its implications for trust and all that that implies for the growth of their company.
Like many aspects of management, this is not rocket science. If you accept that being a trusted organization is vital for survival and growth in these difficult times, then you also have to accept that the challenge is to go beyond the generic understanding of trust and rigorously examine in detail what it means to your business, your customers and the marketplace.
Trusted brands, trusted teams and trusted and trusting individuals don’t happen by accident.
Leaders and managers have a whole new ballgame if they are to go beyond the basics and find out how to generate trust so that people externally and internally see the difference that makes the difference.
A recent Gallup survey showed that the most engaged workplaces are:
50% more likely to have lower staff turnover
56% more likely to have higher than average customer loyalty
38% more likely to have above average productivity, and
27% more likely to report above average profitability.
The chart below summarizes findings at Sears — in the US — that measured how every 5% increase in employee satisfaction leads to a 1.3% improved customer impression which in turn drives a 0.5% profit growth.
Replicate that and see the difference to your bottom line. It made $200 million a year difference at Sears.
It is all about building trusted relationships and behaviors — up and down the line in companies — and a focus on customers at the heart of the business.
All of this seems to be focused on employees?
Of course, this is where it all matters but we believe that to deliver a new order of trust we need a new level of analysis of what it means to be truly customer centric. There is a need for a new disciplined analysis of where companies have to move from and to.
Clearly, it is important to have as much information as possible about customer perceptions of your products and services and their attitudes overall towards your business.
Companies that take customer centricity seriously regularly survey their customers and spend time and money collating data from internal and external sources to add to their understanding to the highest degree possible.
ReplyDeleteWhat research usually does is identify key processes that need to be improved. Asking the right questions and actually listening to customers’ responses inevitably identifies some core areas for action that would dramatically improve customer trust and would lead to improved performance.
In our experience, a commitment to real change only takes place with the rigorous assessment by management of their role in leading change. They need to "walk the talk " and demonstrate customer centric behaviors both as individuals and in their leadership of teams if they are to engage the whole organization effectively.
Our Customer Centric Corporation™ model
This model identifies 8 key areas [leadership, motivation, measuring & managing, innovation & learning, communication, teamwork collaboration & diversity, organizational design, empowerment] for detailed assessment that managers typically go through to rate current against desired performance. It takes them further in their thinking about customer centricity and highlights what improvements in management behaviors and actions employees would see if they genuinely become more customer centric.
This is where we connect with those attitudes and behaviors that lead to improved processes that are vital to deliver superior customer satisfaction and loyalty. But it is more.
It addresses the intangibles of leadership and empowerment, motivation, innovation and communication that gets out in the open the issues that have to be addressed to make a real difference.
Practice of Confucian ethics to boost business credibility and integrity
ReplyDelete2011-10-13
As the 75th generation descendant of ancient philosopher Confucius, 47-year-old Kong Xiangling has always believed she has more social responsibilities than others.
Kong is a restaurant boss in Qufu, the hometown of Confucius (551-479 BC) in east Shandong province. She said she had been taught since childhood to abide by Confucianism in everyday life, which is an ethical and philosophical system derived from the teachings of Confucius.
"I always keep my ancestor's moral standard: to be filial to the elderly, always ready to help others, honest in doing business, and refusing to cheat customers or accept ill-gotten money. Those are my codes of conduct," Kong said.
Kong is a well-known philanthropist among local residents, and she has been recognized by provincial market supervision authorities as a "model businesswoman" for her credibility and integrity in conducting business.
From the small snack shop Kong opened in the 1990s to the current locally-renowned restaurant with about 40 employees, she has kept a habit of picking and buying vegetables, fish and other ingredients for making dishes in the market herself instead of asking her employees to do so.
"I just want to make sure those ingredients are the best quality so the cooks can make good dishes. I will never cheat my customers with bad food because I don't want to disgrace my ancestor," she said.
However, not all business people can practice strict moral self-discipline while facing the temptation of material gain. In fact, some believe China has been experiencing an honesty crisis in recent years after a string of food-safety scandals hit the nation.
One of the biggest scandals emerged in 2008, when baby formula was found to be tainted with melamine, an industrial compound used to create plastic and resin. The tainted formula led to the death of six infants and sickened 300,000 children across the country.
Late last month, a Shanghai court sentenced three executives of a food company to five to nine-year imprisonment after they were found responsible for illegally adding yellow dye to a type of steamed bun made of corn flour.
Two other high-profile scandals exposed this year include the manufacture and sale of clenbuterol, an illegal fat-burning drug that is sometimes illegally used as an additive in pig feed, and "gutter oil," or reprocessed cooking oil that is illegally produced using waste oil from restaurants.
Premier Wen Jiabao said in April that the virulent food safety incidents show the degradation of morality and the loss of credibility within the industry.
"A country without the improved quality of its people and the power of morality will never grow into a mighty and respected power," he said.
Wen has urged entrepreneurs on several occasions that they should have morality in their blood.
Practice of Confucian ethics to boost business credibility and integrity
ReplyDelete2011-10-13
"Honesty is very much needed in China now," said Yang Chaoming, director of the Qufu-based Confucius Institute.
To some extent, a lack of honesty and integrity has become an obstacle for China's economic and social growth. In addition to governmental supervision and judicial means, moral self-discipline should not be neglected, Yang said.
"China needs more business people of honesty and integrity who can discipline their commercial activities with Confucian morality and ethics," he said.
"In other words, China calls for more Ru Shang (Confucian business people)."
More than 2,000 years ago, Confucianism put forth five basic aspects of ethics -- benevolence, righteousness, manners, wisdom and honesty.
"Even now, those ethics are still influencing Chinese people profoundly," Yang said.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) put forward the concept of "socialist core value system" for the first time at the Sixth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee in 2006, in which honesty is included as an important component.
"Ru Shang," is not new in China and has actually existed for centuries.
"(But) if business people are really worthy of being called Ru Shang, they must be honest individuals. Dishonest business people may be successful for a period of time, but they will not be successful forever," Yang said.
In the classic works of Confucianism, Confucius gave many elaborations on honesty and how to behave properly. Today, lots of ordinary people can still recite the famous lines of Confucius in this regard, such as: "Promises must be kept and action must be resolute. If a man does not keep his word, what is he good for?" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"But whether business people are Ru Shang or not, the point is not how profoundly they study Confucian theories, but in their everyday practice of Confucian ethics," Yang said.
Wang Huiping, a shopkeeper who sells tourist souvenirs near the Confucius Temple in Qufu, has a simpler understanding of "Ru Shang."
"Ru Shang is a conscientious businessman. To me, that means no cheating customers, the old or young, Chinese or foreigners," she said.
"I warmly welcome all guests with open arms, no matter whether they buy my commodities or not."
Edited by Chen Zhilin
Source: English.news.cn
Practice of Confucian ethics to boost business credibility and integrity
ReplyDelete2011-10-13
"Honesty is very much needed in China now," said Yang Chaoming, director of the Qufu-based Confucius Institute.
To some extent, a lack of honesty and integrity has become an obstacle for China's economic and social growth. In addition to governmental supervision and judicial means, moral self-discipline should not be neglected, Yang said.
"China needs more business people of honesty and integrity who can discipline their commercial activities with Confucian morality and ethics," he said.
"In other words, China calls for more Ru Shang (Confucian business people)."
More than 2,000 years ago, Confucianism put forth five basic aspects of ethics -- benevolence, righteousness, manners, wisdom and honesty.
"Even now, those ethics are still influencing Chinese people profoundly," Yang said.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) put forward the concept of "socialist core value system" for the first time at the Sixth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee in 2006, in which honesty is included as an important component.
"Ru Shang," is not new in China and has actually existed for centuries.
"(But) if business people are really worthy of being called Ru Shang, they must be honest individuals. Dishonest business people may be successful for a period of time, but they will not be successful forever," Yang said.
In the classic works of Confucianism, Confucius gave many elaborations on honesty and how to behave properly. Today, lots of ordinary people can still recite the famous lines of Confucius in this regard, such as: "Promises must be kept and action must be resolute. If a man does not keep his word, what is he good for?" and "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
"But whether business people are Ru Shang or not, the point is not how profoundly they study Confucian theories, but in their everyday practice of Confucian ethics," Yang said.
Wang Huiping, a shopkeeper who sells tourist souvenirs near the Confucius Temple in Qufu, has a simpler understanding of "Ru Shang."
"Ru Shang is a conscientious businessman. To me, that means no cheating customers, the old or young, Chinese or foreigners," she said.
"I warmly welcome all guests with open arms, no matter whether they buy my commodities or not."
Edited by Chen Zhilin
Source: English.news.cn
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems
ReplyDeleteto me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they
have trained themselves not to say “I.” They
don’t think “I.” They think “we”; they think
“team.” They understand their job to be to make
the team function. They accept responsibility and
don’t sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit. This
is what creates trust, what enables you to get the
task done.
Set your expectations high; find men and
women whose integrity and values you
respect; get their agreement on a course of
action; and give them your ultimate trust.
There are seven social sins: politics
ReplyDeletewithout principles; wealth without
work; pleasure without conscience;
knowledge without character;
commerce without morality;
science without humanity; worship
without sacrifice.
I’m not upset that you lied to
ReplyDeleteme, I’m upset that from now
on I can’t believe you.
Trust and Credibility – They Go Hand-in-Hand
ReplyDeleteWould you use an online product that has neither made any announcements, nor made any improvements to their product in 6 months or longer? Of course you wouldn’t.
The Internet lowers the barrier to entry for many products and start-ups. However, with that lower barrier comes the greater need for establishing and maintaining Trust and Credibility.
Credibility cannot be assumed to simply exist. Credibility is a product feature that needs to be created and cultivated. The most elementary components of Credibility are Design, Contact, and Team, and also used by Quick-UX in determining product Usefulness and Credibility. Beyond Quick-UX, altogether, the principal factors of Credibility and Trust are:
Design
Contact
Team
Activity
Quality
Design
First impressions are important. When someone visits a new online product they start forming their opinion immediately. Therefore, it is important to instantly convey the look-and-feel appropriate to your target audience. If you are targeting a business audience, you will start out on the right foot building that critical initial Trust, with a clean and professional site design.
Many may be surprised by the level of simple mistakes, typos, that can be found in online products. No matter your audience, business or social, typos are a quick way to damage Trust in the product and the people behind the product. Evidence of typos demonstrates a carelessness and lack of attention to detail, which no consumer wants to be receiving.
Contact
The more prominently displayed is the contact information, the more comfortable any web product user will feel. Users want to know that if they have a problem, a question, or a simple desire to comment about a web product, there are one or more means by which this can be accomplished. The more options available, the more personal and real those options feel, and the more credible will be the web product. Even if the contact options are not used, having that safety net, that security blanket for “just in case,” helps keep the user engaged and utilizing the online product. The ability to contact by email (or form) should be seen as a basic requirement. Proving that the company has a physical location to which mail can be sent or that the company can be reached by phone where a real person will answer only serves to bolster the important case of web company / product legitimacy.
Team
ReplyDeleteAre there real people on the other end? Hello? Is somebody out there? When you are a company offering products on the web, prove it. There is nothing like actually seeing and learning about the people behind and supporting the product. A friendly face, a trustworthy visage, builds personal, emotional bonds.
It is important to show that there are real people, with their names and reputations standing behind the product, especially if you want your users to stand in front of, and use, it. And, here too, to increase the Trust further, a very welcoming act to the timid user is demonstrated by showing that (in addition to being able to contact the more amorphous support team) even your team, with real people, can be directly reached by email or phone.
Activity
At the start of this article I asked, “Would you use an online product that has neither made any announcements, nor made any improvements to their product in 6 months or longer?”
The lower barrier of entry to releasing a product on the Web also makes communicating to that product’s users easier and, in turn, builds on the expectations of recurring and forthright communications. There is no excuse in today’s world for a web product to not be in constant, open, and honest communication with its various audiences (press, user, prospective user, etc.).
There should never be a time when there is nothing to communicate. There is always a status update, a product update, a company update, a product tip, and more that can be communicated to a web product’s users via many channels, from product blog, to homepage and forums.
Users will come back and continually engage a web product if the people behind the product continually return the favor, engaging the users, honestly communicating, and respecting those who have placed their Trust in it.
Quality
Part of Trust means that I can count on ‘you’ to be there when I need you; and I will, in turn, be there for you. I will be your web product’s user. For a web-based product, Trust in reliability is all that much more important than that of a software or brick-and-mortar company. Web products perform such tasks as enabling communication, enhancing mobility, and/or storing information. The moment the value-add of the web product comes into conflict with the ability to access that product or interferes with that product’s ability to meet expectations, then loyalty will wane and alternative web and desktop products sought out.
A company like Google understands the Trust that has been placed in them, and understands the damage to its Credibility, and the tremendous amount of mending that must be done to restore it, when Quality falls short (see Worldwide Vacation Day – Courtesy of Google). Even with the tremendously positive reputation of Google, there exist many individuals who fear storing their personal or other important data within Google’s products.
A web product is making the argument to its current and potential users that it will in some way improve or enhance each user’s life. The user may initially take a leap of faith with the product, but that faith needs to be surrounded by a cushion of Trust. That Trust is established through the consistent delivery of reliable services (e.g. uptime, release dates, information updates, etc.) and meeting (or exceeding) the user’s expectations.
Trust me
ReplyDeleteOften Credibility is not well understood by both well established companies and startups. Many times it exists for a brief moment, and is squandered due to mismanagement or negligence. Credibility is critical to the retained growth and prolonged success of a web product. The basics of establishing and maintaining Credibility and Trust can be best summarized by…
Be professional. Look professional.
Be reachable. Provide prominent contact information.
Be visible. Show your face.
Be active. Frequently communicate.
Be reliable. Act professional.
Credibility starts and ends with presenting a professional online presence, be it for a fun, social website, or a b2b product.
Trust you
With so many online product options available, there is simply no reason to use an untrustworthy product — just move on to something else.
Whether you are a start-up or a long established company, you should never rest on your laurels. You need to establish Trust and Credibility early and constantly maintain and build upon it. People have too much choice to be bothered with any company that causes them even the slightest bit of doubt.
Everyone knows of online products with Trust issues. What is happening (or starting to happen) to their userbase? How well do you feel those companies are addressing their challenges of Credibility?
Feature Request: Trust
To the creators and guardians of both new and old online products:
Your users, your fans, your critics, whether they enjoy or disparage your web product, there should be one pillar no one should be able to fault, and that is your company’s and your product’s Credibility. They may like or not like what you are offering, but they should, at the very least, Trust you.
Thank you & Enjoy!
At the end of the day, even if all the other elements exist, trust and credibility come down to the human element (team). Who are you? Why should I buy from you? Will you always be there for me? And so on.
INDICATION OF INTREST- with due humility and trust i hope to give in my best and also couple with my experience and personal skills.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of my skills, knowledge and competence, it has always been my dreams to working in an ideal working enviroment with full challenges and career prospects, for this resason suffice me to say is a motivating factor that has instigated my decision for this application.
My background todate has been centered around preparing myself to become the very best Mayor of Los Angeles, this I also say has influenced my decision in no smaller measure to studying Psychology as it a human related discipline that seek to understanding human behaviour in his mental life.
Above all,I feel very confident that my academic skills, knowledge competence and the working enviroment will allow me to give in my best as it will aid my career in your organization both in local and international level.
Lastly, confidentiality, sound judgements, intergrity and planning are my philosopy which often geared me towards efficiency and effectiveness to achieving what i have set to achieve.
YJ Draiman for Mayor of Los Angeles 2013
RESPECTABILITY
ReplyDeleteThe banners of the enemy were waving over their heads. They were titled Pride, Self righteousness, Respectability, Selfish Ambition, and Unrighteous Judgment, but the largest of all was Jealousy.