Flip the Trust Switch!
What if it was as easy as flipping a switch to get your prospective customers (Prospects) to trust your company? You simply reach for the trust switch, flip it to the ON position, and your Prospect immediately changes from someone who is claim-fatigued, close-minded and skeptical into someone who trusts you and your company and is open-minded and attentive to the ideas you’re about to present. Sounds like a dream world, right? Actually, if you qualify for Diamond Certified, it should be a reality for more than two-thirds of your Prospects: those who are influenced by Diamond Certified to trust and choose your company. The key is, your team needs to use your company’s Diamond Certified status (if you qualify) as a master High-Trust Switch. Here’s how.
The Survival Instinct of Fear, Fear, Fear, Fear
Why the mistrust in the first place? Fear. It’s the reason Prospects don’t trust your company. They don’t have direct experience using your company. They recognize they don’t have expertise in your field, plus they’re inundated with claims from your competitors—claims they know may be exaggerated or even false. Naturally, during the shopping process, they fear getting bad quality, they fear you may not price fairly or you’ll extract overcharges, they fear you’ll make promises and not keep them, and they fear your team may not have the expertise to deal with their exact needs.
This fear of the unknown is actually healthy for Prospects because it prevents them from jumping at any offer made to them. On the negative side, it closes their minds to your presentation of how your company will deliver quality, keep its promises, be fair with pricing and take an expert approach to their work. Even though you do a good job of differentiating your company from your competitors, their lack of trust prevents their brains from fully seeing and embracing how good your company performs. It’s as if they’re wearing dark glasses that shield their brains from absorbing your company’s track record and advantages.
Flip Your Company’s High-Trust Switch ON
If you qualify for Diamond Certified, your solution is to flip your company’s High-Trust Switch ON by using your Highest in Quality status to reduce fear and gain trust. Do this as early as possible in the Prospect/Company interaction so the resulting higher trust helps each Prospect see and believe your key points that follow within that and future interactions.
The first interaction usually occurs on the web or through customer referrals. That means Prospects gain or lose trust in your company before they even meet you. If you qualify, flip on the High-Trust Diamond Certified Switch on your website and in search so Prospects believe the content on your site and trust your company right from the start.
1. Search. If you qualify for Diamond Certified, we’ll have already flipped on your High-Trust Switch by creating your Diamond Certified Company Report, which will include your company’s high customer satisfaction rating graphs, verbatim survey responses, company profile, researched articles, video profile and image gallery. Even before Prospects click to see your Report, you’ll gain trust in the search results because the high-trust diamondcertified.org site is displaying the report. Also, Google trusts our site and will present Google Stars with its link to your Company’s Report page on our site.
2. Your website. If you qualify, you should flip on the High-Trust Switch by including the Diamond Certified symbol with a link to your Diamond Certified Company Report on each page of your site. Diamond Certified works to enhance trust at the moment your Prospects are paging through your website because humans are highly visual—they subconsciously seek visual cues of trustworthiness, and Diamond Certified makes the words and images on that page more trustworthy and, thus, more impactful.
3. Phone calls. If you qualify, make sure that whoever answers your phone asks each Prospect if they knew that your company has earned the Diamond Certified Award. Whether the Prospect answers yes or no, simply asking the question and explaining how your company’s customer philosophy allowed it to earn this prestigious award enhances the Prospect’s trust during and after the phone call. We’ll provide a phone script with simple wording that elegantly makes the point.
4.Email & mail. If you qualify, make sure your company’s email signature includes a Diamond Certified symbol and link to your Company Report page with the link language “Independently Rated Highest in Quality” under the symbol. Also, attach your custom Diamond Certified eBrochure to Prospect emails that include bids or follow-up answers to their questions. Insert your custom Diamond Certified brochure into every outgoing Prospect mail envelope to increase their trust at the moment they’re reviewing your mail piece for pricing information, etc.
5. Meetings. If you qualify, start each new Prospect meeting by pulling out your Diamond Certified brochure and going through both sides of it. Start with the table that shows how this rating is much more accurate and rigorous than review sites, point out the Performance Guarantee, and be sure to emphasize the meaning of your Highest in Quality Diamond Certified award. Then flip it over and walk through your company’s Ratings Dashboard, excerpted survey responses, capabilities table and profile. If you spend just one minute on the brochure, you’ll establish maximum trust and get your Prospect listening as you explain how your company can help them.
