Apr
Who Just Entered Your Trust Circle?
Recently I asked 10 people a very simple question, “Who do you really trust?”. In most cases, the answer included God, significant other, parents, or a best friend. But what no one talked about is a new entity that we are trusting more and more daily.
But before I name the entity, let me share events that we go through daily. Imagine you’re on a Zoom call and you really need to have a side conversation with your family, and you press the mute button. The moment you see a line over your microphone, you blindly trust Zoom. You have the side conversation without any hesitation. If the mute button was not working, it would not only be a disaster, but could also be a career limiting move.
The same way, when you click on the stop video button and your screen goes blank and there is a red line on the camera button; you are 100% assured that you are now invisible. Then you start doing strange things…like scratching your head, stretching… things you would never ever do on camera. Have you ever thought about what would happen if the stop video button failed you?
See, we all have blindly started trusting our technologies. Recently I realized that sometimes this blind trust does not always work in our favor. I had sent a very detailed email to a client and was waiting to get a response. A few days later, during a phone conversation, the client shared that they never got the email. I trusted technology and it let me down. As we are blindly moving technology into the trust circle in our lives, we really need to understand how trust works with other human beings.
My wife, Chitra, trusts me as I have earned it. It is my COMPETENCE to deliver her trust CONSISTENTLY, that has helped me earn it. Another dimension of our trust is my loyalty for her, my READINESS TO PROTECT HER INTERESTS, always.
But with technology, are we trusting it because it is more convenient for us? Have we checked the three dimensions of trust?
- Is the technology competent?
- Is it ready to act consistently?
- Will it always protect our interest?
Only after a “yes” to all three questions, should we trust technology.
If you are a business using technology to get into your client’s trust circle, you should be happy and celebrate as your clients are starting to trust you. Next, you must be ready to live the three dimensions of trust. Right now, if you open any App and they give you options which will track you: always, when you use the App, or never. If you say never, how do you know they are actually never going to track you? Wouldn’t you feel better if there was an assurance? The same way an assurance from your home security system, that everything is A-Ok, will help you trust them even more. This is especially true for businesses who have tons of consumer data, as long-term success will depend on how well they live up to the trust.
For businesses to stay in the circle of trust, they must realize that getting customer trust is not another program. It is a way of life where technology providers must be ready to step up and be ready to raise the bar to deliver accountability, consistently, every time. Because once trust is lost, it can never be earned back.
This excited me just enough that I also had to record a podcast episode on the subject.
You can listen/watch it here…
