In class we discussed briefly the importance of transparency with customers and I just wanted to touch on it a bit more.
In the world that we live in, customers expect transparency. One reason why is that your customers want to be insured that your product is fully reliable; but most importantly they want to know that you believe it too. Another reason why is because they want to be informed about not only the full benefits but also the risks involved. If product complications occur in the hands of your customer and the risk were not made aware, that brings bad credibility upon your product and business. Transparency creates trust with your customers and trust is what will sustain and prospers your customer relationships and overall product/company reputation.
Not only is it efficacious for customer relationships but for the business as a whole. As I’ve already said, in addition to gaining new customers, transparency allow you to better serve and keep your current customers. So that covers how the customer relationship side of your business is benefitted by transparency; but there are other benefits that need to be recognized. One is that it sets your business up for success. It is important to understand that honestly doesn’t kill your sales. Over-promising is what will do it especially when you can’t deliver. Another reason is that it will increase your company’s efficiency. Transparency is extremely important. It is crucial for businesses to integrate this into the core of their company to ensure customer satisfaction and business prosperity.
BoweryJE22
I completely agree that transparency is expected by buyers today; they are not as naïve anymore. It also helps to build solid customer relationships. Solid post!
I think that transparency is absolutely key to sales, because sales should be a relational transaction. If a salesperson is only concerned about making a sale, transparency won’t be a part of the transaction, despite if the sale may or may not be right for the prospect at hand. Lacking transparency makes sales much less personal, much less human, and much less effective.
Transparency is SOO big. Some people think that being too transparent is bad but I don’t believe this and I think that a lot of times that are thinking about transparence wrong. Transparency is not simply regurgitating everything that you know about your product, what the advantages are, and why your customer should buy it, but rather just being brutally honest about your service and product and giving ALL the information that is pertinent to the buyer when they ask for it. You don’t hold back just because you think it may make one little aspect of your product look bad, because no one expect anything to be perfect and if you make it seem like it is many people will be a little cautious. the best plan of action is to ALWAYS be perfectly transparent in all that you do in sales.