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Jul13
The importance of Trust
Stephen Covey Jr. in his book “The Speed of Trust” highlights trust as “the one thing that changes everything”. In essence, his idea is that where trust exists, speed increases and costs decrease, with of course the corollary that a lack of trust decreases speed and increases costs being equally true. The impact of global terrorism on air travel is probably the clearest example of his thesis in action.
18 months ago it is probably fair to say that trust between SaintGroup Managed Services and our stakeholders (customers, partners, suppliers, employees and investors) was questionable at best. However, as we move into the second half of the year we do so with confidence on the back of 15% growth year on year in our core managed services business. Customers tell us in simple terms why they are now happy to work with us: they appreciate the clarity of our value (we focus on simplifying the complex and are very clear about where we can help and where we are not the right business partner); they appreciate the innovation we bring to our services (we help our customers get ahead of key trends rather than just responding to them); however most of all they appreciate that they can trust us with the management of their critical infrastructure. In the words of one customer (Colin Ward at FSB): “We all know that technical things malfunction from time to time - the measure of success is if the fault is put right quickly. In your case it is”.
We refuse to be complacent and we strive hard on a daily basis to improve the service we deliver to customers. The way we work, putting our customers and people first and always acting with integrity and accountability is at the heart of how we build trust. Refusing to stop until the problem is fixed is another. But I think at the heart of what makes SaintGroup different as a managed services provider is the way in which we look at the service we deliver not just in terms of its impact on our customers but moreover on the impact we can have on the customers of our customer. In that way we seek to understand what is important to those people who use our service in terms of how they can be more effective in delivering their service to their own customers. That way we can prioritise what is really important to our customers and understand the impact of what we do. We reinforce this approach by having asking ourselves a simple question: how would we feel to be treated in that way? Being able to answer that question in the most positive way possible is right at the heart of what we do.
We refuse to be complacent and we strive hard on a daily basis to improve the service we deliver to customers. The way we work, putting our customers and people first and always acting with integrity and accountability is at the heart of how we build trust. Refusing to stop until the problem is fixed is another. But I think at the heart of what makes SaintGroup different as a managed services provider is the way in which we look at the service we deliver not just in terms of its impact on our customers but moreover on the impact we can have on the customers of our customer. In that way we seek to understand what is important to those people who use our service in terms of how they can be more effective in delivering their service to their own customers. That way we can prioritise what is really important to our customers and understand the impact of what we do. We reinforce this approach by having asking ourselves a simple question: how would we feel to be treated in that way? Being able to answer that question in the most positive way possible is right at the heart of what we do.
- Tags: Customers, Opinion Piece, Trust
