Transparency is a critical part of a company’s overall success, making it more than a buzzword. The term implies operating effortlessly for the customers to see and verify your performed actions. Simply, openness, communication, and accountability. Companies shy from practicing transparency internally, in turn causing hesitation to offer the same to their customers. It is critical to be transparent with customers from the onset if you intend to be successful. In an article published by Michael Winehouse, a member of the Forbes Council, he points out that though it is scary to be transparent, it is ideal for your business growth and gaining customer trust. Further, transparency helps attract new customers even as it works towards delivering better service to current ones, making sure they remain loyal to you.
The culture of transparency help businesses set themselves up for success. It ensures the provision of information on products and services pricing and timelines on a realistic delivery of a service or product. This complete honesty with clients helps in increasing levels of customer retention and meeting their goals, leaving them a happy lot.
Besides, transparency increases your company’s efficiency as it focuses on the firm’s strengths and not limitations and shortcomings. The saved time gets invested in meeting customer needs to the company’s best abilities. Further, transparency helps in building trust with customers. Laying bare the truth about your services and products helps in creating trust between you and the clients. Existing anxieties and suspicions get thrown out of the window as information is readily and freely available to the consumers. This practice works wonders in fostering a company’s relationship with its clients leading to customer retention, hence customer loyalty.
Importance of Transparency in Customer Relationship
Transparency in developing client relationships is among the critical values that business entities should consider. Customer relationships and employee development, in general, are the backbones of the company.
Putting the two in the light should be ideal for company performance. Since they come into one-on-one contact with the clients, employees should be an embodiment of company values, traits, and engagements. Change is a constant factor in business.
Ensure your employees are abreast of the made or coming changes. Open communication helps create an excellent rapport between customers, employees, the organization, and other stakeholders.
Better Negotiations
Company visibility creates an easy working and engagement relationship between the firm, clients and employees. Transparency provides all the needed information by a client to engage the company on its provisions before starting the purchase process.
In any case, adjustments and changes that occur occasionally should have prompt communication to all parties. Transparency leads to successful negotiations as it is an embodiment of requirements of openness. The openness leads to trust from clients.
The relationship builds customer trust, customer referral, and customer conversions translated to sales and customer satisfaction. The culture of transparency comes in handy in pricing and services delivery. Besides, negotiations allow the clients to receive services within the set prices or discounts. Pricing adjustments come upfront in giving clients maximum transparency during the price allocation.
Client Retention
Transparency is one of the common ways that every business entity should follow to keep lifelong customers. Organizations gain customer loyalty by having competitive prices, quality products and services, and practicing the general act of openness.
A long-lasting customer relationship requires constant communication between the clients and the company. Sustained conveying of information makes everyone be on the same page. That way, the clients will be at liberty to relay their suggestions, ideas and the product overview before and after use.
Transparency ensures customer expectations are met accordingly, thus boosting the firm’s customer retention. Building customer loyalty is by the simple acts that businesses and employees portray.
Honesty allows clients to comfortably view and consume your products, support your brand and other business practices. Meeting high customer retention is possible when both employees and the brand are on the same page in communication and action.
Meeting customer satisfaction measures leads to the comfortable and effortless running of the business and handling of clients. In simple terms, transparency fosters customer retention by offering satisfaction and trust through openness and involvement in all company processes.
When all stakeholders have access to limitless information on all they seek from the company, it becomes easy for them to negotiate. Constant availability of these pieces of information reinforces trust leading to customer loyalty.
Increased Efficiency
Efficiency in business operations emanates from obtaining customer complaints through an elaborate customer feedback system. A small business enterprise practicing complete transparency will become efficient in its operations by setting up an excellent company culture.
The culture of transparency develops strong relationships between employees and customers, which inevitably contributes to a more efficient operation.
The knowledge that clients freely access project information ensures an enhanced organized and professional way of operating. These operations become efficient. In the end, they avoid any client backlash, client withdrawals, and loss of client loyalty, leading to company revenue loss.
How to be radically transparent with Customers
For every business envisioning to grow and have a broad portfolio of loyal customer’s kindness and openness, the principal core value should be a high trust level. The technological evolution has created platforms like COR, a place where you can professionally exchange information with your clients.
Transparency helps you to ratio critical information, whether good, ugly or bad experiences. Your loyal customers will radically show concern and care towards the shared details.
Mostly, when showing radical transparency, however inadequate it may seem, loyal clients will stick with you till the end. The transparency aspect scares many businesses. The firms think that if you talk the truth, clients might run away from your products.
Offer a real service scope
Radical transparency to customers involves the correct establishment of the limits of the services on offer. The service value addition to the clients must come out clearly, and the same information passed down to the clients to understand to avoid creating false service expectations. In a nutshell, transparency gives reasons companies must have well-measured work capacity for their team and outline the amount of time dedicated to every account.
Involves client in the operation
High levels of honesty have never killed sales; it gives clients a different mindset of openness and quality. Clients who value straightforwardness tend to be happy with the quality and delivery of services.
A transparent brand provides every detail required by customers consisting of team involvement, times invested, resources used. The project management solutions give a broad leeway to access this kind of detail.
The clients’ involvement allows customer feedback that helps the company develop more ideas. Transparency increases the business conversion rates by delivering incredible results within the set timelines. In summary, radical transparency calls for the institution of a project management solution that grants customers access to view and participate excellently in company operations.
Don’t be afraid to let your client into your kitchen
Most companies are afraid of letting their client in on what they are doing. The fear emanates from the belief that the clients will scamper as they become acquainted with what the company does and how.
This fear from the uncertainty that letting clients in will worsen the situation is unplaced since trends suggest that giving transparency a chance leads to improvement of everything and help in building trust
Radical transparency does not apply in displaying customer data and private information, but just letting your customers into your kitchen is mind-blowing. Allow your client, to once in a while, view the procedure and the process used to come up with those amazing products and services.
The openness will allow clients to weigh your hard work and innovativeness applied in production. More suggestions and ideas will come on your way to help your business grow and deliver the best.
COR: a tool to achieve transparency
COR is a software tool that gives vast automation results between brands and agencies or any professional services business. Firms that are envisioning to grow require high creativity levels, innovativeness, and execution of ideas to become successful.
COR as an automation tool allows transparency over the project’s operation. COR supports transparency as a core value of many businesses in increasing products or services sales.
For agencies, professional services companies and organizations to acquire openness, visibility is a necessity. COR tool helps clients gain visibility on the progress of the projects, resource optimization, and timely delivery.
The automation offered creates an excellent team organization culture that allows smooth workflow. The transparency by COR grant clients the opportunity of submitting their feedback, give suggestions and intelligent insights to boost product effectiveness.
COR software eradicates the aspect of dormant clients, delayed delivery and poor team management skills. Client participation through the platform increases trust, visibility and traceability of products or services rendered.
The tool also helps in developing brand and agency or professional service business customer relationship, which help in brand growth. COR delivers automation of tasks or project creation, time tracking, operation follow-ups and financial reporting, among others.
