Building Trust and Authority with Data Center Clients

Gimmicks, free add-ons, and reduced fees may be great tools for catching attention, but to sustain business growth, a data center must accomplish three things:

• Offer a service of consistently high quality
• Inspire trust
• Be recognized as an authority

The latter is especially important, as many businesses deliver a quality product or service. Any company that goes to the extent of building trust and authority with its clients will have their support for life.

The importance of a repeat clientele cannot be understated: according to SumAll, a marketing analytics company,  anywhere from 25 to 40% of a stable company’s total revenues come from returning customers. Building this level of trust and authority takes time and hard work, but can be done if a data center works on three core competencies: consistency, relevance, and reliability.

Consistency

People tend to trust companies with whom they are familiar. The more they see a brand name, tagline, or logo, the more inclined they are to regard it as a stable and reliable source of information. That is the starting point. To keep the momentum going, a data center needs to become an authority in its field.

Authority status does not happen overnight. It requires a business to deliver high quality and relevant information on a routine basis, assuring potential data center clients it is the best source of important content in its given niche.

Relevancy

In a business context, relevance refers to the delivery of content that informs, entertains, and otherwise engages the recipient. This content must matter to a consumer at each stage of their buyer's journey. To succeed, the data center’s sales staff must figure out what potential clients want and need and then actually give it to them on a regular basis.

Once a company has gained the trust of enough people, they will talk about it to their friends and colleagues, and in this era of social media, peer recommendations are gold.

Reliability

A company furthers its position of trust when it delivers on what it promises; this means sticking to budgets, meeting deadlines, and following up on inquiries. One of the best methods of measuring your company’s reputation is to ask your current clients two questions:

• “Would you buy from us again?”
• “Would you recommend us to others?”

If they answer yes to both, it is a clear sign that your company inspires trust and is recognized as an authority.

Bottom Line

Building trust and cultivating a position of authority is both simple in principle and hard work in practice. Sales personnel must treat both existing and prospective clients with respect, deliver quality and relevant content, and follow through on what they promise.

When all of this is done on a consistent basis, the data center’s client base and business will both grow.

What does your data center do to inspire trust among clients and present itself as an authority?  Let us know your thoughts in the Comments box below.

To learn more about building trust and authority with customers, watch our webinar recording, "IT Sales Has Changed. Is Your Team Living in the Past?"