Client trust is crucial to the survival of any enterprise. This is doubly true in the case of shipping-oriented small businesses, which have to contend with a wide range of factors on a daily basis. Deciding on mutually agreeable delivery windows, taking special considerations with certain types of cargo and finding reliable shipping partners are just several of the tasks these enterprises must constantly tend to. Making the wrong call on any one of them is likely to result in errors that draw the ire of clients and result in loss of repeat business. If your small business is built around shipping products to clients, heeding the following pointers can prove conducive to building trust and turning first-time customers into regular patrons.
Be Willing to Own Your Mistakes
You’d be hard-pressed to find a small business – or a business of any size, for that matter – that doesn’t make mistakes. Ideally, every enterprise would be immune from blunders, but the more clients you take on, the greater the risk of error. Fortunately, provided mistakes are few and far between, they shouldn’t have a profound impact on your client relationships or overall ability to attract new business. Additionally, as any seasoned small business owner will attest, the manner in which you address mistakes is often more important to clients than the mistakes themselves. As such, you’d do well to own your mistakes, particularly when the blunders in question are undeniably the fault of your enterprise.
When presented with one’s own mistakes, it’s basic human nature to push back, deflect and even lie. Unsurprisingly, none of these strategies are likely to reflect well on your business. While it’s true that not every perceived mistake will explicitly be the fault of your business, you should be perfectly willing to own the ones that are and take steps to make things right. So, the next time a client comes to you with a complaint, make a point of hearing them out before becoming defensive or denying any responsibility. Getting angry or deflecting may seem like a good idea in the moment, but neither approach will do you any favors with clients, and no client who finds themselves on the receiving end is likely to give you their business again. On the flipside, offering a sincere apology for any inconvenience and making an earnest effort to square things is practically guaranteed to produce more favorable results.
Work with Trustworthy Shipping Partners
Your choice of shipping partner stands to make or break your professional reputation. With this in mind, you’d do well to put some real thought into which shipping companies your business should work with. Any shipping partners you choose should possess abundant experience handling the types of products your business regularly ships. They should also have a reputation for meeting delivery deadlines and ensuring cargo safety. Just remember – any mistakes your shipping partners make are liable to be attributed to you. Even if damaged items or missed delivery deadlines are completely out of your hands, inconvenienced clients are unlikely to see things this way. Many patrons won’t differentiate between your enterprise and its shipping partners, so when seeking out the right ones, it pays to do your homework.
Utilize Special Tools for Delicate Cargo
If the products your business ships are temperature-sensitive or simply delicate in nature, there are a number of special considerations you’ll need to make when prepping shipments. For example, items that are sensitive to warm temperatures often need to be placed in special shipping containers and/or receive protection from cold packs. Secondly, a shipment that’s extremely fragile should be outfitted with a dependable impact recorder. This will provide you, your clients and shipping partners with an accurate rundown of the various impacts a shipment endures throughout its journey. These handy tools can be particularly useful for cargo that’s sensitive to shocks and jostling.
If you don’t have the trust of your clients, you don’t have much. Clients who regularly place their faith in your efforts are an essential component of any small business. Unfortunately, certain enterprises seemingly missed the memo, as evidenced by their propensity for dashing clients’ hopes. Shipping-focused small businesses looking for effective ways to build client trust will be well-served by the measures discussed above.
