Relationships are built on TRUST. Trust is built on TRUTH.

Kay and I have been going through a frustrating period with a supplier recently. We really like the service they provide and have high hopes for our future with them, which is why I'm not mentioning their name in this post. (Of course, if things DON'T get fixed, that will change.)

This supplier made a change in their online ordering system and switched to a fancy-dan, all-the-bells-and-whistles upgrade. Despite what appeared to be a lengthy testing period before the rollout, the new system hasn't worked as advertised. In fact, it's caused some pretty big problems.

Kay and I both know that if our supplier can get the bugs fixed, this will be an outstanding product, and we really like the people behind it, too.

However, the company has made some very unnecessary mistakes in the process. The biggest? They haven't told the truth.

In one example, I'd ordered a product in early January to be shipped to one of my clients. I received confirmation that my order was filled, when in fact, it wasn't. The glitch was discovered late January by the company and they emailed me with the news. They also said that to help rectify the situation, they'd sent a gift to my client as an apology. This message was dated Jan 29.

Kay called a week later to confirm the gift was sent on Jan 29 only to be told, "Actually, it went out either Feb 2 or 3.

Kay called this past Monday, Feb 9, and was told, "Sorry, it really went out on Feb 5 or 6."

At this point, we're starting to lose patience. More important, though, is we're rapidly losing TRUST.

Trust is the basis of all relationships. If I trust you, then I trust you even when things aren't great. I trust you because you tell me when things aren't going great, even if I haven't figured it out yet. I trust you because you do what you say you're going to do. I trust you because you do it when you say you're going to do it. I trust you to do it right the first time, and if you don't, I trust you to fix it. Like I said in my Feb 3 post,

"With trust, they know they can depend on you to do the right thing, in good times and bad. How do you build Trust? By being trustworthy."

How can you be trustworthy? A really good place to start is by telling the truth.

Comments

[Diane Smith]

Hi,
Relationships and trust is so important!
Without trust their is no relationship.
Very timely article in todays econimics.