{"id":673,"date":"2025-04-21T14:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T19:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/?p=673"},"modified":"2025-04-28T05:18:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T10:18:21","slug":"building-client-trust-after-a-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/blog\/building-client-trust-after-a-mistake\/","title":{"rendered":"Building Client Trust After a Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">I want to talk about something none of us likes to admit:<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000\">We messed up recently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">And as boo-boos go, it was a big one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">We were installing a routine bit of software for a client and accidentally threw a switch that locked all their users out of their email.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Gulp.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">It also locked us out, cutting us off from our normal route for fixing things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Oh, man.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #666699\"><strong>Recovering after a major mistake<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">We resolved it by throwing all our available people at the problem and bringing our Microsoft contacts in to help. But it took a while. It was uncomfortable for our clients and extremely embarrassing for us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">As an interim measure, we used digital duct tape and virtual fairy dust to create a workaround that made things look normal to their customers. But it was a bandage, not a cure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">After 48 hours, the situation was rectified, and the client was made whole. We took steps to communicate that we valued their business \u2013 and showed that we really meant it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #666699\"><strong>Building (or rebuilding) client trust<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The reason our apologies and reassurances were credible is that we were <em>painfully transparent throughout the whole mess.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Here\u2019s the thing:<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #000000\">We confessed our mistake early. We showed our embarrassment. We made it obvious that we were in this with them. And we kept the client continuously updated about the state of our repairs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Early on, when we realized the problem couldn&#8217;t be solved in an hour, our blood pressure began to rise. So, you can imagine the tension in our shoulders after 48 hours. Even so, we stuck with it until everything was resolved and put the client\u2019s pain ahead of ours.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">It goes without saying that we don\u2019t ever want to make that mistake again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>So why am I sharing this embarrassing story publicly?<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #000000\">Because the lesson is valuable to every small business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The reason the client is still with us is simple:<\/span> <strong>total transparency<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">We didn\u2019t hide or sugarcoat the mistake.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">We didn\u2019t dodge their calls.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">We didn\u2019t get involved in some corporate version of &#8220;ghosting.&#8221;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">And I\u2019m proud of our team for digging in to make things right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #666699\"><strong>And then this happened&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">The value of transparency and rebuilding client trust came home for me a week later. That&#8217;s when one of our vendors made a mistake that hurt <em>us, <\/em>knocking us sideways for three days. The details aren\u2019t important now (the situation is resolved), but the vendor handled it differently:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">They didn\u2019t communicate while the problem was happening.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">They never apologized for the chaos they caused.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">They offered no gesture that our business mattered to them.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">Being on the receiving end of such an event made me even more convinced of two things:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Client trust matters when challenges arise.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Therefore, transparency and immediate action are the best remedies when you make a mistake. (And let\u2019s be honest: eventually, we all mess up.)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000\">I believe that when your company makes a mistake \u2014 especially one that hurts your clients \u2014 your response defines you. So, if you own a small business, I\u2019d encourage you to take this to heart:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>&#8211; Own the mistake fast<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>&#8211; Be embarrassingly transparent<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>&#8211; Work relentlessly to fix it<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><strong>&#8211; Offer a sincere apology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Clients don\u2019t expect perfection.<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #000000\">But they do expect honesty, effort, and respect. If you can deliver that \u2014 even when things hit the fan \u2014 you\u2019ll build deeper trust than you ever could through smooth sailing alone.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Pictured: Dylan and Dan work to resolve the issue.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I want to talk about something none of us likes to admit:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1039,"featured_media":674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-services-for-the-greater-philadelphia-area"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1039"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/philadelphia-pa-1200\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}