A Wren Says

In Radical Candor, Kim Scott writes:

 “When you treat people like cogs in a machine, you’ll get no more than you demand, and you create an incentive to break the machine.” Page 117 in Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Taken from the chapter on relationships, Scott is driving home the point that trust building is key to developing productivity in the workspace. Creating targets that treat people as means to the business’s ends can lead them to find loopholes in the system to beat it and get what they want. If the system is built without compassions, employees feel it and will do what they see as best to protect themselves. On the flipside, if care is clear, everything changes. You could say the same for customers.

You can easily get annoyed with all of the negative experiences you might have with customers. The attitudes, the abuse, even the outright theft. Yes, it all feels like a personal attack sometimes. However, if I were to reframe, it comes down to relationships. Those customers don’t trust you will help them get what they need. Some don’t trust the greater economy or political system either, so they do what they do to protect their own interests. The question then is how do you build trust in a 30 second encounter? How can you build a relationship before they ever fully encounter you? How do you convince them they are not just a dollar sign or a bit of profit/loss?

I am certain there is some psychology study on this layer of customer behavior. What do you know about this topic? How can you help other business owners and retailers build trust with their customers?