Peter Merholz has a great article on Harvard Business review about “What Trust Brings to Amazon, Zappos, and USAA.” His key point: Trust your customers, do something bold that reflects your organization’s values, and your competitors will never catch up.

He offers three examples.

The first is Amazon, which offered honest customer reviews about every product on its site right from the start. Remember, online retail was still a new concept and people were reluctant to buy something they hadn’t paged through or tried on or tested. Amazon trusted its customers to provide honest feedback and they did. And Amazon redefined the retail experience.

The second example is Zappos, which offered free shipping both ways on any shoe purchase with one-year no-questions-asked returns. It knew people would hesitate to buy shoes they couldn’t try on and they trusted their customers not to buy shoes, wear them for 364 days, and return them. And they were right.

The third example is USAA, which I’ve written about on Baldrige.com before. USAA allows its customers to take a picture of their paycheck and “deposit” it by email. Most financial institutions follow policies and procedures that demonstrate disdain for their customers. USAA trusts its customers, and that allows it to offer services no competitors can match.

Very few organizations can act like Amazon, Zappos, and USAA even if they want to. First, you have to know what your value proposition is. Are you selling low prices, high quality, speedy delivery, or top-notch service, or some combination of these? Because your bold move needs to align with and support your value proposition.

Second, you need a profound understanding of what your customers want. Look at each example above. These companies made bold moves because they knew what mattered to, and what motivated, their customers.

Third, you need to trust your customers to do the right thing. Not all of them will, and you have to plan for that, but the vast majority will behave like responsible adults.

And they will reward you for treating them as such.

To read more about serving customer needs, click on these articles:

• Recommendability Boosts Revenues
• Walk in Your Customer’s Body Armor
• Leaders in Customer Service
• Bottom-Line Value of Customer Engagement
• 10 Critical Questions: Your Customers
• 9 Ways to Get Closer to Customers

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