A Successful Trust Exercise

Want to know the secret ingredient for the perfect client? 

We’ve talked about it before, and now we have some anecdotal evidence for you.


Story time!
A few months ago, one of our long-time clients received a series of emails from another marketing agency trying to get his business. In the emails, they pointed out some specific aspects of one of our client’s ad sets (like text layouts and UTM parameters) and claimed the approach was not effective. After receiving a number of emails from that agency, our client sent us this message:

“This guy keeps emailing me to get my business. I trust Fidelis but figured I’d send this along to you guys to see if there’s any value to his suggestions. I’ve told him I’m happy with my current set up but then he sends this-“

Attached was one of the agency’s emails saying our client’s marketing wasn’t aligned with marketing best practices.

Our client could have been rocked by these comments. Had they not believed in our approach and trusted our methods, this very well could have woven a thread of doubt into our relationship. Do they really have my best in mind? Is this actually working? But instead, our client came to us with confidence and presented us with an opportunity to build trust even further.

We didn’t get defensive, we didn’t brush it off- instead, our marketing team took the time to go through each of the critiques and formulate an explanation for why those details of the campaign were purposeful, customized, and effective. It was the perfect opportunity to leave our client more cared for and informed than when they started. To seal the deal, we closed our response with this:

“The best practices are whatever strategies bring the best results for your business. [That agency] talked about some good rules of thumb for marketing. But your marketing program is past using good rules of thumb – we follow basic marketing rules and the data we have gathered each month of working together.” 

We could have said, “just ignore them.” We could have said, “we have our reasons.” But those responses don’t build trust. Being defensive doesn’t either. It was worth the extra effort to affirm our client and remind them that our approaches are custom-built to meet their needs. Transparency is a value we cling to around the shop, and we would argue that you can’t cultivate trust without it.

When your clients trust you, they will 1) believe in your work, and 2) feel safe coming to you with questions. Our client was able to both enter and leave that conversation with peace of mind because of the credibility and trust we have fought for throughout our relationship with them. Here is an actual email from that same trusting, satisfied Fidelis client at the end of the exchange:

Never stop fighting for your clients’ trust. It will save you!

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