As I often repeat, business is run between people–not companies. People are by nature a trusting tribe, including your customers who also happen to be people. In today’s services market, buyers are spoilt for choice: ever-shrinking vendors’ fees, large pool of suppliers, and easy access to services. This quite resembles a consumer business today. How do you make a mark in this?

Have you explored ways to build trust with your customers? Easier said than done. But here are some points to think through.

1. Embrace transparency: from real capabilities (when you are pitching services) to pricing the deal to all the way during executing a project, being transparent is quite possible. All it takes is a few minutes of your time to provide a voluntary update, tell your sales heads to learn to say no, and show your customer how you priced her engagement. This way, you don’t build very high expectations, but can easily surpass what you set, and need not remember what you said last week.

2. Know your customer: at the end of it, the person on the other side of the wall is also human–with needs, pressures, and living through business cycles. Getting to know her, her peers, work groups, and company is quite an achievable task. It will give you a better insight on her decision-making process, and align your services to her future needs.

3. Stand up for a cause: It may seem disconnected to your line of business, but your business is part of a larger society that does not always work only for monetary reasons. A staffing company adopting a stricter visa compliance program might seem counter-intuitive. When people need to work with a company that is strict but transparent, who will they choose? When clients want to work with a vendor who is transparent and compliant, who will they choose? Work with the forces that influence your business in society: your local business council, technology groups, and so on.

I welcome your thoughts on how your business has built transparency.