Turning Honesty into Customer Confidence

Just like marriage, there are no small details in business. There are, of course, suspicions. As such, I had suspected for quite some time that the Electromagnetic locks that we've been supplied with were well under the claimed holding force in their invoices. The problem was, I have no measuring instrument to prove that the ‘white paper’ is wrong. This requires a special instrument, called precision magnetometer, to pull the two electromagnetic slabs apart when the electricity is turned on. The exact reading that it takes the moment the two slabs are separated indicates the holding force for the EM lock. 

To eradicate my doubt, I sent a few samples to a lab to carry out the test. The finding? Averagely down 30-40% from its specifications. 

Once I had the confirmation from the lab, I immediately ordered the amendment of the specifications to the exact amount on all affected marketing materials, and started to look for suppliers that valued quality and honesty.

His reply:

You are too particular. It is just a peripheral in an access control system. I’ve been in this business for 15 years; I assure you that no customers will make any complaints as long as your price is right. And nobody actually cares about the discrepancy of the holding force of an EM Lock as long as it’s beyond the force-open power of any human being under any normal circumstances. What’s the issue?

My reply:

Yes, your statement is most probably right. But, when our products sometimes go along with the accessories traveling around the globe; who knows what circumstances we might encounter? That’s the issue.

At the end, I paid a higher price and swallowed the extra cost, steadfastly insisting to uphold honesty as one of FingerTec’s (and my) business policies. Yes, it will reduce my profit in the beginning, but I believe this is the virtue that guarantees us long-term trust from customers.

 

When my wife couldn't get her cosmetic lotion, La Roche–Posay Anthelios 50 Mineral Ultra Light Sunscreen SPF 50 in local markets last month, she dared not buy it from any less prominent online store. She went straight to amazon.com, placed and paid her order online, and waited for the delivery. You know you can trust Amazon, and if anything goes wrong you can still get your refund.

As online commercials are getting more popular nowadays, we don't physically see many of our partners. In fact, we normally only trade with and support them online, which explains the problem of end-users whose names we might not even know if they don’t register their FingerTec products online. Without physical interactions, customer confidence level is becoming the essence of any successful e-commerce operation. Honesty, then, is the very basic element for vendors to earn customers’ trust, and later to translate it into customer confidence.