Guest post by Marcel Oudejaans.

Getting your customers to “know, like and trust” you is vital in order to start a relationship with your customer (I’ve discussed this before in The Value of Trust). When prospective clients trust you enough to consider doing business with you, they have an expectation that you are able to deliver on your promises. No one wants to go into a relationship expecting to be disappointed: no matter how cynical a customer may be. If they indicate that they are interested in finding out more about your product or service, they really are hoping that you’ll be able to provide a suitable solution.

Occasionally, due to unforeseen problems, you may not be able to keep your promises immediately. While this may be off-putting to your new customer, if you are able to respond to the problem quickly and make a sincere effort to maintain your commitment, many customers may still respond positively. However, if you are attracting new customers under false pretences, it is only a matter of time before your disappointed (and sometimes angry) prospects will tell their family, friends and colleagues about their bad experience.

The method of attracting prospective customers by making an empty offer, while actually having the intention to sell a different product, is called the “bait and switch”. Not only is the “bait and switch” illegal, but it is also a particularly dangerous tactic to use because you’ll not only lose your prospect’s trust, but also the trust of everyone they talk to.

Currently, South African blogger Donn Edwards is being sued for libel because he wrote a blog post about his experience with a company that he felt had made him empty promises. While he is within his rights to express his dissatisfaction, the company maintains that he has damaged their reputation – despite many other people also questioning the company’s integrity in matters not even directly related to Donn’s post. Whether or not Donn wins the case, it is important to note that the company’s heavy-handed reaction to his blog post has galvanised a group of people to share their negative reactions about the offending company’s marketing tactics. This negativity is unlikely to go away soon and even if the company’s representatives had intended to deliver on their promises, the fact that their integrity has come into question has caused damage – possibly even irreversible – to the company’s reputation.

As Abraham Lincoln famously said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

(Read about how Donn Edwards vs QVC is being used as a case study about the power of Online Reputation Management here)

Marcel Oudejans is a Corporate Infotainer who is passionate about inspiring his audiences to deliver more “magic moments” to their customers in their customer service, sales & marketing. Marcel is the author of “The Serious Business Owner’s Guide To Creating Customers For Life” & provides more tricks, techniques & strategies on his blog, http://www.performmarketing.co.za