In today’s market, the more a client knows about you, the more confident they feel doing business with you. That’s why there’s been a surge in popularity around the idea of transparency — the open sharing of business information that wouldn’t traditionally be public knowledge.
According to a study by Accenture, 66% of buyers choose a brand specifically because the company is transparent — a more popular answer than the brand’s values or political stance. Transparency shows audiences that a business cares about them and their experiences. This builds the kind of trust that leads to strong relationships.
Like all paradigm-shifting changes, becoming transparent is a process. These tips on how to build business transparency will help you get started.
Your people are your direct connections to your client base. They’re more likely to field everyday client questions like “How’s the project going?” or “Are you guys busy right now?”
These questions may seem innocuous, but they’re how a client gauges whether they can count on you to deliver results.
Internal transparency helps to earn your team’s trust which statistics show is the key to higher productivity, more engagement, and better energy at work. Engaged and energized employees project more confidence and build stronger relationships with clients.
The more information you share with team members, both at the project and organizational level, the more transparency you build with them. Some concrete ways to increase your transparency with your team include:
We live in an age of self-service. Today’s clients are used to having information about their personal accounts at their fingertips, and they carry that expectation into their relationships with professional service providers.
This is one of the biggest advantages of using project management tools. Top-notch solutions offer intuitive client portals that let clients find out what’s going on with their projects anytime, anywhere.
A portal should make it easy for clients to find all relevant information about their accounts and projects including the progress of open projects and important account documents like contracts and project plans.
Clients should also be able to use their portal to:
When these options are part of the interactive portal, clients can see what happens next and what the team does with their requests or approvals. Everything becomes more visible to the client, who then sees you as being more transparent about your business practices.
Disclosing your pricing system is one of the most effective ways of building business transparency, especially with new clients.
Many professional services businesses try to avoid disclosing their pricing, often because “it depends.” Custom pricing can make the process more difficult, but it's worth thinking about what you are able to share.
First, make sure that you have a pricing page on your website. If there isn’t one, shoppers might assume that you have something to hide.
On your website and in conversations with clients, explain your pricing model clearly and without depending on industry jargon. If you set individual prices for each client, disclose everything you can about what the considerations are.
Finally, integrate pricing and budgeting into your client portal and recordkeeping. Clients always appreciate knowing what goes into the cost of service, right down to the details.
If you really want to build pricing transparency for your business, talk about how your pricing compares to others in your industry.
If your prices are on the high end, explain why. Tell clients and shoppers what you offer that your competitors don’t. List what is included in the price of your services, breaking it down by pricing level if applicable.
Building a strong business community means keeping everyone in the loop. By adopting a policy of transparency, you can earn your audiences’ trust and help them feel comfortable doing business with you.
All transparency starts from the inside with a team that’s connected to each other, the company, and clients. That means having an intuitive central platform where information is readily available on-demand.
That’s where Accelo comes in. Our platform makes it easy for team members and clients to stay up to date with the information they need. Sign up for a free trial today and find out just how intuitive it is to use — and the difference that transparency can make for your company’s relationships.
