ON BUSINESS || Want to Thrive in an AI World? Here's One Trait that Always Stands Out
I want to go back to the basics.
While the entire world is panicking over the rapid progress in AI technology, it seems we’ve forgotten that regardless of how fast AI progresses, it can’t replace traits that lead to long-term customer relationships.
AI technology and platforms can, and will, be replaced by the next forerunner that proves to be cheaper and faster. However, people using technology still need to deal with the humans who are selling the technology. What do you look for when buying services or products from another party?
You want to have a reliable experience. You want the product or service to work. But you say, “I can recreate a 99.99% uptime with my servers and AI bots. Isn’t that already reliable enough?” Sorry, but who develops, builds, and maintains the updates on the product/service and works to guarantee 99.99% uptime? I’m going to guess that in the near future, it’s still going to be humans.
Reliability is your greatest strength as a business owner. Given the same proposed benefits and performance from competing offerings, a client will want to deal with the reliable one—the one that doesn’t forget they exist once they ink the deal, the one that still picks up their phone when the product malfunctions, and the one that continues to improve consistently to stay ahead of the game. Let me expand on that. I recently purchased a service for my new office. Everything was great until the item was set up in our office. Afterwards, we couldn’t reach the business for aftersales service when the automatic payments weren’t set up, and even when we wanted to add devices to our plan. Do you think we would recommend them or want to hire them again?
The bottom line to referrals and recurring business is whether a customer can count on you. If you can’t say that your customer can count on you 100% of the time, this is what they say when you’re not in the room:
“The team’s great, but I remember this other time when they dropped the ball...”
“I really love the product, but I just wish it wasn’t so hit and miss with their updates...”
“All of the features and functions are what we’re looking for, but I’ve had customer complaints about how some features are buggy and won’t work.”
Or, if you’re an employee on a team, this is what your management thinks of you:
“They’re awesome and have the best ideas, but half the time, they don’t follow through on them, so the overall performance is quite lacking.”
“I really love their energy, but when they can’t meet a deadline, there’s always an excuse about how other things came up.”
“They did an awesome job on project A, but things went sideways on project B.”
“The results are great when they prioritize the project, but I just can’t trust them to get the job done.
From the customer’s perspective, would they continue to retain the same company if their internal comments and feedback were like that? How about if it were the employee? If management can’t count on you, you probably aren’t first on their list for opportunities and promotions.
The above examples demonstrate why reliability is key to unlocking career opportunities. It’s a timeless trait. Even as AI continues to evolve and new technologies emerge, those who are reliable in their dealings will continue to thrive, no matter what the economic landscape looks like.
