Keep Confidential Information Confidential
It has been said that “if more than one person knows something, then it is no longer confidential!” What this implies is that the person who hears the confidential information will inevitably tell someone else, who will in turn tell someone else, and so on. Everyone seems to have at least someone else they trust enough to tell even the most confidential information. This process will be repeated until the confidential information becomes common knowledge and is no secret anymore. Sometimes it seems that the more confidential the information, the more tempting it is for someone to tell it to someone else. Perhaps the most likely way to ensure that information will be quickly spread throughout the organization is to say that it is highly confidential!
However, in the course of doing business with your customer, you may often become aware of highly confidential information. Perhaps you may become aware of things that not even the customer’s own employees don’t know. You need to honor even the strictest of confidentiality requirements requested from the customer. There may also be legal implications to this confidentiality requirement, and you may be required to sign an agreement stating that you will not divulge any information you learn about the customer to anyone else, particularly their competitors. This can be particularly important in those situations when you may also do business with the customer’s competitors.
How can you assure your customer that you will honor any confidential information that they may entrust in you?
How can your customers’ confidence and trust in you to keep information confidential help strengthen your business relationship?