Have you ever asked yourself: do my visitors trust my business? If not you should start asking as soon as possible, because winning visitors trust is the first goal of your company marketing.
All transactions, either online or offline, are based on the trust between the two parties. Without having trust in the other side, you can’t close the deal.
You online presence need to express who you say you are, both in the form of content and information, as well as aesthetically. For example if you target women with above average revenues, invest in a good design. If you sell eco products, forget about sharing semi-prepared pasta recipes.
The trust you show to your online visitors, is translated into the digital environment through several elements, outlined below:
Trust elements for online shops and other online businesses
Transparency
One of the most common reasons why people abandon carts and purchases is lack of information about shipping, product guarantee or return policy.
That’s why is recommended to have this information very clear on your website.
- Shipping Information. It’s better to tell your customer that the order might get to him in 2 weeks, than to promise 3 days which you can’t be sure about. That client won’t buy from you again for sure and also it’s possible to cancel the order.
- Guarantee. What happens if the order product breaks (especially IT products)? What needs to be done?
- Return Policy. How many days is the return accepted, and under what conditions.
Also transparency means to reply to their questions or complains where they share those: social media channels. Try to answer their questions and complains on various groups, pages or public profiles you have access to.
One unhappy client can do you more harm than you think. Because he get in touch with lots of other people and they will make a bad opinion about your business, without evening having a chance to make a good impression!
Bad reviews also help increase trust and transparency. We all know that you can’t make it perfect for all your clients, so it’s better to show how you tried to solve the problem without trying to hide things.
Consistency
Maybe consistency should be first thing on this list. You need to be consistent in all your communication, within all channels you use to talk with your customers. If you promise 30% off in you ad, than you must give exactly 30% and not less, because you have a real problem of trust otherwise.
Or, as another example, if you say free shipping is for any order over $100, than you need to give free shipping without conditions like specific categories or product under a certain weight, somewhere hidden at the bottom of the page.
Lack of consistency in communication is why people leave the site. Because thinking that you first said something and afterwards you changed your mind, will make them feel that the same will happen with their order.
Originality
One of Murphy’s laws say:
Originality is the art of concealing your source
We know that original ideas, that have never been used before is hard to find. But even if it’s something already done by another individual or business, your implementation can be unique.
Being original you can have different aesthetics, communication style, customer support or event product packaging!
Customer support communication (anything like email, phone, chat) needs to represent your business. Be respectful and make sure to do everything possible to solve their problems.
Personalization
In B2B, personalization means to do your homework and find as much information about your prospect as possible. That way you show more interest in the person or company, not only in the potential deal you’re looking to close.
In retail, selling to multiple customers makes things harder. It’s impossible to know every client very well, because they are very different. Here’s a more detailed presentation on retail personalization.
That’s why a personalization system is needed. Start simple with some messages that reflect demographic data like location, gender or age and build an advanced personalization system using product recommendations, emails or notifications that are triggered automatically based on user behaviour. A solution like MARA will definitely help you.
Security
Showing your clients security elements you decrease the bounce rate and the risk of looking like a scam business. Using them you simply increase the trust that they will receive exactly what they are paying for.
From a long list of security elements to increase trust on your website:
- Contact information, like phone, email or physical address. Might look useless, but at least you know there is somebody there to answer your questions.
- Business Team, who are the real people behind the online shop?
- Trust Seals, like trusted.ro, trustpilot.com or many others
- Payments logos. Showing those logos you increase trust from the trust that already exists about their services.
- Reviews and testimonials from existing clients.
What other trust elements are you using? We hope this is enough for you to start increasing visitors trust, so you can grow your sales and conversion rate.