Article Contributed by Louise Fletcher
Customer confidence in your brand is an incredibly important factor in determining your selling power online. Gaining a customer’s trust is the difference between having a healthy conversion rate and poor purchase performance. Without being able to physically see the product they are buying, customers must believe in your brand before parting with cash.
As the “shop front” of your business, the first step to making the right impression falls to your website and how it looks and performs. The overall user appeal of the site is the window dressing which entices customers in and is what impressions are formed on.
Poor design, usability and a surplus of broken links or 404 pages will all put potential customers off. If effort isn’t made to keep the website running smoothly a customer will automatically assume that this attitude may be taken in other areas of the business.
The content within the site is also a highly persuasive factor, comprehensive descriptions and images of products help customers build a picture of an item. However, if pictures are worth a thousand words then videos are the equivalent of a novel. Research into the inclusion of product videos have shown that businesses which include this medium alongside the standard image and written description have seen an increase in conversion rates.
Content can also be used to give a “human element” to the online shopping experience. Within a physical store, customer service from staff provides a feel for the type of brand you are, good customer service and personable staff build trust and loyalty. Online this is harder to achieve but it is still important to create a personal feel to the digital frontage.
About Us pages offer a great platform to tell customers a little bit about yourself and the company and go a little way towards building up a dialogue.
However, harnessing the power of social media and curating an active blog on top of this, is the best way to give a customers a feel for who you are and what you do. It’s a less formal setting which allows for more character to shine through.
Once you have built up this rapport, it’s important to let customers know that this is a relationship which can be taken further; at the click of a button or at the end of a phone line, you’re there to answer any question or query. Including contact details on every page or on a clearly signposted page gives confidence that, if needed, someone is easy to reach.
Opening up this customer conversation to a wider audience creates safety in numbers and embraces the idea that it can be positive to build up a community network around your brand. Your product or service might be the best thing since sliced bread but you shouldn’t expect customers to just take your word for it. Trust in the quality of your product can be achieved through clearly displaying independent customer reviews and opinions as well as displaying independent quality assurance logos.
These confidence building techniques are the foundation blocks on which to build up from with the ever expanding options available to an internet entrepreneur. Whichever mechanisms you decide to implement, it’s important to understand that an arrogance around the need to back up your product could be the difference between being seen as a trustworthy brand or overnight flash in the pan in the eyes of an internet shopper.