Nowadays, a great number of companies are struggling to build their reputation as respectable and trustworthy businesses. A business that can demonstrate that it’s credible and reliable will have an easier time making people their regular, loyal customers. 

This can be hugely important, as repeat customers tend to spend much more than the first-timers. For instance, as much as 40% of the revenue of an average U.S. online store comes from only 8% of their most loyal customers. They spend more, convert more easily and they’re more willing to spread the word about your brand.

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This may come as a disappointment, but the truth is there aren’t any easy tricks or hacks that can help you with making customers trust you. Your whole business has to be customer-centered and devoted to consistently providing the best possible product or service.

However, there are several key points you need to keep in mind when dealing with the matter of customer trust. Here are some vital issues that you should pay special attention to. 

Make your product reliable

First things first, putting effort into creating a genuinely useful and reliable product (or service) is where it all starts. 

Obviously, there’s no recipe for this. Whether you successfully do this part of the job depends on your (or your team’s) knowledge, expertise, talent, and entrepreneurial skills.

What you can do is commit to a strict and meticulous testing process that will make sure no tiny technical issues can damage the success of your product line. Also, be realistic when it comes to release dates of your products and updates. You don’t want to be rushed into mistakes and oversights by a promise you can’t keep.

You could also try out focus groups. They can help you detect all kinds of errors and will provide you with honest feedback when you need it most. Moreover, when carefully picked, focus groups can offer a new glimpse into your target group and uncover things that wouldn’t have otherwise occurred to you. 

First-class customer service

Showing true care for your customers is one of the most important factors for making them loyal to your brand. Offering them constant, ongoing support shows that you’re not through with them as soon as you get their money. People are normally more inclined to support companies that are interested in more than sheer profit.

Creating tutorials and education programs may also be a good move in this respect. These can be employed in order to answer the users’ most frequent questions and walk them through the basics. 

Source:lab.getapp.com

However, adding actual human customer service reps to deal with the customers is a must. If you can afford it, of course. People still tend to believe other humans more than software or machines and they feel more comfortable in old-fashioned human interactions.

Appropriate software can also help your team be more efficient in solving customers’ problems. A reliable CRM software or a ticketing system will aid staff to communicate better amongst themselves, as well as automatically prioritize customers based on their service-level agreements. It will also give them easy access to the conversation history with each client, providing them with crucial info about clients’ previous issues and the way they were solved. 

Embrace transparency

Transparency represents the base of any trusting relationship. No exceptions. If your company exercises dodgy transparency policies or keeps trying to avoid responsibility, it’s highly unlikely that your customers will consider it credible.

This works on many levels. First of all, it’s about the way you deal with people’s criticism and dissatisfaction. It’s easier than ever to leave a negative comment on your social media or your website about your brand or product that will reach you as well as your customers and prospects. 

While these are obviously not too good for business, you can still use them to your advantage. Don’t just sweep bad feedback under the rug and delete it, but try actually dealing with it and try to solve people’s problems. 

Source:BrightLocal

Ask why they’re unhappy with your brand and what can you do to help. If you succeed in resolving the issue this is something that will be recorded on social media or your website and it’s the best possible ad you can have for your business. It’ll show not just that you care about your customers, but that you also believe in your product.

Furthermore, you should provide detailed product information and avoid any hidden costs that can be seen as deceitful. Be absolutely open about what exactly you offer at which price, since people will find that out very soon anyway. And they won’t hesitate to give bad reviews and ratings which can effectively ruin your business. Remember, 93 percent of consumers claim that online reviews affect their purchase decisions. So don’t play with consumers’ trust as it can end very badly for you.

Finally, transparency also means that you’re accessible and easy to find. Being mysterious about your business won’t be particularly useful for boosting your public image – nobody hides the good things from people and people know that. Instead, keep everything in the open and try encouraging people to leave their opinions and feedback. It will not just help you look considerate and open to suggestions, but it can also give you some good ideas about which areas of your business or your product you should improve.

Be consistent

When it comes to customer trust, the consistency of your brand is important on two levels. Firstly, it means a consistent experience for your customers across all different channels. That means that wherever they look – whether it’s your social networks, your website, TV ads or banners – you need to deliver looks, design, and voice that will be coherent and easily associable to your business. Consistent brand presentation can increase your revenue by up to 23 percent.

Secondly, you need to be consistent in terms of your message, mission, and values. It may not seem like that at first glance, but consumers care very much about these things. Namely, 89% of them stay loyal to brands that share their values. 

That being said, changing sides when it comes to your core beliefs and the message you’re sending out may not be the best idea if you want loyal, trusting customers. A company that’s ready to easily betray its values won’t be hesitating to betray its customers, too, and they know it very well.

Create relevant content

Naturally, people tend to believe in experts. They trust those who are knowledgeable and competent in what they do. If you or members of your team consider yourselves experts, there’s a very handy way to show it and earn a few trust points in your customers’ minds.

Source:OrbitMedia

It’s a company blog. Or for that matter, production of any sort of industry-related, relevant and interesting content. Use your website and social media to publish this content and try to keep the promotional aspect of it at the minimum. You should focus on making this content valuable for the reader and in the long run, this will do more for your business than if you apply an aggressive, salesy approach.

Try showing your audience how to solve common problems with your or related products and try to create posts that will answer questions they often ask. The whole point is to attract people that are interested in your branch because this is where you’ll find your future customers. And once they see that your business is run by experts ready to share their knowledge, they’ll be much more inclined to trust your product and your brand. 

Take care of data safety

With news stories about security breaches and data thefts becoming all too common, consumers are getting more and more suspicious about their online safety. Now, this may not be important if you own a brick and mortar shop with no online activity, but in this case, you might be missing out on some great business opportunities. 

The Ecommerce industry is rapidly growing and is expected to bring in 6.5 trillion dollars in revenue on a global level in 2023, which is 5 times more than in 2014. But this will bring more breaches, more problems, and online safety will become an issue of utmost importance for these businesses. 

This means that you have to offer secure payment options and guarantee that customers’ data will be properly protected. Even the slightest suspicion about the trustworthiness of your website and your e-store may destroy your business. Most people are not tech-savvy, they don’t really understand the technical framework that enables online payment and they won’t be willing to take any chances whatsoever.

Among things that can suggest users that your website is secure is the introduction of HTTPS protocol and displaying trust seals and badges. Also, don’t forget that 60% of all cyber-attacks are inside jobs, so be very careful about who you’re giving credentials for sensitive parts of your network. Finally, make sure that all your technology is up to date, at all times.

Final thoughts

In essence, all the pieces of advice listed above come down to two points – be open with your customers and take genuine care of them. You can be sure that they’ll recognize it and reward you with their trust and loyalty. 

Some cheap tricks and hacks may work for a while, but they’re not a solid long-term solution. This basically means no fake promises, no hidden clauses, no clickbait nor any other dodgy customer acquisition tactics. For people to believe you’re credible, you’ll have to be actually credible. It’s as easy as that. 

I started off my career in digital marketing working for a few local marketing companies. After a year or two of learning different aspects of the job, I moved on and worked for DesignRush as a content advisor. Right now I’m working for ReallySimpleSystems as an assistant editor and marketing consultant. Other than that I enjoy good coffee and Otis Redding.  

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