What is Trust?
Online trust is similar to a contract between a retailer and a customer. Trust is an expectation that grows as customers interact with your brand. Those interactions span a range of touch points including print and broadcast advertisements, catalogs, promotional mailings, employee contact, as well as your retail and online stores. Each one is equally important; each can make or break the trust your customers and online visitors have or expect in your company.
Trust is in fact what drives all commercial transactions between a retailer and customer. When you make a purchase in a retail store, you take it on trust the products are fit for their intended purpose. You trust that if it does not work, or if you change your mind about the purchase, the retailer will accept the returned product. You trust that when your credit card is handed to a sales associate, the proper amount of money is securely transferred. These are basic trust expectations customers have with retail establishments and with online websites as well. And if that trust is broken, the relationship is void and very difficult to rebuild.
There are many components which contribute to how the customer experiences your brand, and the level of trust people have in your ability to deliver on your 'brand promise'. To build and maintain trust online, websites, both Ecommerce and not, must include 'trust elements' to cultivate a positive relationship between a company and its potential and existing customers.
Online Trust Elements
Accurate product information is critical to helping consumers make informed purchasing decisions. When a purchase is made based upon inaccurate information, what happens to that customer's willingness to trust you in the future? When the inaccuracy becomes apparent to the customer, what is the cost to correct it? At best, the product is returned and exchanged for one that fits the needs of a customer that is now frustrated and distrustful of your information. At worst, the product is returned and you've lost a customer forever. Product information must be concise, relevant, well-written and persuasive.
User-friendliness, aka Usability
People expect retail sales clerks to be friendly and knowledgeable, and the purchasing process to be painless and efficient. Customers bring those expectations of a pleasant shopping experience with them when visiting a website. If online user-friendliness standards fall below customer expectations, your website will lose sales due to higher-than-average website abandonment. Three major issues users have with websites is poor navigation, ineffective search functions and low quality product photographs. Fixing just these issues alone will greatly increase conversion ratios.
It's All About You
Online shoppers want to know who they are dealing with. Websites must try and create a connection between the visitor and company similar to the empathy developed between a customer and the sales clerk during an in-store visit. Here's a list of trust elements needed in the About Us section to replicate in-store experiences online:
• Photographs of the store owner or manager, staff and brick and mortar operations
• Company history
• Management biographies
• Community involvement
• Corporate Partners and Suppliers
• Press Releases
• Professional Affiliations
It's All About Them
Users must understand how a company conducts business before they will commit to a purchase. Websites must parallel an in-person experience within the online environment by visibility and functionally demonstrating an understanding of users' expectations. Your online customers want to know:
• What are the return and refund policies?
• What guarantees, warranties and promises of satisfaction are connected to each purchase?
• Is the website safe and secure for online transactions?
• Is there a toll-free phone number and email address?
• Can she speak with a real person?
• How fast will service or product problems be addressed and solved?
• Any professional accreditations like BBB and Verisign?
• What methods of payment are available?
• How are products shipped for delivery?
Keeping the Brand Promise
Branding is as important to establishing online trust as fulfillment capabilities, customer care, or search functionality. All website elements must adhere to and reinforce corporate branding guidelines for style, tone and manner. Inconsistencies are magnified online and differences, perceived or real, will give reason for distrust and lower conversion rates.
Know Yourself and Your Customers
To build online trust and customer loyalty, understand how your website is gaining, keeping and losing customers. Understand how your customers interact with your website by implementing a web usability audit. Understand why certain people buy from you, while others don't. Intimate knowledge of who your customers are will allow you to build a website to satisfy the needs and expectations of those customers. Happy customers, as we all know, quickly become loyal, repeat customers.
Find out more on web usability and Internet marketing at VKI Studios.com
Find Part 2 on our website.
VKI Studios is an Internet marketing and website usability company which has been helping customer experience since 1998.
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