Ways to Protect Customers & Increase Trust Within the Industry

The customer’s mind is a fragile thing. All it takes is a tiny speck of doubt and they somersault from making a purchase. After all closing, a product page doesn’t take long and is so easy.

But, what makes them turn back on their choices? Why do customer abandon online shopping carts?

There are 6 eCommerce sins that irritates customers and forces them to abandon shopping carts.

Unexpected shipping costs
A long payment checkout process
Security concerns about data & credit card information
They do not have their preferred mode of payment
The promo or coupon code could not be redeemed
Lack of customer support information

These reasons not only add to your cart abandonments, but also result in depleting the trust customers have on your website.

So what should you do? Do stuff that builds and restores their trust. Invest in security measures to show explicitly that your online store is secure as a rock fort.

But, that’s just the beginning. Here are some more ways you can build your customer trust and earn the reputation of being a secure brand in the industry.

Register your domain

Having your domain registered is like having your own home on the Internet. So make sure your domain is something that sounds nice, can be easily remembered and can also be built into a brand name. Your visitors will reach you directly and will not be redirected to any other website that could be similar to your domain name.

Talking of identical names, we suggest buying all misspelled names of your domain name, so that in case customers input the wrong one, they still land on your actual domain. Want to find out the most misspelled domain names? Use this Domain Typo Generator from seochat to have a long list of the misspelled names.

Configure Extended Validation SSL Certificate

SSL certificates are great to show that you are a secured site. But, if you want to prove your customers and also win the double benefit of encrypting all information sent to and from between you and your customers, you need a EV SSL certificate.

An Extended Validation Certificate has an elaborate verification process. It is not possible for anyone else, other than the domain owner to get EV SSL certificates. Moreover, the Certificate Authorities, the agencies who issue these certificates conduct in depth background verification to ensure that certificate is indeed to issued to the website owner and the business that the website represents.

So, if you are a bank, an online store, a financial business or even a body corporate where trust is of utmost importance, go for EV SSL certificate as the first-choice.

Show Trust Seals

Trust seals or badges are icons and labels that brands give to authorized sellers. They prove various things like, money-back guarantee, verified seller, authorized center and so on.

There are another kind of security seals like trust badges issued by Certificate Authorities along with SSL certificates. Displaying these trust seals on login pages, checkout pages or even on critical user information input pages can go a long way in winning customer trust.

Display Customer reviews & ratings

According to Thismoment, 97% of B2B buyers said that user generated content, like user reviews, is more credible than other types of content. Online reviews submitted by customers are genuine, have a natural accent and are straightforward. Customer who read reviews written by other customers feel a business to be more trustworthy.

Secondly, there are other benefits to customer reviews & ratings too. Like the reviews have semantic keywords in them which helps improve the SEO ranking for that particular page. Whens search bots crawl that page, will come across the necessary keyword density thus boosting the SEO ranking. Ultimately, this would help increase the organic traffic to the website.

Offer money-back guarantee

Customers are skeptical about dealing with businesses, especially if it is the first time they are buying the product or signing up for the service. There is a high chance that their doubt about the quality of product/service may even discourage them from buying it.

A good way to avoid such a situation is by offering money-back guarantee. A moneyback-guarantee which typically extends for 30 to 90 days gives customers enough confidence to buy the product.

However, this strategy must be adopted with a pinch of salt because, there could be a possibility of buyers buying in bulk quantities and returning the product without any genuine process. A solid return policy and product verification process should set up to ensure that money-back guarantee strategy works.

Engage socially

Social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, Google Business, My Places, etc. have become the primary sources for voicing customer opinion about a product or service. They are free, easily accessible and create an equal field for all kinds of businesses. There is no demarcation of size, nature of business or the market it serves. Businesses that serve their customers well get good responses in the social media.

All this boils down to one thing: business should engage with their customers socially to forge a meaningful relationship. This would include activities like responding to customer queries through Facebook, replying to complaints raised through tweets or LinkedIn posts, engaging in private messaging sessions for product explanation, etc.

Customer service

There is one thing which never fails to impress a skeptical customers – that is easily reachable customer service. If you intend to win your customer’s trust, then make sure your customer service contact, email or even a location is displayed prominently in the website.

You might even consider setting up live chat support so that customers can easily connect with customer service assistants and get clarifications promptly.

Final Words

Winning trust in the online or offline industry is Herculean task. Sometimes all the effort goes to waste with a single mistake. Well, to avoid such a situation, it is better to start building trust right from the initial days of your business, so that even if something goes wrong, your customers would still trust you.

Know of any more ways to build customer trust? Drop in a comment and let us know.