Trust is one of the most important things in business, especially if you’re running an online store. There are a lot of fake websites out there looking to take peoples money. That’s why customers won’t just put their credit card details into any old website. If you’re going to build a successful online store then you need to gain the trust of your customers and convince them that it’s safe for them to buy products from you. If you aren’t seeing the level of sales that you thought you would, that might be your problem. Here are some simple ways to build trust between you and your customers on your website.
Make It Personal
Online marketing, particularly social media, has introduced a far more personal element to marketing. People don’t want a faceless company, they want to deal with the people behind it. Making your website more personal can go a long way to building that trust that you need. Include an ‘about us’ section with photos and a small bio of you and any other employees that you’ve got working for you. You could also put a direct chat on there that doesn’t use a bot so customers can speak with a real person if they’ve got any queries. Being able to get a sense of the people behind the website makes them trust you a lot more.
Be Professional
This is vital, and there are a couple of ways to do it. Firstly, you need to make sure the site runs smoothly. If customers go on a site that takes ages to load, that’s always a warning sign for them. If you’re worried about the speed of your site, use CDN services to reduce loading times. Beyond the speed and ease of use, you need to make sure that all of the details are perfect. One thing that really puts people off is spelling errors. If you aren’t careful enough to check your content for spelling mistakes before you put it up, how can a customer trust that you’ll be careful with their personal information? You might not think that those small details are that important but customers will pick up on them and they can be the difference between them deciding to buy something, or leaving the site entirely.
Protect Your Site Properly
It’s up to you to protect your website properly so you aren’t vulnerable to cyber-attacks that could potentially steal customer information. The best way to do it is with a secure sockets layer and customers can easily tell if you’re using one. When you look at a web address and it has ‘http’ at the front, it isn’t using one. However, if it has ‘https’ then it is. The extra ‘s’ indicates that the site is safe. The padlock symbols that you get on browsers prove a certain level of security but the savvy customers will be looking out for that extra ‘s’ so make sure it’s there.
If you take these steps, customers will have a lot more faith in your site and they’ll be more likely to part with their cash.
