Building Trust On Your Website Options

[Respree]

Building trust has got to be near the top of the list, when you think of the elements that makes for an effective website and favorable conversions.

More often than not, delivering superior value to your customers is far more important (and appealing) than providing the lowest price.

How do you convince a total stranger, one you met online two seconds ago, to turn over their hard-earned $ to a total stranger (your website)?

Be honest about who you are, what you're about, what you will do, what you won't do and when you'll do it. Be as sincere and upfront as you possibly can and open with your communications and you'll have taken huge steps in creating that 'touchy-feely' intangible thing called trust.

I thought this was a nice little article entitled, "Trust as the Most Important Online Value," written by our own member Yuri (A.N.Onym), which shares further thoughts on the subject.

How to build trust?
As mentioned before, only humans can build trust. So, when it comes to building trust with your customers, you’ll need to make sure your and your staff personality shines through however you communicate with your customers: through your website, via support emails or by phone.

That’s why to build trust, you’ll need to make sure your message is sincere, in good will and aimed to deliver value to the customer. Only then they’ll be able to trust and feel confident when buying from you. To build trust, you may do one of the following:

- provide honest, correct information about you, your company and the product
- make is obvious that there are real people behind the company (via about pages, for instance)
- be open to communication with your [potential] customers (a clear way to contact you, have a forum or even a blog)
- underpromise, overdeliver
- write in simple language, while focusing on the people
- have a user-friendly website
- make it obvious that the site is well managed by updating content often, having time-sensitive information - news, press releases, dated posts - on the site, responding to site feedback

As you can see from the list, you can build trust by providing value to your customers and making it obvious to them.

I especially like the "Under promise, over deliver" part, which I also happen to use on my site (coincidentally). Exceed your user's expectations and you're a hero (1). Fall short, and well, you're the opposite.

What techniques do you use to build trust and gain your visitors' confidence?

Do share.

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(1) = website who has just increased their likelihood of repeat business

This post has been edited by Respree: Jan 24 2007, 01:20 PM

[Respree]

Thanks for the kind words, guys .

I think it's interesting to swap notes and see what others are doing, so I guess I'll should start it off. If anyone would like to share in some of their stories, please feel free.

I haven't converted this visitor to a customer yet, but think there's a good chance I eventually will.

Strike that. She just placed a very sizeable order. I guess it worked. :-)

This post has been edited by Respree: Jan 24 2007, 09:05 PM