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Global Village International Consortium
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People Buy From Sites they Trust. Here's how to Build Trust and Increase Sales Making the very first purchase from a site you've just stumbled across can often be a very emotional experience. On the one hand, the excellent copy, hard-hitting benefits, and free demo you loved have compelled you to own this wondrous product. But at the same time something holds you back. It could be a missing privacy policy, an order page that's not secure, or perhaps the company seems faceless - are these guys reputable or are they located off-shore? It could even be something that just strikes you as unprofessional - bad grammar, an annoying flash presentation, weird fonts, slabs of text on dark background, or broken links. As result, you hold off on your buying decision. How often is your site having this effect on customers? Likely, quite a bit, but like most online retailers you'll never know when this happens. TRUSTe, the independent online trust authority, and TNS announced the results of their 2005 Holiday Shopping/Online Trust Survey. The results may surprise you. Many internet users simply don't trust smaller, independent online retailers. According to the study: •While 78 percent of American internet users plan to conduct some shopping online this year, 69 percent of those shoppers will limit their online purchasing because of fears associated with misuse of personal information. • Privacy issues will deter more than 40 percent of consumers from shopping at smaller online retailers. • Among those willing to use ecommerce, nearly 42 percent prefer using the large, well-known online brands they believe will keep them safer from privacy-related threats. • The top five factors that shoppers say might limit or prevent them from buying online this holiday season are, in order, identity theft (cited by 49 percent), spam resulting from online purchases (39 percent), credit card theft (39 percent), spyware (38 percent) and preference for the “touch and feel” of shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores (35 percent). But it's not just lack of brand name awareness that may cause someone to hesitate buying from you. A study conducted by Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab revealed that little things, such as misspellings, could be detrimental to a site's credibility. So what creates trust? The Stanford study analyzed key factors - expertise, trustworthiness, sponsorship, and miscellaneous criteria — and found some of the highest rated elements to be: • fast response to customer service queries • comprehensive and clear information • author's credentials are listed • complete contact information is listed • privacy policy clearly stated • search capabilities on the site • site has been prominently advertised • ads on site are relevant • professional design • site has proven useful in the past This tactic will focus on how you can make fast changes to your site that may dramatically boost the trust level between you and your site visitors. The 4 Key Areas of Trust We've identified 4 key areas where you can build trust on your site. We'll show you how to implement trust-building techniques in these 4 areas. The areas to focus on are: 1. Transparency: Can the visitor quickly identify who you are, see your contact information and understand your background? 2. The Human Touch: Does your site incorporate elements that give it a human touch? This includes bios, pictures of staff, as well as technological tricks like virtual assistants and blogs. 3. Customer Care: Does your site show that you care about your customers? 4. Privacy and Security: Do you have prominent, well defined security and privacy policies? After reading this tactic you should be able to immediately incorporate many of these trust elements within your site in a day or two. Although some of the elements of trust sound complicated to create (such as a privacy policy) we'll show you shortcuts and offer templates that will make this easy to do. So let's get started on these 4 methods through which you can build trust. Method 1: Be Transparent Unless you own physical stores or happen to be a trusted brand name reseller like Amazon.com, one of your very first hurdles in building trust is showing your online visitors that you're "real." All you need to do is be transparent. On your site, clearly state your address, phone number and better yet, reveal your picture, credentials and signature. Follow these guidelines to make your website more transparent: Show Photos of Yourself or Your Staff All else being equal, if you give people the option of dealing with a real-live person or a faceless corporation, they will choose real people every time. If you're a small business, you are effectively your own brand. Use this advantage by prominently displaying your photo and signature on your website. If your site relies on your expert advice or name you might want to put the picture on the first page. Otherwise the picture could be on the About Us or Contact page. A digital image of your signature (make one up if you're afraid of someone copying your original signature) can also be used to create trust. This signature can be placed below your Guarantee or Sales Letter. If your business is a little larger, consider using pictures of your staff on your About Us page or Customer Service page. If you own an existing brick and mortar store, consider placing a picture of your store on your site. This can help greatly to reduce the uncertainty many buyers experience about purchasing something online while not knowing if the company will be around later to handle returns or questions. Notice the prominence of faces in the site for Audio Generator - an internet tool allowing people to play audio on their ecommerce sites.CHECK IT OUT! I'll cover more on this later. Here the creators of the product use their pictures and faces to create a sense of "reality." This site offers a tool that allows you to add your "voice" to your own site to help build trust and credibility. I'll be talking more about this later. Create (or Buy) a Logo No matter how small your business, by all means - place a logo on your site. A decent logo can be purchased online for under $100. A logo immediately establishes trust and credibility as long as it looks well designed. Don't worry about establishing your "timeless" corporate logo over days of brainstorming and soul searching. You can do that over time. If you have a site up right now - consider getting a temporary logo from a logo mill and placing it prominently on the top left hand corner of your site. Eye-tracking studies show the upper-left corner to be the most viewed section of your site and this is an ideal place to put your logo, company name and anything else you wish to sink into the customer's mind such as your brand statement. Wired News ran an excellent article comparing various logo design services. You can read the full article here. For just under $100 they'll design a professional logo for you. The winner was The Logo Company For just under $100 they'll design a professional logo for you. If $100 is too much for you, don't worry about getting a custom designed logo. Just get a generic one from a company like LogoSense for $39.00 Generic logos may not be a viable long term solution. Nothing beats a professional logo design. But it may take you several months to create your professional logo. But don't wait that long! A logo is so important for building trust that you should fork out that $39 and get a generic logo while you build your company's identity and image and decide on your permanent logo. Contact Information Display your contact info prominently on your Contact Us or Customer Support page. The contact info should include your physical address, phone number and email address. We've heard of a website that saw its orders jump by 30% after it added a phone number to every page on the site. If your site targets customers within the US but you happen to be outside the US, consider using Skype to buy a US phone number which forwards on to your local phone number. For only a few dollars a year you can have a US number being forwarded to your landline or mobile phone anywhere in the world. Where should you place your contact information? Your complete address should be on your Contact Us Page. Also include a phone number and email. We also recommend including a phone number on the upper right hand side of EVERY page on your site. If you do not have the capacity to handle too many calls, an email adress will do. But keep in mind that phone numbers create a higher level of trust. The example below shows how MarketingSherpa.com adds their phone number to every relevant page on their site. You'll notice the phone number and the words "Click for Help" on the upper right hand side of their site (see below). (To Be Continued) Your comments welcome. If you would like to know more COME SEE! Mentors In Motion Team Schedule Please Join Us! Free Scholarships Now Avialable When You Join MIM |
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Comments (2)
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| Dr.Billi, We have all heard the saying,
People buy from people they: Know/ Like/ Trust You have brought out some ways that we are able to do that even on line. I would just like to point out another wonderful and helpful site, iKarma. It lets you build your online reputation and it is really food for the spiders. It is my favorite word...FREE Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts 200 Blue Print FREE Report |
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This is wonderful information, Dr. Billi. You've brought up severral important things to consider. I will anxiously await your next post.
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