A 2021 survey established that roughly 80 percent of consumers make purchase decisions based on whether they trust the seller.
Clearly, trust is everything in business. Trust doesn’t just earn you sales. It keeps your customers loyal and can turn them into brand ambassadors.
Do your customers trust your brand? If they did, you probably wouldn’t be here. And even if they trust your business, it doesn’t harm to keep finding new ways to strengthen that trust.
There are a number of strategies you can use to build trust with your customers, regardless of the nature of your business. In this article, we’re letting you in on some of the most effective methods.
Read on!
Offer a Well-Built Product
As a business owner, you’re in this to make a profit. Whether you’re selling a physical or digital product, you want to sell as many items as possible.
Some entrepreneurs, in a rush to bring a product to market or because they’re reluctant to invest in quality manufacturing, end up selling half-baked products. Yet, consumers can look at the product and see the intentions of the seller.
A quality product goes a long way in building customer trust. They’ll know that you did your best to produce something that works as advertised. On the other hand, a shoddy product built with poor quality materials will do little to build customer trust. In fact, consumers will consider you dishonest, since you’re trying to make money off them in exchange for a product that doesn’t work!
Your product or service should be at the core of your quest to build consumer trust. Start off with a strong product and you’d have done most of the job as far as gaining customer goes.
Under Promise, Over Deliver
As a consumer, you come across several businesses every day. Many of these businesses, if not all of them, are big on what their product/service does.
Shopping around for a smartphone? Every manufacturer seems to be offering the fastest phone.
Looking around for a home fiber service? Every company will promise to offer the fastest, most reliable connection.
It’s not until you purchase the product that you realize it doesn’t quite live up to what you were promised. Are you going to trust that seller again?
This is a critical lesson for business owners who’re looking to build customer trust. If you must over-promise, buy all means you must deliver on those promises. In any case, this isn’t advisable since you’ll quickly run out of promises. What other big promise are you going to make next time?
Under promising but over-delivering is the way to go, as unattractive as it might seem. It might not earn you a flurry of customers at first (since consumers are inherently attracted to the big promises), but in the long-term, you’ll build a steady stream of customers, as more and more come to learn that your product/service does way more than what’s advertised.
Build Social Proof
Over 90 percent of consumers read online reviews before purchasing a product or contacting a business.
Does your business have online reviews?
If not, you’re losing out on prospective customers. You’re always failing to make use of an effective way to build consumer trust.
Online reviews, whether positive or negative, mean that your business indeed exists; that there are people who have interacted with it. Sometimes this is all a prospective customer needs to contact your business and make an inquiry.
While any review will give your business proof of existence, positive reviews will build the reader’s trust in your business. If everyone is saying nice things about your business, they can’t be wrong. The reader will have little choice but to trust your brand.
Even existing customers who have bought your products severally need to see your business’s online reviews. They want to know whether the business is still delivering great products and services, or it has started taking shortcuts.
Testimonials
Online reviews go a long way, but they lack the personal touch of testimonial videos.
These are videos of your customers sharing their honest experiences with your product and/or brand. Of course, you’re not going to find negative testimonial videos on any business website, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them.
There are various other types of videos you can use to build consumer trust. They include corporate videos, workplace culture videos, and educational videos.
While videos are proven to be effective, you have to invest in professional video production. Publishing a poor-quality video on your social media accounts is a quick way to ruin your customers’ trust in your brand. What does it say about your business that you can’t invest in professional-grade videography equipment or hire a professional to do the job?
Be Reachable
Business is no place for people who love to be left alone. If you’re a solo entrepreneur, expect that people will call your business every day. It’s important that your business is reachable or contactable easily.
Ease of access is a high-impact way to build customer trust. Customers don’t what to wait on call for long before they can speak to someone. They want to be able to reach your business from various channels.
If a visitor is browsing on your website, they shouldn’t have to find their phone to call you. They should be able to shoot you on email or, better, live chat on the website.
Build Trust with Your Customers
It’s trust that fuels customers to do business with your brand instead of a competitor. This trust doesn’t happen overnight. It’s cultivated and nurtured over a long period of time.
Use these strategies to build trust with your customers and keep reading our blog for more business advice.