Trust is one of the most important things in business. Consumers have more choice than ever so they’re only going to deal with a company that they trust. It’s the best way to build a base of regular customers that continue to buy your products. But building that trust and, more importantly, maintaining it, is a lot harder than people realise. Selling a good product is only one small part of that and it’s not enough to convince customers to come back time and time again. If you’re struggling to increase your customer base, it might be because you’re aren’t building that trust properly. These are some of the best ways to do it.
Offer Good Aftercare
Consumers want to know that you value them for more than just their money. If you’re selling them products and then forgetting about them completely once you’ve got their money, they’re not going to come back to you in the future. Good aftercare is so important here. If a customer comes to you and tells you that they’ve got an issue with the product and it takes you ages to respond and you’re not forthcoming with a solution, that’s going to really put them off. You need to be thinking in the long term and looking after your customers beyond the sale so they’re likely to come back in future. Offering a good returns policy and perhaps giving people money off their next purchase as a way of apologising for any issues that they have is important. It’s also a good idea to check in with them a few weeks after they’ve made a purchase. Send them an email and ask whether they’re happy with the product. It’s a good way to let them know that you value them as a customer and it gives you a good opportunity to ask them to leave a review and maybe even let them know about the rest of the products that you have on offer.
Be Accessible
This is tied to the last point in a lot of ways. Consumers might have questions after they’ve bought a product from you but they may also have queries before they decide whether to part with their money or not. If you aren’t accessible to your customers, that will damage your credibility and you won’t be able to build trust with them. That’s why it’s important that you give customers a lot of different options for getting in touch with you. Chat services are a great way to do this because people can get a quick response rather than having to wait on hold on the phone for ages or wait a few days for you to reply to their email.
Protect Their Data
This is one of the most important ways to build trust because people are beginning to question the way that their data is handled and a lot of new laws are coming into place to deal with it. People don’t like the idea of their data being shared freely and the fear of cyber-attacks is always growing. If you lose somebody’s credit card details, for example, they’re not going to trust you with their personal data again and neither will anybody else that hears about the data loss. That’s why it’s so important that you take steps to protect their data. Online security is a big one because thieves are always targeting companies and trying to steal customer data so you need a good IT team to stay on top of it. It’s also important that you’re careful about who you share data with because people may call up posing as a customer and ask for sensitive information over the phone or online. That’s why there is data protection regulation that says you need to verify who you’re speaking to before you share any information. If you don’t already have them in place, you need verification solutions for regulatory compliance. You can use facial recognition or document scanning services that your customers can use to prove that they are who they say they are. If you’re on the wrong side of the law, you’ll lose the trust of your customers and you could end up with a hefty fine.
Content Creation
Offering your customers good information on your industry is another good way of building trust. It helps you to establish yourself as an authority in your industry and convinces customers that you know what you’re doing and your products are going to reflect that. That’s why content creation is so important. It’s a great marketing tool that increases traffic to your site and it proves your value to your customers because you’re offering them something for free, rather than just trying to sell them products and nothing else.
Gaining the trust of your customers is one of the hardest things you have to do as a business, but it’s also one of the most important.
All these aspects are very important today if we want to do business online and stand out from the competition, offer services and quality content is a key factor to be successful with our company in times of social networks.
Excellent tips! Too often people forget the importance of trust and action taken after the actual transaction.
I really wish more companies focused on being accessible. It can be so annoying to have a problem but to have no way to get in contact with the company.
I subscribe to all the comments, in that openness to customers in the means of social media is very important in our time. Of course, there are plenty of applications and tools octopuscrm that can help us with this, but still no one has canceled the human factor. Therefore, if we are planning a long-term and fruitful business, do not forget this moment. Since success depends on our customers.