If you are selling any type of product or service that involves online payments, one of the biggest barriers you will have to overcome is gaining the trust of potential buyers. Here are 13 things you can do to increase their trust in you.
1. Offer Your Contact Information.
Providing your contact information helps visitors in a few ways. First of all, it helps them to see you as a real person or business rather than someone shady who is hiding behind a website. Second, it obviously makes it easier for them to get in touch with you about their questions or concerns. Even if the don’t have questions at the moment, they will want to know that they can get their questions answered when they arise.
2. Provide a Money-Back Guarantee.
A money-back guarantee isn’t appropriate or possible for every type of sale online, but when possible it can be one of the most effective ways to relieve apprehension from potential buyers. If being able to get their money back doesn’t influence them, not much will. Of course you need to lay out the terms of the guarantee clearly to avoid any trouble down the road.
3. Free Trials or Demos.
Certain products have done very well by offering a trial or a demo that shows the value and potential of the product without requiring an immediate commitment from the buyer. The product will need to be of high quality to convince users that they need to buy the full version.
4. Display Testimonials from Customers.
If you have happy customers, be sure to let your visitors know about them. Solicit testimonials from satisfied customers and display them on your website where they will be easily seen to build your credibility.
5. Use Trusted 3rd Parties for Payment.
Buyers feel more comfortable when they see that you are accepting payment from trusted 3rd parties like PayPal, Verisign or even ClickBank. It’s not a bad idea to display the logo of these companies on your sales pages where visitors will see them before they have to make a decision.
6. Have an “About Us” Page.
Earlier I mentioned the importance of giving potential buyers your contact information. Many times that info will be found on an About Us page. Give visitors some basic information about your company’s history and operations. This can also helps to ease the fears of those who are not familiar with you.
7. Become a Member of the Better Business Bureau.
Online purchasers are encouraged when they see a logo that shows a business is part of the BBB’s Online Reliability Program . It’s just one more thing you can do to show that you are a legitimate business.
8. Provide a Privacy Policy.
If your website is selling products or services you are collected personal, private information. In this case you can provide a written privacy policy that shows visitors that you take their privacy seriously and you will not abuse the information that you receive.
9. Photos of You, Your Staff, or Your Building.
Photos can help visitors to relate to you and your business in ways that they can’t without photos. It gives your visitors a more personal connection to you and your business.
10. Video of You, or Video Testimonials.
Some websites are using video as an effective way of helping to sell more products. Video testimonials can be more powerful than written testimonials as it helps potential customers to see some of your existing customers and hear them talk about your products or services.
11. Have a Professional-Looking Website.
If you want to have a reputable business selling products online, your customers will expect you to look professional. The look of your website will have a subtle influence on the visitor’s perception of you.
12. Eliminate Typos, Spelling Mistakes, and Grammatical Errors.
This goes along with looking professional. Any professional business will do its best to avoid these mistakes. Having a website full of typos can make you look like someone working from his mom’s basement trying to make a quick buck online. That’s not an image that comforts potential buyers.
13. Don’t Throw Any Surprises.
As your visitors are moving through the online buying process they don’t want to be unpleasantly surprised by such items as shipping costs and unexpected fees. To earn their trust, provide this information up front before they start the purchase and they’ll be less likely to back out. Throwing surprises makes it look like your trying to hide some of the details.
What other methods do you use to earn the trust of your potential customers?
20 comments from readers
1 Mike Oct 30, 2007 at 8:53 am
I agree with most of your points here.
However, i have two things to say. About the free demo and trial. Might be OK for a small business, established ones don’t need it anymore, as the 30 days money back guarantee would be more than enough to earn my trust.
As for the testimonials, they are extremely easy to forge by every service owner. So i tend not to take them into consideration. Most of the time they sound better than they reality is anyway…
2 Reem Oct 30, 2007 at 12:06 pm
These tips are pretty good and straight forward. I liked the last one about not throwing any surprises, and just being upfront. The one thing I didn’t really agree with or like was the video testimonials. But, it might just be me. Personally, I wouldn’t want to sit there and watch a bunch of videos of people that may or may not be authentic.
3 Acopic - Web Designers Oct 30, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Yeah - some pretty good tips there. The money back guarantee never does anything for me though as you can never trust someone to give you money back. Saying it is one thing - doing it is another lol.
4 Vandelay Design Oct 30, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Mike,
I think you’re right that established businesses don’t need demos or trials, but most of my readers aren’t yet to the point where they would fall into that category (and neither am I). Yes, testimonials are definitely easy to fake. I don’t think any of these points really does that much on its own, but by effectively combining a bunch of them it can make a big difference.
Reem,
Most of the time I won’t watch video testimonials either, but I have seen a few sites that use them pretty effectively (in my opinion).
Acopic,
Definitely true. If you use a credit card you should be fine. You can show the credit card company the money back guarantee and they should refund your money and go after the seller.
5 EYE CATCHY PICS Nov 1, 2007 at 12:53 am
Well its very informative discussion!
6 Glenn alvarez Nov 3, 2007 at 5:04 am
hi, Your 13 ways are really helpful . I mean now atleast i know how to be careful of such people & avoid frauds. Thanx
Good Day
7 Selbourne Nov 7, 2007 at 4:30 am
And dont forget your hosting service and backend programming should work well. so many times have i hit the payment button to get a page not found error. One does not know if the process has gone through or not
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13 TigerTom Dec 3, 2007 at 8:36 am
I think the main thing is to establish that there’s a real human being behind the site. Too many are faceless.
Many years ago I was able to get people to use my order form which was behind an SSL cert which I’d had made up myself by the webhost; I just told customers to expect warning messages, and that I didn’t want to pay $400 for a standard one. Worked fine.
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I believe you have summarized very well the most important recommendations that any online business must follow in order to gain the trust of their potential clients. Both, verifiable contact information and true former clients testimonials are essential. Also, seeking affiliation with trusted consumers advocate institutions will help a lot.
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20 Ben Callis Jun 25, 2008 at 12:42 pm
The point about giving a way free trials is very true to build up a trust base.
Many online services give away ‘review copies’ of services. This mean they give away a copy for free providing someone leaves an honest review. It seems to really work well.