A business can’t succeed without the trust of its customers. In fact, on a long-term basis, it’s probably the single biggest determining factor. We’ve seen even giants of the corporate world stumble all because the trust between the brand and the public has been eroded.
Trust isn’t automatically given. It’s earned. In this post, we’ll look at some handy tips for building trust with your existing and potential customers. While you can’t expect results overnight, if you do everything that we outline in this post, then eventually it’ll come your way.
Prioritize Customer Service
Some businesses view customer service as an afterthought, but businesses that want to establish trust with their customers know that it has to be a priority. Customers want to feel that they’re valued by a business, and the best way to show that is to work on putting together a customer service framework that proactively meets customer demands, desires, and expectations.
This can sound challenging, but there’s a simple question you can ask yourself that can nudge you in the right direction, and that is: if you were a customer of your business, what would you want?
Focus on Product/Service Quality
Marketing is an important part of connecting with customers, but it must be backed up by quality. It’s one thing to talk the talk, and another to walk the walk. There’s nothing that will make a customer lose trust in a company more than receiving a product or service that is of lower quality than they were expecting.
In the early days of the business, it’s important to work on refining your goods/services until they reach an unimprovable state. After all, if you can provide something that exceeds the customer’s expectations, then they’ll be impressed — and trust won’t be too far behind.
Show Your Expertise
You’ll know how knowledgeable you are about the goods or services you provide. Your customers will not. So you have to show them. This is especially important if you’re an online business, where there’s significant competition. On your website, you can publish articles and content that demonstrate that you’re an expert in your field. It’s not hard to see how a potential customer would be more willing to trust a business that has a website filled with in-depth, expert information. Plus, writing and hosting this content will help to improve your Google ranking, which helps to enhance visibility and build trustworthiness — everyone trusts the first link that appears on a Google search engine results page.
Make Yourself Available
You can’t expect a customer — or, indeed, anyone — to trust you if they’re unable to get in contact with you. All too often, you’ll find businesses taking a hands-off approach to communication. It can seem impossible to find any sort of contact information beyond an email. That is a major red flag for customers, who will have just cause to be slightly mistrustful of the business. And when that happens, it takes a lot to win them back.
It’s recommended to include as many forms of contact on your website as possible. When you can, try to localize that communication. For instance, you may highlight your local mailing address, or use a phone number with a local area code — Tennessee phone numbers look more appealing (and trustworthy) to Tennessee residents than out-of-town phone numbers, after all. If you’re serving a global audience base, then try to have a phone number for each individual country you serve. It’s also recommended to provide your website in the local language of those places, too.
Present Your Story
People like to know who’s behind a business. Sharing your story is one of the few advantages that you’ll have over big corporations, who are unable to share the story of their humble origin. Your products and services should take center stage, but there’s room for a page dedicated to your background on your website. Try to make this as personal as possible — why did you start your business? Do you have a family? Photos and anecdotes will help to highlight your trustworthiness, though be mindful to keep everything professional.
Show Customer Feedback
You can talk a lot about how good your business is, but what will really get people on board is you can show how your existing customers benefited from your business. Studies have shown that people trust reviews from strangers almost as much as they trust feedback from friends and family members. Or in other words: good reviews can be your best friend in your quest to elevate your trustworthiness.
There are multiple ways to show customer feedback. You can encourage customers to leave reviews on your Google page, or you can ask them for feedback directly and publish their testimonials on your website.
A word on bad reviews: they’re not ideal, but you can limit the impact they have on your trustworthiness by actively responding to them. People don’t just read bad reviews: they read the response to those reviews. If you can defend your corner in a professional manner, then a bad review may have no impact on your trustworthiness at all.
Handling Issues
Trust isn’t put to the test when everything’s going well; it’s tested when things aren’t going well. At some point, a customer will have an issue with the goods or services they received. It’s how you handle those issues that’ll determine whether they can trust you or not.
Be Consistent
Finally, if there’s one that can build long-term trust, it’s consistency. Part of why we said that it takes time to build trust is that customers need to repeatedly see that you won’t let them down. And the way to do that is to be consistent with the level of service that you provide. Being brilliant one day, and mediocre the next only shows that you’re capable of greatness, and that’s not trustworthy. It just means you’re talented.
The difficulty in running a business isn’t doing things right once; it’s doing things right every single day. Work on developing and maintaining high standards, and you’ll get the public’s trust.
