A matter of Trust

During a normal purchase, a customer will part with their money and with some of their personal information in exchange for a service or product you provide. That means they have to trust the other party enough to share information and give their money away.

It is only fair you share as much information about yourself as you can. The more information you share about yourself, the safer the customers will feel. The safer the customer will feel, the more likely he/she is to actually hit the Purchase button.

You can share information about yourself in many ways:

• About us - this is vital information. The more you share here, the safer the customer will feel and it might repay you back by sharing their information and money with you
• Blog - make it more personal that the usual boring company stuff. It is not a PR release. Instead show the customers some of your world there.
• Privacy Policy - not many people read this section but many of them expect it to be there. Avoid the legal language and explain it in plain English.
• Real names - names are very important, it is sharing data and showing there are real people behind your business. Instead of using support@yourcompany.com, use a real name.
• Contact Us - allow the customers to contact you by email and other means if viable. Try to reply within a reasonable amount of time. A reply is an acknowledgement of your customer and that the customer is important to you. Ignoring your customers will ultimately catch up with you.
• Live help - this is a nice trick especially for support or sales. It lets people talk with a live person. Usually when they have a problem or a question, customers want the answer immediately. Otherwise they might go to your competitors' websites. If it's viable, add Live Help to your website.
• Allow and listen to customer suggestions - it's important to give a voice to your customers. This will provide a useful feedback to your business and it is invaluable marketing research. Allow them to ask for new features. Open source projects used this trick for years.
• Treat your customers respectfully - in ALL circumstances, even if it's their fault, even if you're in a bad mood. Word of mouth is an invaluable marketing tool. Because the way trust propagates, word of mouth is vital. Customers will trust more easily information that comes from a resource they trust. Don't underestimate word of mouth. And with the explosion of blogs, word of mouth just got bigger and more important in your marketing plan.