5 Steps You Can Take to Make Your Business More Trustworthy

business trustworthy

marketing planHow to build consumer confidence and trust in your small business so customers can feel confident spending money on your brand

For an online or an e-commerce business, a question that every customer will eventually make is – do I trust them enough to do business with them? First of all, there are a lot of scams and hoaxes out there, which makes people particularly suspicious. Second, with so many choices out there, why should they go for the obscure brand? Finally, if the value of the purchase is too high, even a single failed transaction may be enough to cause enough damage.

Here are five steps that you need to take in order to overcome all of these obstacles while working on establishing your brand awareness.

1. Transparency

The first thing you need to work on is transparency and you can start with your prices. First of all, there are some businesses who avoid showing the full price (with shipping and taxes) in order to make it appear lower. In the end, this doesn’t change the amount your customers will be asked to pay but it does damage the level of trust between the two parties. So, in order to make your business more trustworthy, you need to start being honest with your audience even if doing so doesn’t appear as intuitive.

2.  Answering all the questions

Another thing you can do is give your audience a chance to ask you anything and try to give your honest opinion on the subject matter. Hosting a live Q&A or AMA is even better seeing as how it’s A) more spontaneous and B) less scripted. This gives you a direct line of communication with your audience, which demonstrates your confidence when addressing them. Of course, allowing them to leave questions on your forum or a thread on Reddit is also a good idea. Later on, you can answer in the comment section or address them in a video on the official YouTube channel of your business.

3.     Testimonials

Nowadays, no one can dispute the effectiveness of testimonials, however, the problem with testimonials lies in the fact that they’re not so easy to acquire. Not everyone who buys your product and is satisfied with its quality is bound to leave a comment or give you a positive review. On the other hand, people who are dissatisfied are much more likely to be vocal (very, very vocal) about it. Therefore, you need to look for other methods to get customer feedback that you can display on your website or use to improve your existing business model.

4. Keep your promises

Building up hype and telling your audience what they want to hear is a double-edged blade. On the one hand, you gain some immediate attention, however, you risk building up expectations to the level at which you can no longer meet them. To make the long story short, you need to keep all your promises, which is quite a simple rule to follow, as long as you keep a watchful eye on all that you’re promising. Sometimes, learning how to say no to a customer is less disappointing in the long-run than just nodding your head in confidence.

business policies

5. Lenient refund policy

The last thing you can do to make your business appear more trustworthy is to enact a lenient refund policy. This helps you in two ways. First, it makes you appear more confident in the quality of your product, which is bound to affect your bottom line. Second, even those who aren’t satisfied with your products will be able to get a refund, which will make them less likely to leave negative reviews and brand mentions. In other words, you’re averting a potential PR disaster in a simple and elegant manner.

Conclusion

In the end, you need to understand that while some of the above-listed methods do give immediate results, it will take some time to develop a significant level of trust with your audience. Still, each of these methods brings you one step closer to this goal, as long as you persist in it long enough. Work on each of these segments, monitor relevant metrics and soon, your brand name will be a force to be reckoned with.

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Dan Radak

VPS Security Specialist
Dan Radak is a web hosting security professional with ten years of experience. He is currently working with a number of companies in the field of online security, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies. He is also a coauthor on several technology websites and regular contributor to Technivorz.