To win over customers, you need to win over their trust. Nowadays, the average customer is a lot more astute – they’re not as easily converted by a smile and a handshake and often need extra proof of credibility before parting with their money. This means going out of your way to show customers that you have the skills and experience to satisfy their needs.
Below are just some of the most effective ways in which you can win over customers’ trust.
The right dress sense
Physical appearance matters – we all make assumptions about people based on what we see. A tidy appearance can suggest an organized business, while a scruffy appearance can suggest that your company is a mess. Of course, there’s more to dressing credibly than dressing smart. It’s important that you’re also able to match the formality of your business – dress too formal and you may come across too conservative for some customers, while dressing too informal can suggest that you’re too laid back. You can also gain trust by using color psychology. Certain colors can have certain implications – blue creates a sense of calm, while red can help to symbolize passion.
A high level of security
Showing customers that your business is secure can also gain their trust. Customer want to be certain that their possessions or private data isn’t going to be carelessly mishandled, potentially putting it in the hands of a criminal. For this reason, you should look into forms of customer protection security such as using secure payment gateways or giving customers passwords and codes.
A high level of health and safety
Customers also like to know that their health isn’t in danger in any way. Paying close attention to health and safety can ensure that customers feel safe when conducting business with you whether it’s using your product or visiting your premises. A few health and safety features that build trust could include wearing gloves when handling food or providing signage of dangers.
High quality equipment
Investing in high quality equipment won’t just improve the quality of your work – it could also help gain the trust of customers. If you work from an office that clients can visit and your computers are visibly cheap or outdated, customers may doubt your efficiency. Modern equipment will show that you’re willing to adopt new and possibly better work practices to go the extra mile.
A clear brand identity
A clear brand identity can show customers that you have a clear business vision. This can make your business come across more organized rather than giving the impression that everything is done spontaneously. A brand identity could include having a logo and color scheme that you apply to all forms of visual marketing. It could also involve selling a distinct type of service/product or having a distinct company message. Deviating from this brand identity could make you come across unfocused and could lose you some customers.
Certificates and awards
Certificates and awards can help to offer proof of your skills, helping you to further gain trust. These could include certificates of education, certificates of licenses, health and safety certificates, trophies from local business awards or award badges on your website. They show that a fellow professional has assessed your skills and determined that you are worthy of celebration. You can gain certificates by actively furthering your training and education. As for awards, these can be won by applying to local award ceremonies and online award sites.
Positive online reviews
Online reviews are becoming an ever more popular way for customers to assess a company’s credibility. They allow people to see what previous customers think of your service. Positive online reviews are gained largely by providing outstanding service, however you can encourage more of them by reminding every happy customer to leave a review. By contrast, try not to mention reviews around unhappy customers so that they don’t leave negative reviews. Whatever you do, never post fake reviews. Not only is it technically illegal, but you’ll be lying to gain people’s trust – which defeats the point.
A professionally designed website
A professionally designed website can also be evidence of a trustworthy company. If your site looks amateurish, visitors will think that your company is amateurish. To achieve a professional-looking website, you should hire a professional web designer to build it. There are now online tools that can allow you to build your own site for free without any coding knowledge, however such DIY sites can still risk looking amateurish if you haven’t got an eye for design.
High search engine rankings
Company sites that rank higher on search engines like Google tend to be viewed as more renowned and trustworthy. It’s for this reason that SEO (search engine optimization) is so important. You should hire a digital marketing agency to help you with this – doing your own SEO can be painstaking and often not very effective. There are a lot of factors that can affect search engine rankings include the way in which you use keywords and the speed of your site.
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A sizeable social media following
Having lots of social media followers can also help to win over customers’ trust. This is because people interpret a large social media following as having a large customer base (when in reality, some of these people may be employees, suppliers, friends and family members). You can grow your social media following by getting in touch with everyone you know and asking them to follow (the likes of Facebook allows you to invite all your friends to follow). Buying followers should be avoided at all costs. Like accumulating fake reviews, it is deceitful. Most bought followers also tend to be dead accounts that won’t interact with your posts – and it will look fishy if you have 1000 followers and not one liked post.
Guarantees/fair refund policies
Offering guarantees and refunds to customers that aren’t happy with your work can be another way of gaining trust. Your customers won’t have to fear losing money if things go wrong. It can also suggest a certain level of confidence in your company’s ability to get results – a refund is likely to be a loss on your part and the fact that you’re willing to risk this loss can show that you don’t think your work is going to fail.
Getting to know customers
When you get to know customers, you help to create a closer relationship and make customers feel more valued. This could include remembering a customer’s name or remembering their favourite order in a bar. We have more respect for people that take an interest in us and therefore we trust them more. It’s one of the best methods of keeping regular customers regular.
Frequent communication
Talking to customers and letting them know what’s happening every step of the way can also build trust by showing a level of transparency. If you’re not talking to customers, they may feel that they’ve been forgotten or that you’re trying to ignore them. Take the initiative to call and email customers with updates (or check on their table if it’s a restaurant) and be available so that you can answer any enquiries. It is possible to overdo communication and pester customers, however a lack of communication is likely to do more harm.
Behind-the-scenes access
Giving customers some behind-the-scenes access can further build trust by delivering transparency. This could include an open kitchen in a restaurant, live tracking on projects or videos/photos that show how products are made. It’s still okay to have some company secrets, but displaying a certain level of openness will show customers that you have nothing to hide.
Under-promising and over-delivering
Broken promises can be one of the leading causes of lost trust – not just in business but life in general. You need to be sure that you can deliver on your promises. As a result, you should avoid promising too much. If you can’t reasonably achieve something, don’t tell a customer that you can just to get their hopes up as you’ll just set them up for disappointment. It’s much better to under-promise things. Surprising customers by going above and beyond can make them have more trust in you. This could include throwing in freebies or completing work much more quickly than initially forecasted (provided it doesn’t have to be delivered on a specific day).