What is it that you look for in a business or online business to know if you can trust that business? Do you look for Seals, referrals, or big name clients? Do you look for business registration, business cards, or a website? What says to you that you can trust an online business or business?
Online businesses are becoming more and more familiar in this day and age. Anyone can create a e-commerce website so easily and start selling online. So how do you know you can trust them. In this blog we are going to discuss 3 ways to know how to trust an online business. Reply or comment to let us know if you have other trust factors that you look for in an online business.Share your knowledge. We can share together.
So lets get a little background going before we dive into the 3 ways to know how to trust an Online business. We started our business back in 2009. One of the top things we had to break through was getting new customers to trust us to know if they are comfortable doing business with us. I can remember people not interested in doing business with any "work from home" type businesses because they felt if you do not have a store or office "I cannot trust you". They would literally hang up the phone. That was not good. So pushed us into getting and office and then later a storefront.
Now even though the caller(s) would not even step foot in the door, but they knew you had a store location, they would then trust you. To me that was ironic. It was like we were paying monthly operating costs and rent just for trust in order to get sales. So you mean to tell me that after you hear my address you are good and will then order online and never come in my store? Well, why do I have a store again? Oh yeah - for trust. OK, got it.
But what about companies like Vista print or other online printing companies? How did they get trust from customers that would literally just go online and buy from them without second guessing where their location was. How could this be? Is this fair game? Is it because they thought in their minds that they were a larger company - so they must trust larger companies? Perhaps. Makes sense, larger companies "have more money and insurance" to be able to back any orders. Understandable. But is that enough? It doesn't guarantee anything. It's just a thought - right?
We went through so many measures to gain the trust of customers so that we can make sales. It wasn't easy. We got listed on the Better Business Bureau, we got listed on many directories including the Yellow Pages, and we even had our business listed in the yellow pages phone book itself. We actually had a customer tell us one day, I can't find you in the phone book... how do I know you are in business?
It's funny because some people don't know that the only way are you in the phone book is if you have a landline phone number with your business or if you take out an advertisement in the yellow pages. So in effort of getting more sales we were forced to take out a quick ad in the yellow pages and be listed in the free directory of the yellow pages in the phone book.
Wow! Talk about going through loops to get business. That's what we had to do to gain the trust of our prospects years ago. Now that time has passed we realized there are literally 3 main ways to know if you can trust an online business.
So tell me, what do you do to gain trust in customers?
Is your story similar to ours?
Are you a "work from home" business?
Here are 3 things you can do as an online business to gain the trust of customers:
1 - BE REACHABLE
What does that mean? Be available to speak to your customers as often as possible. We actually provide customer service 24/7 via email and text message. So whether you are reachable via email, cell phone text messages, phone, online chat, video chat or even in person - you must be reachable. Voicemail is a bad idea if that is all a customer gets all the time. Trust me, I know. At one point I couldn't have the phones answered fast enough and I would lose business that way - so I feel your pain. One solution is a virtual receptionist. What we use now is a phone system that directs calls. It is just too much for us now to answer every phone call, especially since most calls are for quotes or solicitations. That's why we offer emailing and text messaging and online ordering.
Think about the type of calls you will receive. Most of our calls were quotes or telemarketers/solicitation calls. So we needed to direct those calls elsewhere. We cannot spend that much time on the phone when we needed to process orders instead.
Calls from people that actually wanted to buy something didn't really happen, they just emailed and texted us or ordered online. Your needs may be different. Decide how you will be reachable as an online business.
2 - BE NOTICED ONLINE
What does that mean? The internet makes it so easy these days to quickly search up a business. Then you can go even further and be searched under reviews online. So get noticed online - and in a positive way. Have every social media account there is. Get listed on as many online directories as you can, including Google Maps, Google Places (same as Google Maps), Yellow-pages, Bing, Yahoo, and local directories. Most of these are free and easy to get listed. Customers want to be able to go online and find you.
3 - DO GOOD SERVICE
You will not gain the trust of every single person ever. But until you come close, you should be doing good work! Good work equals referrals. Referrals are golden! Some businesses have been said to survive on referrals alone! So do good service and you will grow! Nothing beats quality work and a happy customer. Once they have done work with you and love it- they will most likely buy again and again because now they can trust you. They will eventually refer your services to someone else.
I hope you find this blog post informative. I hope that you now understand or have a better understanding of 3 ways to gain customer trust for your business or online business.
Please visit www.dttgraphics.com and find out why we offer excellent services that you can trust.
Please comment and reply with your reasons to trust an online business or local business. We would love to hear from you.
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