“This article is divided into two parts- Customer Trust and Customer Loyalty.”
You want to acquire new customers, and putting every effort to make them a part of your eCommerce journey. You got visitors on your website but you are still not getting satisfactory results.
What could be the reason? Well, there could be some flaws in your website. But for a new user, the trust factor is the most important. New visitors do not put their trust in an online business easily considering the hoax and the fraud activities that take place over the Internet daily.
And why would they? It is the first time that they are interacting with your brand. You need to earn their trust, establish a connection with them so that they get familiar with your brand.
While it is not an arduous task to create your brand visibility and attract customers to your website, thanks to the social media platforms, the challenge lies in converting new visitors into customers.
And trust is the crucial factor that turns a visitor into a customer. Yes, there are other important elements such as the Website UX, Checkout Page, etc. But those are secondary. Customer trust is primary.
There are plenty of thoughts that go through a visitor’s mind when he first visits your website. Only after they find your site to reliable and trustworthy, they think of making a purchase.
Customer trust and loyalty go hand-in-hand. Once you build the trust, customer loyalty follows. So first, you need to win their trust. Later, you can think of some other factors to make them loyal to your brand.
But the point here is how do you actually build customer trust, in the first place? Well, this is what we will be discussing today.
We will first start with building customer trust followed by customer loyalty.
How to Build Customer Trust?
1. Focus on Your Site Security
First things first. Visitors need to feel secure when they land on your website. They would bounce off straightaway if they sense your website has security issues, let alone purchasing.
For this matter, you need to make your website SSL certified. An SSL certificate adds a security layer to your website and is an important element to build customer trust.
2. Display Security Badges at Checkout
Online transaction frauds have reached a new level nowadays. As a result, people have become way too sensitive to share their bank related information online.
Win customer trust by displaying payment security badges at the checkout. Security signs like Norton Secured, McAfee Secure or displaying supported credit card logos or a security lock develop a sense of trust inside visitors and they feel much more comfortable while making a payment.
3. Go Social
Maintaining your social presence is highly important today if you want to build customer trust. Social media is not just a marketing platform that helps you with brand visibility but it is a place where you can have a friendly connection with your followers and build credibility.
People get to know you as a brand and you build that trust factor in them.
How would you do that?
Be active, and start posting actively. Engage with your audience, be a part of their conversation, reply to their queries, post your inside stories, tell them about your journey. These sorts of things will help you win customers and keep them for life.
Related: Social Media Marketing for eCommerce: Strategies and Best Practices
4. Enhance Your Customer Support
Another customer trust winning method is to enhance your customer support.
A visitor/customer may have n number of queries. It could be related to your website, products, or any other issue for which they want a resolution.
It is your sole responsibility to solve their queries and provide them with satisfactory customer service. For that, do not limit your customer support to just emails, or calls. Add a live chat support option too. Moreover, as I said, be active on social media. A majority of customers prefer social media platforms to raise their queries.
It could be a tweet or a DM. Whatever it is, make sure to help them with their concerns as soon as possible. Your customers would appreciate you for showing a quick response to their concerns.
If you keep these 4 things in your mind, your visitors would surely find your website trustworthy. Let’s now take a look at how to build customer loyalty.
4 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty
To build loyalty with customers, you need to focus on a few important things-
1. Deliver What You Say
Customer loyalty lies in delivering what you promise. Many times, customers do not receive products the way it looked on the product page and sometimes, there are some missing features. This leads to disappointment among the customers and they feel being cheated.
Let’s not make fake promises. Deliver them the quality they expected or the item which they actually thought was worth purchasing. If you fail to deliver what you say, that will probably the last time you will see that customer on your website.
The same goes for your delivery time and return policies. The product should get delivered within the time mentioned. A delay in delivery can irk your customers. And it should be followed by a clear return policy. It shouldn’t be like that you have promised easy returns but the customer is facing a hard time in placing a return.
These things are important if you want to gain customer loyalty.
Related-
8 Simple Tips to Reduce Product Returns in eCommerce
5 Ways to Manage eCommerce Returns
2. Be Open to Customer Reviews
If you have not added a review section on your website just because you are afraid of some negative comments, you are never going to win the complete trust of visitors.
People have grown smart. Before buying a product from a new website, they do research on the company’s background and look out for reviews to check if it is genuine or not or see what people have to say about the Brand.
More than half of the job is done if shoppers find your Brand reliable enough to shop, then comes the product review part which helps a prospect in his/her buying decision. Reviews play a huge role here.
Be transparent about the reviews. Openly accept people’s opinions about your brand or product. There will be some good reviews and some bad reviews for sure but it will present a sign of honesty in front of your customers.
Respond to your reviews. Understand what went wrong with your customers that led to a negative remark. You should always be ready for constructive criticism.
Related: Why Product Reviews are Important in eCommerce?
3. Offer Loyalty Points on Every Purchase
Having a loyalty program for your business is one of the best ways to build customer loyalty, and it improves customer retention, simultaneously.
When you reward customers with loyalty points on a successful purchase, you basically invite them to shop from your brand again in the future. It ensures repeat purchases and keeps you ahead of your competitors who are not having any loyalty program at all.
Loyalty Programs build a personal connect between the brand and the customer and increase customer loyalty.
4. Value Your Customers
Never forget to thank or appreciate your customers. Showing a bit of gratitude not only helps you win customer trust but also develops customer loyalty.
Here’s what you can do. When a customer places an order, thank him/her for showing the trust in your brand and choosing to shop with you. Or if they have something to suggest or left a review, be it positive or negative, accept it gladly and appreciate them for leaving feedback.
Ask them if your products or services lived up to their expectations. Apologize if they faced a delay or an inconvenience with something. This shows your professionalism. It is important to value your customers to build a healthy customer relationship.
The Bottom Line
Building Customer Trust and Loyalty is not something that you can earn overnight. It will take time but your efforts to winning customer trust and loyalty would surely reflect results.
Treat your customers well. Make them feel special and most importantly, avoid using click baits to drive traffic to your website.
What are your strategies for building customer trust and loyalty?
