Lesson 8: Generate trust
When selling, it’s important to establish trust and authority with your customers. You want to help customers feel safe when purchasing your products. Likely, this is something you can relate to. Not many customers (ourselves included!) are excited to buy from a company that isn’t trustworthy, reliable, or not an expert in what they’re offering.
You can establish trust by using specific tools and content on your website or by customers sharing their experience.
PRO-TIP
Once your store is live, consider adding the following features to help build trust and credibility with customers:
- Product reviews from real customers (You check out this video to learn how to enable reviews on your website!)
- FAQ page to answer questions around shipping, refunds, security, etc
- Branded contact email, contact page, or automated live chat for customer support
- Active and conversational social media accounts
- Protect your customers’ information with site security
Excellent customer service will keep customers coming back when they need you
How you handle situations that go wrong (or that go right!) for your customer will determine if and how much trust you can generate with them and future customers.
Speaking specifically of mishaps, it’s not a matter of if but when. There will inevitably be an exchange, refund, error in shipping, or some other issue, and it’s essential to have a customer support model in place. Let’s watch the following video to learn more about the value of customer service.
Don’t be afraid to follow-up with your customers after they’ve purchased to ask them if they could rate and review the product. Following up with customers at every stage of the purchase cycle is a good idea; which we’ll learn more about in our next lesson: maximizing your sales.