Even before the world started dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic, there were increasing concerns about cybersecurity, data security, and data privacy. With the onset of the pandemic, the number of cyberattacks rose further, demanding better online security and secure websites.
In times like this, it’s important for businesses and websites to build trust with their customers. This will not only help you to better your business figures but also build a positive reputation around your brand. Brand value and trust are crucial when it comes to transactions. People are far more comfortable buying from a brand they trust.
This article deals with how you can build that trust around your brand. We’ll also look at practical steps that you can take to achieve this using your website.
How to build trust around your brand?
- Get your technical stuff right
It’s true that consumer trust is inherently subjective and a direct result of your success as a business. However, it’s crucial to understand that you need to get your tech basics right.
Begin with ensuring that your website is secure. Getting an SSL certificate is vital. An SSL certificate does two things. One, it increases the security of your website by encrypting data that customers give you. But more importantly, it tells the world that your website is secure.
When you get an SSL certificate for your website, the URL of your website starts with ‘HTTPS’ rather than just ‘HTTP’. The ‘S’ stands for ‘Secure’, and it tells visitors that this website can be trusted. Eg. https://www.resellerclub.com/ rather than http://www.resellerclub.com/. The former is a trusted website.
Along with that, ensure that your website doesn’t suffer too much downtime. If a website is constantly down it denotes that there’s something wrong with the business, and frequent downtimes will erode customer trust. The best way to deal with this is by partnering with a reputable web hosting provider that has a stellar track record of uptime and reliable hosting.
- Display all consumer testimonials
Social trust is crucial if you want to increase sales. People are more likely to buy from you if they know that others have bought your product or services and are happy with it. The best way to achieve this is by adding customer testimonials to your website.
Instead of generic reviews, persuade your existing customers to give you personal testaments of how they used your products and what was good about them. The advantage of having customers write out their experiences is that they won’t look fake or made-up.
People within the web industry have a set of buzzwords that they use all the time. Customers will not adhere to this jargon, and that will make those testimonials more genuine. Try to get as many reviews and testimonials and show them off on your website.
- Introduce the people behind the scenes
Websites, even those run by small businesses, want to look professional. There is merit to that argument. However, over the years, one rule of marketing and trust-building has stayed the same — the human factor is crucial. People want to know the people behind the business. They want names, photographs, and descriptions. Help them with it.
Feature employees on your website. You can have a separate ‘Meet our Employees’ section or include the information on the ‘About Us’ page. If you’re a small business with a small team, it’s even better. Tell your customers all about your employees and their quirks. Matching faces to names adds social trust and informs your customers who you really are. Even huge tech companies like Microsoft and Apple marketed Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as a brand.
- Get on social media and once you’re there, get active
Being on social media, and more importantly, being active on social media, increases your brand’s visibility. It informs your customers that you’re operational. In times of a pandemic, this is especially important.
Apart from that, you can also inform your customers of new products, discounts, offers, and so on. Everyone is on social media, and your business should be there too. In fact, you can also make it a medium through which you can provide customer support.
- Provide good customer support
One of the most common pain points that people have with a brand, irrespective of what business they do — is bad customer service. Just being good at customer service will put you way ahead of a lot of companies. Prompt, quick, and effective customer service builds trust around your brand too.
One of the ways to be good at customer service is to allow your customers to contact you through different channels. Social media is a great tool here. It’s easy for customers to reach out, and what’s more, there’s a chance that your promptness gets recognised and maybe even goes viral. It’s a rare chance, yes. But you don’t have to look too far to find examples of something like this happening.
Irrespective of whether your customer service goes viral, good customer service will definitely improve trust around your brand.
You can also rely on traditional support channels like telephone and emails. These are tried and tested methods and help customers reach you easily. You can also try out chatbots – a new revolution in customer support, that is not only affordable but also highly effective.
- Keep everyone posted
The Coronavirus pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we live our lives. There’s perhaps no aspect of our lives that it hasn’t impacted. So, if there are any changes to your business and its processes, let people know.
If you aren’t able to meet deadlines, be honest and upfront about it. Put up the reasons for the delay and all associated reasons on your website. You can use multiple modes of communication here. Email your customers the details of the issues you are facing and a tentative timeline for resolution. You can also post it on your social media handles for the more tech savvy and young customer base. People want to do more business with honest companies, even if that means that it’s slightly inconvenient. Honesty from a business increases trust.
Conclusion
Trust and brand image are subtle but crucial ways of influencing customers to do business with you. More trust will lead to better business. This is especially true in the midst of a pandemic where people are generally anxious.
As mentioned earlier, before you do anything, it’s important to ensure that you’ve got the tech aspects covered. Things like security, uptime, and speed are crucial for your website.
Partner with a reputed hosting company that can provide reliable, secure, and fast web hosting services. ResellerClub India offers secure web hosting services with state-of-the-art hardware and free SSL for a stable hosting experience. We also provide Comodo SSL plans, which you can seamlessly integrate with all our hosting plans.
With web hosting plans from ResellerClub India, you can concentrate on customer service, social media, and other avenues to build trust around your brand.
There is no ads to display, Please add some
