subject: Building Trust is What it is All About by:Shaun Edwards [print this page] Throughout my life I have had a tendency to frequent businesses - online and the usual brick and mortar types - where I felt comfortable, had a good experience and felt safe, secure and trusting in the relationship as being mutually beneficial.
As a business owner, your fortunes are made upon the successful relationships you can establish with customers who can repeat buying from you or, sometimes at best, become that all important testimonial endorsing your product and or services to others.
"Here Is A Short Story..."
Once in a not so long ago time, all a business had to do was open up a retail location offering a product or service that was enough in demand, be professional and watch as cash went ca-ching through the cash register.
Every community usually hosted several one-of-a-kind businesses that had little, if any, competition. Even large metropolitan areas had neighborhood businesses that were specialized enough to exclude a great deal of same-product competition. Sure there may be several restaurants, but they usually offered different fare so all a family had to choose for a night out was if they wanted to eat Italian, Chinese, French or other. There was usually one barber, one grocer, one butcher, etc.
That is until the supermarkets and shopping centers arrived.
But, back when people depended upon their neighborhood business, trust and familiarity normally held sway against pricing alone. You knew that your neighborhood butcher was providing you with an excellent cut of meat at the exact weight for a fair price. The trust you held in him was his ticket toward success and providing for himself and his family.
"Don't Remain Anonymous, Provide Real Contact Details"
Internet e-commerce should afford any e-tailer the opportunity to develop similar type relationships I just described. When commerce first appeared on the Net, there was a tendency to remain anonymous and, I'm sorry to say, one that exists to this day. To develop trust, you MUST include a "real" and true address and phone contact for consumers to use. Sure, you might get some conversions, but online consumers are becoming more and more sophisticated in their demands for transparent operations.
Additionally, badly designed and written websites will never build trust in a visitor. The tendency nowadays is to have flashing this and that's with audio humming in the background and pop-ups galore, well, popping up whenever a cursor hits the spot. I find them most annoying and can't wait to leave the site. Although I highly recommend a limited use of these mechanisms, the emphasis is on "limited" and not necessarily none. The obvious point is that movement and audio are excellent enhancements when used in the proper place. Once the presentation overtakes the substance, most site visitors are lost and never arrive at the point of conversion or sale.
"Don't Ever Use 'Coming Soon' For A Website"
There are a few conditions to check on your website that lead toward greater trust and these include checking the spelling and grammar. Always make sure all the links work. Yes, I see a good deal of website pages that place messages like "Coming Soon," but I always move away wondering why the site is published incomplete.
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About the author
Copyright 2009, Shaun Edwards, Advert Designer for Paper and Digital Media, www.AdSense-On-Demand.co.uk. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reprint this article on your website without alteration if you include this copyright statement and leave the hyperlinks live and in place.
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