3 Ways to Win Over Consumer Trust

A recent survey by MyBuys Inc. and consultancy The E-tailing Group found that among 1,000 consumers, 55% are willing to provide shopping preferences to trusted store owners in exchange for a better shopping experience. This survey tells us that about 1/2 of consumers are willing to invest in a better shopping experience while the other half either don’t want to spend the time to have a better experience or are concerned about giving personal information away. So what can you do as a store owner to keep customer trusting you and win new ones over?

Develop Community

Provide a place to nurture your customers that share the same product interests. Let customer ask question, give comments and help each other make decisions based on real product experiences. Unlike social networks where everyone is different with varied likes and preferences, when you go to a store with similar products everyone in the store has the same interests - use that to develop a community. Use Magento's review functionality heavily. Checkout some extensions for soliciting Q&A's and other ways for customers to engage you and others.

Promote Feedback

No one enjoys surveys. Too often, they are not very helpful or effective. Find a way to get good feedback from customers without making them feel they are giving feedback. A simple 5 star option when checking out may be a good way to begin getting feedback. On the order confirmation step ask, "How would you rate your shopping experience?" Don't make it a pop-up window. Leave an optional suggestions box under the rating; call it something like "Any suggestions to help us serve you better?" This is a genuine way of getting good positive feedback and finding out if there are some common problems. By the time most customers get your typical survey email, they've forgot their shopping experience or often look at the survey as spam. Showing customers you care about their experience goes a long way in building trust.

Secure Confidence

Everyone knows that social networks make a big chunk of their money by selling your personal info, likes and dislikes to other companies. Information is valuable. Build confidence with customers by communicating what you do or don't do with their personal information, passwords, past purchases, etc. Giving your customers an honest agreement with their information will allow trust with your site to build. Magento Enterprise has some great features that help promote security of customer information. With Magento’s Secure Payment Bridge you can assure your customers that their payment details travel through a system that is rigorously tested and certified on a yearly basis by the international governing body of credit card providers. You simply can't get much more secure than using the Magento Secure Payment Bridge.