How to Build Trust With Your Customers

How to build trust with your customers?

It isn’t easy for customers to stick with a brand for long, making it difficult for brands to build a trustworthy and long lasting relationship with customers. They end up shifting from one brand to another searching for an overall amazing experience.

Product quality, security and data privacy, customer service experience, transparency of information and other factors like them easily influence customers to place or misplace their trust in you.

That’s why it is important to understand how to build trust with your customers in this changing day and age. In case you’re searching for something similar, then we’re here to help you out. In this blog, we’ll explore why customer trust is important for brand loyalty and how you can build trust with your customers in the first place. Let’s dive in.

Why is Customer Trust Important for Brand Loyalty

Customers who trust your brand also exhibit loyal behavior.

According to a study, 8 in 10 US consumers (82%) and three-quarters (75%) of global respondents say they will continue to buy from a brand they trust, even if another brand suddenly becomes hot and trendy. Consumers will also advocate on the brand’s behalf, with a large majority (76% globally, 78% US) saying they always recommend the brand if someone asks.

To make a long story short, trust is clearly tied to loyalty.

62% of customers say that they are loyal to brands they can trust. And such loyal customers readily defend your brand’s reputation in the market, turn up to you with a purchase decision and help you maintain your profits.

Such customer loyalty benefits help you understand why customer trust is important for businesses to work on.

9 Effective Ways to Build Trust With Your Customers

Now that we know why building trust with customers is important, it is time we try to learn ways that help you gain it. In this section, you will learn how you can build customer trust for your business with our surefire tips.

1. Increase Your Customer Service Efforts to Gain Customer Trust

Customers have become sensitive towards their service experience.

89% of customers move on to a competitor after facing poor customer service experience from a brand.

That’s why your first step towards building customer trust is to improve your customer service and increase efforts in this direction to offer support at every stage.

For this, you need to identify their growing customer service expectations from your brand (or those in general).

Some of the common customer service expectations include:

• Receiving the product or service as promised
• Avoiding contact with multiple operators to get an issue resolved
• Connecting with knowledgeable employees who answer their questions better
• Getting the option to connect with you via their preferred channel

And let’s not forget that one customer service expectation which can help your brand build trust among customers – personalized conversations along with instant support.

We know that juggling both personalized conversations and instant support sounds a little unfair. But who says it’s impossible. All you need is the right set of tools to help you improve your customer service experience efficiently.

For example, the use of live chat support software can help you manage both these elements successfully.

It can help your operators personalize conversations with customers as it offers them a glimpse of customer’s browsing behavior through features like visitor monitoring. And in case you’re already having a conversation with them, then operators can see what the visitor is typing next and work towards an answer promptly.

To further enhance your customer service, live chat helps you:

• Become more proactive with features such as chat greetings and announcements
• Direct visitors to the right department for instant resolution
• Foresee the needs of returning customers by giving you access to chat history and transcripts

The list can go on. However, you need to understand that using live chat for customer service can help you build trust among your customers. The use of this tool will allow you to approach people not with a selling intention, but to help them resolve their doubts that enable them to make an informed decision.

2. Make Use of Testimonials & Reviews to Level-up Customer Trust 

Before making a purchase decision, your customers will look online to see what others are saying about you.

Research suggests that 85% consumers read up to 10 reviews before they trust a business. More importantly, the same research states that 88% of customers trust reviews online as much as personal recommendations.

This is where you can leverage the power of testimonials for your business. You can ask for customer testimonials and place them on your website pages. That will help you work on how to gain customer trust.

Besides that, you can give video testimonials a try. Videos are one of the most compelling marketing tools today and it takes mere minutes for customers to record and send in a testimonial. You can add them as successful stories on your website for visitors to see. Once added, these customer testimonial videos will help your business increase conversions by as much as 86%.

In addition to this, make sure to include product reviews that help you drive the final nail in the coffin. Hey don’t worry, we mean that these reviews will guide your customers towards the right purchase decision.

3. Increase Website & Transaction Security to Earn Customer Trust

One of the main reasons why customers distrust your business is because they don’t feel safe. Whether it’s browsing or making a purchase, customers are more likely to leave your website if they feel their security is threatened. Luckily, there’s a solution to this problem.

You can start building trust with customers by getting your website an SSL certificate. It will help them know that their browsing experience is safe and they’ll be able to explore your offerings efficiently. But that’s just the first step towards building customer trust. For eCommerce or businesses with multiple subdomains, you can go with a wildcard SSL certificate as a budget friendly solution. The certificate safely protects unlimited subdomains under a main domain.

You should also include secure payment methods, such as PayPal, credit card options, Stripe, or others to show that making an online transaction with you is the real deal. Once you have these running on your site, make sure to add their trust badges. According to research, 60% of customers refuse to make a purchase because there are no trust badges present on a company’s website.

4. Aim for Data Transparency for Building Trust With Customers

Customers are likely to trust those businesses that aren’t afraid to disclose information. After all, who would spend money with a company that comes across as suspicious? Research suggests that as much as 94% of consumers are likely to be loyal to those brands that showcase transparency, while 74% of them would spend more with a business that is transparent in their presence. That too answers the why build customer trust question here.

According to CEO of Buffer, Joel Gascoigne, there are four main benefits for a company to be transparent:

• Trust
• Innovation
• Greater justice
• More feedback

The team at Buffer is quite transparent in its practices which is one of the reasons for their success. On their transparency page, you can see sensitive company information, such as equity, salaries, revenue, fundraising, product map and basically everything that other companies are desperately trying to avoid. By releasing this data, they are both increasing their consumer trust and successfully building their employer brand.

5. Create a Help-center to Address Common Concerns Faster

Answer a lot of questions and help your customers find a solution faster by creating an in-depth self-service portal on your website. That’s yet another way to establish a trust relationship with customers.

77% of customers use a self-service portal on a website to find a solution before approaching a brand for support.

With a repository of FAQ answers, you help your customers/target audience get familiar with your brand and the product or service you deal in.

For example, at ProProfs we offer a detailed help-center for each of our products. This not only helps our customers learn more about the features we offer but also how they can use the product better to yield expected results. Such efforts result in building trust with clients and get comfortable with the idea of purchasing from you.

6. Give Away Free Product Samples to Build Customer Loyalty

If questions like ‘how to build trust with customers’ are still hovering your mind, then try this strategy out.

One strategy that is sure to help your business gain customers’ trust in the future is free giveaways.

If anything, customers love when they get free samples or subscriptions (limited time period offer). Your business gets free promotion or word-of-mouth publicity and helps you improve your relationship with customers that results in better sales.

In fact, brands like Innisfree have captured a lot of customers and gained their trust by offering considerable amounts of samples to customers. This not only helps them try new products but also understand if it suits their skin or not.

7. Cultivate a Strong Social Presence to Maintain Customer Trust

A lot of your customers use their social platforms to reach out to your brand in case they have doubts or complaints. However, it is easy to miss out on them if you don’t have a strong social presence. And by social presence we do not mean that you simply create brand pages, get followers on them and just post what’s new with you.

You need to keep your social accounts open for customers who like to take their problems on social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook or even Instagram these days.

Brands like Starbucks use their social media presence to interact with customers in the most unique way possible and even encourage them to drop by their store.

However, these are not the only conversations they like to have with their customers when using social platforms. They even reply to customers who have concerns or miss out on something they launch.

What’s more, they make sure that their tone is friendly and empathetic at the same time that encourages their customers to interact with them and share their experiences with the brand more frequently. That’s because they trust the brand is listening to what they have to say.

8. Always Share Best Practices With Customer to Engage & Earn Trust

You can also create and share best practices with your customers regularly.

Best practices aren’t just about how to use your product in the best way possible, but to discuss all the possible ways in which the customers can use it and make the most out of it.

By sharing these practices, you let your customers know that you are concerned about whether or not they get to use the product at its full potential. This helps them build trust towards your brand and keep coming back for more.

9. Offer Excellent Return Policy to Build Customer Trust

Have you ever wondered what would a great return policy mean for your business?

Well, there are a lot of potential customers standing at one side of the fence thinking “what if I purchased the product and didn’t like it?” or “will the brand be flexible enough to take returns if I wasn’t happy with the product?”

Honestly, these are some thoughts your customers might have in case they aren’t assured that your products meet their expectations. Such doubts will leave you with both increased bounce rate and stagnant sales for your business.

The question is, what can you do about it?

Well, we’d suggest you to work on a solid return policy that benefits your customers and your business at the same time. Return policies instill the feeling of trust in your customers about your brand that ‘it’s okay to give the brand a try’ and in case it doesn’t match their expectations then they always have the option to return the product. It’s one way to build a relationship with customers. And remember, building relationships with customers is the key to earning their trust.

At the same time, make sure that you have certain clauses that help you avoid getting damaged or used products at the same time.

Cultivate Customer Trust & Grow Your Business

In an age where companies register a drop in consumer trust every year, it becomes all the more crucial for you to win it back to survive in a competitive market. You can start with the recruitment of a strong customer success team, enforce testimonials on your website focus on security and transparency to cultivate trust among your customers.

Besides that, you can also incorporate communication channels like live chat that help you reach out to customers when they need it the most. Live chat solutions like ProProfs Chat help you understand your customers better and initiate a conversation in times when it’s visible that they are in need of support.

Also, you need to make it a habit to share the best practices with your customers on a regular basis. It’ll create a relationship of trust where your customers know that you aren’t just trying to sell them but also help them make their work simpler with best practices too.

In case you have more strategies in mind that’ll help others learn how to build trust with customers, then don’t shy away to share them with us in the comments section below.

Let’s take a look at some of the frequently asked questions that will further help you build trust among your customers.

Is operational transparency conducive for my business to build customer trust?

Yes, you need to first establish transparency among your employees and let them know how the brand is performing. Doing so will boost their confidence and increase their efficiency to add more efforts to build the same trust among customers.

Can my startup benefit from the above mentioned ways to gain customer trust?

No doubt, these are some of the proven ways that even a startup can implement to increase customer’s trust in their brand. However, they can also work upon providing informational content that prompts people to know the intent of the startup. Besides, the more vocal you are the better. Try engaging in two way communication.

Does live chat support help my operators boost trust among customers?

Certainly, it does. To help your customers find solutions to their problems in real-time, is the perfect way for your brand to boost trust. And, that’s one of the crucial reasons why having a live chat is important for your brand.

What other forms of platform can my brand use besides live chat to provide instant help?

Besides a live chat for customer service, you can also use a knowledge base to provide instant support. All you have to do is create self-help articles for frequently asked questions. Once done, you can create a help section at your website that becomes a repository for self-help articles.

Which media do global consumers trust the most?

WOM or word-of-mouth publicity is the most reliable form for customers to trust a brand. And after that, according to Nielsen Global Trust In Advertising report, branded sites and social media platforms rank second and third respectively.