Why Should I Trust You?

This is a question your web site visitor will quickly ask, particularly when considering a purchase at your site.

Why should I believe you? How do I know you are telling the truth?

These are hard questions. They require prompt, honest and sincere answers.

How do you calm your web site visitor's jittery nerves and put their troubled mind at ease? On a medium so impersonal as the internet - where fly-by-nighters and quick-scam-artists flock by the hundreds.

How do they know you're for real and don't fit into one of these categories?

It's not easy. Consider first how sales people do it in "the real world".

How does a sales person at the local department store build confidence and trust?

Insurance people often do it by "chit-chatting", getting to know the contact better - asking important getting-to-know-you-better questions - about your occupation, your family, etc.

They try first to set a comfortable tone. They don't jump right in and start talking about insurance the minute you first meet (at least the good ones don't).

You just feel better dealing with someone you feel you know - and someone who cares about you.

Of course, on the internet this is tough to do. You can not talk face to face (as of yet - for the most part).

Here are some ways to help refine your image and give your web site visitor a degree of confidence - simple ideas to begin this process - of building trust.

1. Respond to email promptly (within 48 hours if possible). It's amazing how many webmasters delay answering important email. By setting aside important email and answering days or weeks later, the contact is left to feel unimportant - that you're out there just to make the sale. Questions and comments seem unimportant to you.
   Even using an autoresponder to acknowledge that you've received the contact's email can help! At least they now knows that somebody is there and is interested in what they have to say or in their questions. It leaves hope that a more personal response is forthcoming.
2. Include a picture and ALL of your contact information - name, address, phone number. Also, tell about yourself or at least about the business.
3. Offer testimonials and/or comments from others you have done business with - with actual email addresses where these people can be reached. (Of course, ask for permission before posting these on your site.) This gives credible proof and shows that others have had successful dealings with you and your business.
4. And finally, remember the common courtesies - "Thank you!", "You're very welcome!", "Happy to help!", "Let me know if there's anything else I can do to be of further assistance?"
   
   Thanking, encouraging, trying to be helpful - these are all traits that develop a sense of trustworthiness. Make sure they're a part of your business vocabulary!

It's the simple things that people remember. It's what's so often missing in the rush-rush-hurry-hurry world in which we live - where many simply don't take the time . . .

It's the few who do take the time that we remember the most! (And that we want to do business with!