Business Benefits
Earn the trust of your customers by showing that your ecommerce website is credible and secure.
Display your contact information on every page on your website’s header and footer to make it easy for potential buyers to get in touch.
Having your contact information readily available shows visitors that there are real people available to answer their questions—increasing your website’s legitimacy. For example, Swanson Vitamins has a simple Help/Support button in their header that, when hovered over, displays phone numbers that visitors can call or text.
Design your website so that visitors can easily contact you no matter what device they use.
For example, when shoppers visit Swanson on their mobile device, contact information displays in the main menu. Additionally, the phone numbers are linked so that visitors can conveniently tap to call or tap to text.
Swanson also includes a live chat at the bottom of the page, so visitors have the option to get in touch instantly.
Use live and video chat on pages customers visit when they have an issue, like the returns page or a shipping FAQ page, to engage with them on a more personal level.
- Limit who runs the chat to the people on your team with the most knowledge about your products and policies.
- You can use LiveChat service to give your team additional information about customers, such as the origin of their visit, the page they are actively looking at, and how much time they have spent on the page. This extra context can give your support team a better understanding of how to assist the customer.
For example, Lululemon launched a free video chat program where customers can get product recommendations, fit and size help, and holiday gift ideas. Lululemon’s customers can book a 15- or 30-minute appointment over FaceTime or Zoom, and even see the bios of personal shoppers who will assist them during their appointment.
Use Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to support and update your customers and engage with them in a fun and positive way.
For example, Crate and Barrel supports customers who have reported issues on Twitter, explaining how to get further assistance. They sign the tweet off with the name of the author to build trust by showing that a real person is reaching out.
Use HTTPS and purchase an SSL certificate from a vendor like The SSL Store to show that customer data is safely encrypted.
- The user’s browser window will display a padlock icon, signaling that your site is safe to use.
- Update your software if you are using platforms like WordPress or Magento to reduce susceptibility to hacks.
- Invest in a vulnerability scanning service to identify technical weaknesses in your code if your site is completely custom.
Display visual trust indicators such as badges, seals, certifications, to show that your site is secure.
TrustedSite has a suite of certifications that address a range of visitor concerns, from business legitimacy to data protection to identity theft. For example, Holabird Sports tested some of these last holiday season and saw a 16% overall conversion increase, 22% conversion increase with new visitors, and 21.3% revenue increase.
- You can also use logos from third-party organizations to show that an outside source has verified the security and legitimacy of your site.
- Place a security badge as close as possible to the credit card fields. Limit the number of trust badges in the checkout to no more than three.
- Use trust badges that are SVG images so that they are resized when viewed on different devices without losing image quality.
- Link your badges back to the provider’s site to prove that you have obtained a legitimate certification.
Email customers to ask for a review after they have made a purchase and had time to evaluate the product.
Experiment to find the optimal number of days to wait before soliciting a review. For example, American Eagle has a reviews program that gives shoppers detailed product insights. When collecting reviews, they ask customers to rate the item overall, describe the fit, share the size of the item they ordered, and list their height and weight. This allows new customers to better gauge the fit of the item by seeing what customers of a similar body type said.
Prompt customers with other questions to extract additional details. For example, Target asks, “What did you like or dislike?” to prompt customers to write a review.
Turn negative reviews into an opportunity to showcase your excellent customer service and alleviate pre-purchase anxiety.
Don’t hide negative feedback because it will make your site seem less trustworthy. Negative reviews actually add credibility to the positive ones.
Use ecommerce review services like Baazarvoice and Yotpo to collect details about your products from customers.
Baazarvoice and Yotpo are services that have a product recommendation engine to showcase top-rated items.ResellerRatings builds your star ratings into Google search results, helping you bring in more traffic that already understands you have earned the trust of previous customers.
Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T11:10:38Z