Building Customer Confidence on the Web

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Web Marketing Today, Issue 28, January 27, 1997

---

One of the Internet's greatest attractions, anonymity as you go tripping around the world, is also one of its chief weakness. People may browse your Web pages, but when it comes to doing business, to plunking down hard cash (or plastic, as the case may be), do they really know you? Do they trust you?

As you design or redesign your Web site, you can do a lot to engender customer trust and confidence by following several simple guidelines.

1. Your place in time and space

First, let people know who you are in time and space. Last week we were fine-tuning a Web site which specializes in sales of high quality kitchen and bath fixtures. Products cost several hundred dollars apiece, and are worth every penny. But how do you create enough trust to get people to make those kinds of purchases?

I asked one of the partners of about putting his picture on the Web site. He demurred, and I can understand why. I'm not the handsome, dashing person I would like to be, and so for a long time I hesitated to use a photo of myself. But in September I began including a photo on my Web site for one reason: to help people see me as a real person to whom they can relate. In my case, at least, the photo isn't there for vanity but for business. A photo of my client's physical store location in New York City might have had the same effect. What we settled on was a description of the store and its location on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Now to the Web viewer, the business is no longer a cyber phantom, it is a real, live trustworthy business. If your business is large enough to have a national brand identity, your corporate logo can conjure up similar feelings of confidence.

Many Web sites feature an "About the Company" page to share a vision, a history, a philosophy, a particular business focus, and in so doing give Web visitors a way to think about them, to understand them, and ultimately to trust them.

2. A Way of Speaking

You've read corporate materials that were pompous and impersonal. If yours are like that rewrite them. One of the characteristics of the Internet is the casual way language is used. When you write with self-importance people click elsewhere. I don't quite understand how the Internet's chattiness fits with its anonymity, but somehow both are part of the medium. When you write in a personal, chatty fashion people relax, and you bridge the distances between you.

Perhaps your corporation can't speak in a chatty manner, but your Vice President of Sales can, and you could even show her picture. As an alternative, your Web site can be a little zany, a little laid back. Iomega, for example, builds its site around a trademarked phrase, "Because it's your stuff." Their site directory leads to zip stuff, ditto stuff, support stuff, company stuff, e-mail stuff. Why? Because humor has a way of breaking down barriers of stuffiness (pun intended) and building bridges of trust.

Bottom line: if you keep people at arm's length, don't expect them to get close enough to hand you their money.

3. Testimonials

A third way to build confidence is to quote what others say about you. You've seen on-the-street interviews with background noise, casually-dressed subjects, slightly shaky camera -- and paid actors. But they work. They are believable. And on the Internet they are the cyber extension of word-of-mouth advertising. People will trust you if they find that others trust you.

Why don't you ask ten of your best customers to write five-sentence testimonials in their own words which you could use on the Web. Testimonials tie your credibility to reality, to real people who live in real cities. If your site has been mentioned in reviews or received awards, quote the reviews, show the award symbols. What is a Better Business Bureau logo if not a testimonial? If an institution or person your Web visitors know trusts you, they're likely to trust you as well.

4. Free services

A fourth way to build customer confidence is to offer free products, services, or information. Recently I ran across Dr. HTML, a Web site which will check the syntax and links on one of your Web pages for free. I tried it and received a report showing me some outdated links. They also offer to analyze an entire Web site for a fee. They attract me by means of a free service, and when I've tried that with success, I'm more ready to pay for an extension of that service.

Web Week reported that since last July, people have downloaded 118 gigabytes of free software from Sun Microsystems' site. Sun gives away Java, but gains customer confidence and goodwill. Nothing is free, especially confidence. It must be earned.

Do you offer a free customer service section to your Web site, with questions and answers designed especially for people who are already your customers? When you do this, you build confidence. Do you offer free, high quality information, perhaps a newsletter? When people receive helpful ideas from you over a period of time, they can't help but trust you.

5. Security

Next, you need to help people feel safe in your Web site. Do you force visitors to disclose their name and e-mail address in exchange for free information? You gain something, but you'll turn many away. People are appropriately hesitant to give out personal information. For example, if someone asks your income on a questionnaire, do you answer? It's none of their business! Put people at ease. Promise not to sell their address for commercial purposes, and then keep your promise.

Do you know why companies you've never heard of send out more and more unsolicited e-mail? Because spamming brings immediate new business. But it doesn't build the reputation for courtesy, respect, and customer focus that you need for the long term. People need to feel they can trust you to respect their privacy. It's a difference in philosophy between mass marketing and person-to-person marketing. While this may sound strange to some, I believe the Internet marketplace is better developed via personal marketing than mass broadcast approaches.

If you ask for credit information, offer an SSL Secure Server to protect your customer's confidential financial information. And then go the next step and protect or encrypt that same information as it is e-mailed from the Web server to the store-owner's desktop computer. If people feel confident in doing business with you, you'll find that you'll get more and more orders.

6. Honesty

Perhaps the most important way to build trust is to be honest. Honest in your advertising, honest in your products, honest in your dealings. Reputations have a way of spreading rapidly on the Web through news groups and mailing lists, and your reputation for fair dealing will go before you. The Bible says, "As you sow, so shall you reap," and that is as true in business as it is in spiritual matters.

You can build customer confidence and gradually build a thriving Web business. Just like any business, of course, you need a longer perspective. Most businesses don't start making a profit for many months. But persistent, relentless, fast-on-your-feet marketing, a don't-quit attitude, and an honest way of presenting yourself that respects the medium of the Internet will result in the customer confidence you need for success on the Web.