Sharon's Marketing Monthly      

Insightful ideas for maximizing your message

Build trust to build relationships

People buy from people and companies they trust. Therefore trust equals competitive edge. That's a no brainer. And that's why customer relationships are so important.

Building trust is a challenge, especially online. Trust does not just magically develop between you and your customers. You have to earn it. And before you can start earning it, you've got to put your best foot forward to even get that foot into the relationship door.

Make sure it's your best foot

The good news is, there are simple, common-sense things you can do on your Web site to appear trustworthy from the outset so a potential customer will take a chance on you:

  • Be upfront with information like privacy policies, pricing and security
  • Make your contact information easy to find, especially for customer service
  • Provide more than one way to contact your company (phone and email and snail mail)
  • Offer plenty of information. They won't necessarily read it, but it's reassuring to know that you're willing to publicly post it
  • Make buying from you convenient

Above all--and this applies both online and off--build trust by being reliable, ethical and on time, and by delivering more than you promise. Or at least what you promise.

Don't destroy trust before you've earned it

The bad news is, people are also more wary online. So don't violate their trust in you before you've earned it. It's easier to turn off a hot prospect than you think...

Consider this: While surfing an international company's Web site, I decided to subscribe to their newsletter. They violated my first rule of trust by requiring my birth date and gender in order to subscribe. (It's not that you can't ask for this information, but it shouldn't be required this early in the relationship.) Yet I wanted the newsletter enough that I did give them those tidbits, although reluctantly. What happened next, however, was too much: I unchecked the box that gave them permission to make use of my personal data and the site would not let me subscribe without checking that box.

So as much as I wanted to get the newsletter in order to get more familiar with their products (and possibly buy them), I didn't subscribe after all. I don't have that level of trust with them. If they were to wait until I had been a subscriber for a while, and then made me a special offer in return for both the personal information and the permission to use it, I probably would have done it. But the way they are going about it is like being asked for a kiss not at the end of a first date but at the start of it!

Build trust and therefore relationships with your customers, but wait until it's appropriate to ask for that kiss or you'll undo all your other hard work.

Until next month!

This month's challenge

Take a quick look at your online forms and make sure you're not asking for too much too early in your relationship. If you do ask for more than the basics, can you make it optional? Or can you include a sentence that explains how, by providing that information, the prospect can get better, more targeted information from you?

And now it's your turn

What's the best way for a company to earn your trust? Email me your thoughts, and the best idea gets published next month.

And if you like what you read and know someone else who could use some monthly marketing insight, forward this to a friend!

December 2004

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