By gaining trust, I mean gaining the confidence of your shoppers so that they buy from your online store without any apprehension. One of the nicest ways through which online retailers (especially pure online retailers – with and without inventory) can gain trust is to “HUMANIZE THE ONLINE STORE”.
So, what exactly is humanizing an online store?
It simply means making your online store more humane by adding extra features on your website to ensure that your prospective online shoppers believe that you are a real business and/or person to deal with and not an automated machine or a piece of junk software.
There are a few strategies that can help you humanize your ecommerce store, which in turn would help you gain trust and build a huge & loyal customer base.
Chat Live: I am sure you know what live chat means. Well, adding a LIVE CHAT button on your website is a technique for telling people that their queries will be immediately answered by the appointed customer support representatives. More often, live chats are text based but you can make it more effective if an additional feature like web camera is installed at your CSR’s desk, so that online shoppers can actually see the person who is answering their query.
Different Live Chat Buttons & Windows...
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Speak Live: Providing a facility for your online shoppers to speak to you or your associates is one of the best ways to humanize online business. You can have toll-free numbers/contact numbers displayed on your site or call back forms or click to call functionality, whichever is more convenient for you.
CSR icon from http://www.safeandvaultstore.com
CSR icon from http://www.safeandvaultstore.com
Act Live: Videos of product reviews, demos, and so on from your product expert would also add value. Check some of the reviews and demos from top online retailers like zappos, onlineshoes.com, etc…
Email Live: Another feature that can help is email forms and email ids provided on your website. It allows people to email instantly to reach you if they have any queries.
Answer Live: Online shoppers are always on the quest for product information, so they ask questions on forums, visit review sites and other authentic sources. Making your staff/product experts available at these places for answering these queries will help shoppers gain trust.
Be Social: Bringing your online store to the social environment contributes a lot towards humanizing your store. There is not just one but several tools that can increase your visibility in the social media space like twittering, blogging, etc which has becoming more and more common among the online retailers.
Blow your own trumpet: Talk about yourself (your company, products, and services) through different mediums like text, voice, and video highlighting why someone should buy from you. Take a look at the video from an online retailer called “Sweet Services”. I think this video is a little amateurish, yet natural.
13 comments:
Nice to get an expert’s point of view here. The information presented is inspiring because it puts what can be a complicated subject within reach of newbies and the experienced alike. The field needs more people like yourself that can write and teach. seo company
Great post. I would also add that stores should also make their "About Us" page unique and tell a story. Shoppers like to identify with a story. Also another way to show trust is to show you are transparent with information about your own business. You can do that by using our service which is at http://www.kikscore.com/ that allows sellers to demonstrate to shoppers that the store can be trusted by showing 1) publicly available information about the small business; 2) information about customer service, privacy and return policies; and 3) information about the company's location, company management and certification and rewards. Please check us out.
Humanizing your ecommerce business is so incredibly important in todays online environment. It always amazes me how impersonal most carts are.
I agree with you about adding call support in some cases. However, I always teach my clients that if you hate answering the phone, don't do it. A lot of people start ecommerce sites so they don't have to deal with customers directly. So if it doesn't fit their personality it can be disastrous unless they can dish out the money to sub this out, which can also backfire if you're not careful.
Personally, I choose to have extremely detailed yet simple FAQ pages and an email only support system. We still monitor email extremely close and all are answered within a very short amount of time. The beauty of email is that I can sub this out and not worry about where my virtual assistants are from or the time of day when emails come in. I can literally offer 24 hour support.
I agree with you what you said in order to gain the customer trust e-commerce plays an important role in online shopping store. Providing the facility of live chat its increases customer trust on us.
Great article, too often retailers forget that a when selling online, a great looking website isn't enough to guarantee sales. Buyers want to be able to connect to a retailer via email or some other means and have their questions, comments and concerns addressed.
If you can successfully reduce a buyer's cognitive dissonance, not only will they be more secure in their decision to buy from you, but they're also more likely to turn into a repeat buyer as you've established yourself as a trustworthy business.
I like that you think. Thank you for share very much.
Yes, social media has become an important tool in humanizing your ecommerce business. See this article at The GateWayBlog.com http://bit.ly/aZpiBd
To gain the trust of the online shoppers you as an E commerce company can identify the needs of your customer and then make your business statement and recognize your business as a Safe Business website. And make publicity of it for the trust from Customer side.
eCommerce will certainly gain momentum and eventually explode. Because it takes a salesman out of the shopping experience, we agree that it is truly important to humanize your brand:
http://www.springbox.com/insight/post/Guiding-A-Brand-Into-The-Social-Commerce-Frontier.aspx
I'm not sure how much the average shopper understands what livechat actually is, where we have implemented it on our group sites its been little used. If we try to implement a chat, that usually shares the shopper off the site. Unless we're doing something wrong of course.
I understand that these techniques give product and shipping info to customers, but will it bring trust ? The only thing that will bring trust is their user ratings,feel like home customer service and competitive pricing..
These so called mind-boggling are most common features available in most merchant websites :)
Very good points. To gain the confidence of customers is really important. Otherwise you cannot get success in the world of internet. Thank you for your good post
I am not sure if adding a web cam may help to an online shop. No everybody have hability to speak in public and human errors could come alone.
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