Before making product recommendations and triggering various marketing actions in the store, you should make sure you have set the right atmosphere.
That people are ready to buy or take the next step closer to buying.
There are things that your website should own and be visible from the first moment people enter it.
These are the basic proofs of trust and security they expect to see. Otherwise, they are likely to leave, no matter how attractive your products or offers seem to them.
So let’s talk a little bit about this topic.
We’ve selected a few tips and ideas, from the starting point, to things you need to do recurrently, so you can provide a safe and reliable shopping experience for your customers.
Contents How to provide a safe shopping experience for your customers
- Choose a secure platform
- Offers multiple payment methods on site, from processors people feel comfortable with
- Keep your policies transparent and up-to-date
- Focus on customer communication
- Test your partners before leaving your business in their hands
- Post reviews everywhere, UGC – including off-site
- Fill in contact details correctly
- Make sure you do what you promised at the time of purchase
- Don’t ask for more information than necessary, especially at first contact
1. Choose a secure platform
The first step when you have this goal is to make sure that the technical infrastructure behind your shop provides the necessary elements.
Basically, you need a secure eCommerce platform that can protect you from possible attacks while providing you with the tools to deliver a trusted customer experience.
It’s best to choose the platform that handles your SSL certificate implementation, letting you easily integrate with officially recognized payment processors. And let you easily add trust elements such as prominently displayed contact details, reviews and so on to your site.
This is the first thing you’ll we offer at unosoft.
The fact that only the team has access to the source code of the platform means more security for you. We also take care of platform maintenance, backup your recurring content and provide ready-made updates every time something new comes out.
No need to intervene manually. And you can be sure that no unknown person has access to your data or your shop admin, as long as you don’t give them your login details.
In addition, unosoft has:
- Preset integrations with +150 popular and market-validated applications and third parties.
- Preset forms so as to seek consent from those completing them, in accordance with your Privacy Policy.
- Notifications when you are about to expire SSL certificate.
- Your data is stored on secure servers, monitored 24/7in which we have already invested hundreds of thousands of euros and continue to do so.
Read also: How to create an online store and tips on marketing & SEO
2. Offer multiple payment methods on the site, from processors that people feel comfortable with
I also mentioned this a little above.
One of the main concerns when buying online is money. We want to be sure that we are paying without risk – without having our data stolen and, two, without paying for nothing.
When your website doesn’t offer proof of security in this regard, people place cash on delivery orders or don’t place orders at all. Until you earn their trust, they will be extremely stressed if the products will actually arrive in their possession, and will wait for the courier with a lot of doubt in their minds.
That’s why it’s important to be super transparent with your payment policy.
Tell your customers who you work with on the payment processing sideoffers multiple payment methods in site and give them reasons to trust you – Show them that other customers have ordered and been satisfied, because the whole process was safe and easy.
To this end, we have created GPayments in collaboration with Plati Online – an already known player in the payments market, but also other payment processors and banks in Romania.
Through GPayments you can offer your customers various payment methods on the site, at preferential fees depending on your unosoft subscription.
Read also: GPayments launch, Advanced SEO update & GoBots and other unosoft news
3. Keep your policies transparent and up-to-date
When you start working on your online store, it’s worth focusing on products, banners or various integrations.
But one of the most important actions at the beginning is to fill your pages with important content: your online store policies.
Make sure you fill in the unosoft templates with your details.
- Fill in payment policy, with specific information about the processor you work with, payment methods and other details about your shop.
- Complete delivery policy, with information about the courier company you work with, general delivery time, delivery methods to choose from, etc.
- Pay attention to the page Terms and conditions and fill in the template provided by unosoft with information specific to your shop.
- Complete about us page with information about the company to provide credibility and show customers that there is someone, human, behind the shop, with whom they can interact directly when they need it.
- Complete page how to buy, with the possibilities available to make a purchase from you. Usually it’s online orders and phone orders.
- Complete return policy, link it to the return form and give customers all the information they need to know if they need to make a return in your store.
- It doesn’t hurt to have a FAQ page with various “What if…” scenarios, to reassure customers before they buy that there are solutions for any situation they face.
4. Emphasize communication with customers
A proof that automatically responds to your customers’ need for security is triggering or activating the live chat box on your website.
It’s enough to see that there’s someone online behind the shop, even if the live chat doesn’t automatically trigger with a general support question.
Just being able to interact with someone in real time tells them that the store is for real and they can order without fear of doing it for nothing.
That’s why we recommend to use a live chat system suitable for your shop and to highlight on your website the possibility to be contacted in real time by customers.
In unosoft you have multiple integrations that you can use with different providers of such systems.
5. Test your partners before leaving your business in their hands
In order to provide a safe and reliable shopping experience for your customers, you must first trust the partners you let work for your website.
I’m talking about both the people you hire who have direct access to your site (including if you outsource), and your business partners: payment processors, courier companies, efulfillment platforms, etc.
There are cases of ill will, but here I’m referring more to the brand and trust your partners convey.
You’ve probably heard of the halo effect – what your business partners do can reflect on you.
When you work with partners who are already household names, have already earned the public’s trust and are top of mind when it comes to their choices, automatically they will trust you too.
On the contrary, when partners create difficult situations for customers, your store may be ignored or blamed, based on their reputation.
Be careful how you choose your partners: do your research beforehand, go through a trial period together, and be constantly aware of your audience’s reactions.
6. Post reviews everywhere, UGC – including off-site
People trust people and situations they can relate to.
So reviews and content from your satisfied customers will work great as proof of safety for your website.
Depending on the words chosen or the type of situation exemplified by the content received from the customer, these proofs cover multiple types of pre-purchase objections (related to the size of the product, for example, how it can be used, or the results it can deliver).
If you’re just starting out, you probably haven’t had the opportunity to get natural reviews from your customers yet.
You can, however, ask a friend or someone you know to test your products and tell you what they think of them, either as a written review, pictures of them in use or a video, for example.
Also implement a automation on email after each orderto ask for reviews of recently purchased products. Of course, you can also offer a discount code as a reward, without making the reward conditional on leaving a review (not legal).
Over time, you’ll gather more and more such evidence.
Display them on your website on all pages (including checkout), and use them for marketing, in advertisements, organic posts, emails, etc.
Read also: Learn to generate strong testimonials – Get reviews from your customers
7. Fill in your contact details correctly
The most drastic inhibitor of the buying decision is the lack of company identification and contact details. People look for this information, especially when they make a first order on an unknown website.
If they are missing or filled in in a vague way – the contact phone number is 1234567890, for example – it’s a bad sign.
So this is a crucial step when building your store.
Fill in your contact details and identification correctly, and reassure your customers that the store is secure, exists for real and they can talk to someone in the back to solve their problems.
8. Make sure you do what you promised at the time of purchase
After the customer has completed the order, send them an email confirming that you have received their request. For example, in unosoft this happens automatically with every order – the platform triggers the autoresponder when a new order is registered.
But be careful to do what you said you did in your confirmation email.
Have you notified the customer that they are to be contacted by an operator to confirm the order? Then make sure they will be called by you or one of your colleagues.
Otherwise, you have a good chance that your package will be refused when the customer receives a message from the courier. Either he won’t know what the package is or he’ll be afraid to pay for a box of rocks.
Always keep in mind what you promise to do when you receive an order.
Contact the customer, if you have promised to do so, tell them if there is a possibility of a delay in delivery or let them know if the delivery period will be extended because the product ordered is not yet in stock.
Transparency in communication can get you far.
9. Don’t ask for more information than necessary, especially at first contact
This point refers especially to the wording part. There are automatically data that cannot be requested, legally, through forms. Such as the CNP, for example.
However, the presence of too many fields to fill in can also arouse suspicion on the part of customers. They may wonder, for example, why you are interested in their date of birth. Or why you are interested in their monthly budget.
When first contacting a potential customer, avoid asking for too much information. This first contact can take the form of a popup to fill in, for example. Instead, aim to cultivate a pattern of communication with the customer, gain their trust, and only then start asking for more advanced data.
If you absolutely need certain dates such as date of birth, for example, make sure you give a good explanation of why you are doing this.
Otherwise, your form will not give you the results you want, because it is simply not filled in enough.
Read also: How to manage orders and deliveries in your online shop
The easiest exercise you can do is to put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
Which is relatively easy, especially since you are, in turn, someone’s customer. Think about what evidence of safety you are looking for in a website before you buy from it.
In addition to the tips and things mentioned today, keep in mind what you personally look for when you are a buyer.
In this way, you will be able to provide a pleasant and comfortable experience for your customers.
Make sure you also use the right technical infrastructure to make your work easier.
At unosoft you have monthly subscriptions starting at 7 euros, 15-day free trial period and features built into the platform to customize the customer experience simply and securely.
