How to Keep Them: Building Trust in Your Customer Base

As brick-and-mortar stores continue to collapse into bankruptcy, leaving blighted, empty buildings, there is a lesson to be learned from each.

Their customers trusted them.

Big-time retailers Kmart and Sears, now jointly owned, still has loyal fans who are eagerly following the roller coaster ride of their dismal-yet-uncertain fate.

If you are an ecommerce vendor, it’s imperative that you study and reflect on the way these conventional stores captured trust and converted it into continuing revenues. Mirroring their marketing tactics, which usually include special sales, coupons, and notable customer service policies, can set you up to become an internet fave – if you play your cards right.

In the ecommerce universe, that means generating “micro-conversions,” or turning initial signs of interest into an established consumer relationship.
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Focus first on these obvious, easily implemented strategies:

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• Gather email addresses and cell phone numbers and communicate with potential and existing customers through emails and text messages. Lose the idea that it’s intrusive, remembering that texting is quickly becoming the primary method of communication among millennials.
  
  
• Offer official accounts. This is big. It solidifies a permanent relationship with customers, resulting in a more seamless purchasing process for them and steady access for you.
  
  
• Create carts. Ask ecommerce giants Amazon and eBay how they manage to convert interest into sales by allowing customers to “hold” purchases in a “save-for-later” space. This reminds them every time they visit your site that there is something they’ve been eying. It also allows you to entice them with targeted incentives such as discounts and two-for-one purchases.
  
  
• Get social. Skipping the social media world at this point is a disastrous business practice. Having a presence on the various platforms is free, and with the ability to embed linked icons to your site, it’s the best kind of no-cost advertising around.
  
  
• Make it simple. Let customers reach you in a more personal manner than offering an email address. A customized contact form generates trust through a sense of interest and security. But if you set it up, follow it. Failing to respond to these inquiries sends exactly the wrong signal.

 
Besides those pro-active steps, avoiding pitfalls through preventive actions is equally critical. That means pay attention to sales transactions, taking care to ensure your customers are satisfied. Make clear your refund and exchange policy, and adhere to it. And don’t overindulge on the blind contacts. Excessive sales pitches are often unwelcomed, as are unsuccessful attempts by recipients to unsubscribe. With accessibility comes responsibility. It will pay off.