Build Customers’ Confidence in Your Business
Why should I let my customers experience my business before they make a purchase?
How can I learn what my customers’ questions and concerns are?
What can I do to address my customers’ issues?
Let’s imagine you’re buying groceries at a local farmers market. You’ve picked out cucumbers, tomatoes, and bread. Now it’s time to choose some cheese.
2 separate cheesemongers, Chip and Charlie, have stands right next to each other. They have similar selections of cheeses from local farms at comparable prices. In fact, it’s really hard to tell the difference between their businesses.
Taking a closer look, you see that only 2 things separate the shops: Chip’s stand has a punny name, and Charlie gives away free samples.
You have other errands to run and need to choose a store. Which factor is more likely to affect your choice?
That means you need to find ways to help people experience your products before they hand over their money. That way, they can connect with your brand and feel confident that they’ve made the right choice of what to buy.
Helping people experience your business can seem pretty straightforward if you sell products and services locally. Cheese makers can give out free samples, car dealerships can offer test drives, and even plumbers can offer free assessments.
But what if you do business online? Since many online shoppers can’t experience a product or service before paying, your business needs to come up with creative ways to help them get the info they need to purchase confidently.
One common way people research companies they’re considering is by checking out reviews. So you need to harness the power of these reviews for yourself.
The first step to using reviews is getting them. Give customers public spaces where they can leave their opinions about your business. It can be on your website, your Google My Business listing, or another forum.
For example, let’s imagine Tina’s Tents, an online business that sells camping gear. Each product page on her website has a space for customers to write out long-form reviews as well as a way to rate products from 1 to 5 stars.
While Tina loves positive reviews, she encourages users to be honest. People tend to trust opinions that cover the good and bad. Plus, honest reviews can help future customers know exactly what they will and won’t get from her business.
Customers aren’t the only people who can review your business. You can also seek out the opinions of established sources your customers know and trust.
For example, blogs, magazines, and other media associated with certain industries often have people on staff that create official reviews. Their pieces can expose more people to your products and increase your business’ credibility.
Connect with influencers in your industry, too, since your target customers will likely seek out their opinions. Tina, for instance, reached out to YouTube’s biggest camping channel and asked them to review her gear.
Again, encourage the media and influencers you pursue to assess your business honestly. You want customers to trust what they discover about your business, not think that you’re paying for positive reviews.
In addition to reviews, you can also research the different questions potential customers are asking about your business.
Tools like Google Trends can help you gather information on what potential customers are searching for. But don’t just look for questions that are related to your specific company. See what issues people find across your entire industry.
It’s also helpful to look at your competitors’ pages to get insight into the concerns people have about their products. Then, you can make sure your business is addressing these issues.
As you study what people are saying, look for patterns to find the most common concerns. And give people a way to email or chat with you, so you can speak to them about their issues directly.
All of this feedback should hopefully give you a solid understanding of customers’ questions and concerns. Your job, then, is to create content that answers them.
Tina’s research shows that most people buying tents online wonder if they’ll be as big and waterproof as they claim. So she’s tweaked the text on her website to spell out the size and water-resistance of her tents.
But website copy might not satisfy her customers’ concerns. That’s why Tina is setting up one of her tents outside during a rainstorm and filming a product video inside it. It’s a practical way to show off that her tents are big and waterproof.
Tina’s built her company on great gear and on being a relatable and casual brand. So the video won’t be too salesy, which could make people think they’re getting false information. Instead, she’s going for practical and authentic.
Since Tina’s research has also shown that her typical customer is a camping newbie, her video isn’t going to focus on technical details. Instead, she’s created a section of her site where expert campers can find in-depth information.
Lastly, Tina recognizes her strength is in making camping gear, not videos. So rather than something slick or flashy, she’s giving her video a simple, clean, and relatable style that will hopefully help customers purchase a tent confidently.
DO THIS NOW
If you want people to feel like they know and trust your business, you need to know their questions and concerns. Let’s see if your business is set up to uncover what your customers are thinking about.
If you’re participating in the course, go to the next section to access your self assessment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Letting customers experience your business before making purchases can help them feel more confident about using your products and services.
Study distiller reviews of your business and your industry to discover their concerns and questions.
When creating content to address customers' questions and concerns, keep the answers simple and focused on the information they find most relevant.