How to Win Your Customer’s Heart ‘Review’
Trust is an inroad to a conversation about your products and services.
Let me tell you about my niece. Whenever she is hungry, she has absolute faith that her need for nourishment would be fulfilled. With monosyllabic words, she tells us that she is famished or thirsty knowing that we would without fail fulfill her need.
Why am I telling you about her? Well it is perhaps to help you understand that trust is required in every relationship; both business or personal.
How can you increase digital trust?
In Nigeria, trust is a rare commodity. All you need to do is tune in to any news channel and you are notified of yet another politician engaged in corruption and abusing the trust given to him by the electorate.
While mistrust grows deep in the society, it has also infiltrated the digital world. Have you ever wondered the reason your customers are not be quick to jump at your solutions? Perhaps, it is because you have not provided them with reasons to trust your business and your business offerings.
One sure way of increasing digital trust is to improve your customer’s First Impressions.
You see, it takes 35–50 milliseconds to form important perceptions about your business and make important decisions about whether or not , having an interaction with your business would be important.
In a brick and mortar setting, as a business owner, you may be tasked with training your frontline employees to ensure that they help customers to create a positive first impression. This also works in the digital sector, as it is very much important to work diligently to build trust with both potential and existing customers by being trustworthy, consistent and clear in our actions.
“Beware of the naked man, who offers you cloth.”
To be honest, most customers in Nigeria only engage in business transactions with people they know, like or trust. A fact that has led to the rise of Influencer marketing; word of mouth, personal reviews are the outcome of your customer’s willingness to trust in possibilities and to trust in other people. During the nationwide protest against police brutality, many youths connected with brands and celebrities that lent voices to the injustice. Even individuals who offered their skillset to persuade people online, also experienced more connections willing to risk their lives at the chance of making the nation better.
Trust exists between people.
Whether you are a B2C (business to consumer)or a B2B (business to business), trust can only exist when it is between people. What this means is that your brand needs to have a human face to it, this helps to improve your customer’s comfort zone. Trust in itself is based on your customers’ perception of your business and the experience they have acquired. They must feel the trust.
It is not about what you say, but how you say it.
Let’s see, you are at the bus stop waiting to enter a yellow bus to your station. A young man with his suit walks up to you and ask for your number. He goes: Hello fine girl, I like you give me your phone number, so we can chat on WhatsApp.
One minute, you are worrying about your “danfo ride”, the next you are thinking of how first a slap can land on his face to reset his brain for the day’s task. The least you can do for his mother is to help intensify his home training.
Okay, picture the same scenario; this young man walks and apologizes for delaying you.
He introduces himself, highlighting his good personality that may get you interested in him, with sprinkles of humor. He goes further to ask for your permission to request for your number so as to continue with the conversation at a more convenient time.
If you are like me, you definitely do not need 35 milliseconds to decide that you have finally found “the One”
Here are 5 factors that can influence first impressions on a website.
- Virtual Design: By all means, ensure that your design layout, fonts and overall look are simple and your website is easy to navigate. If you don’t have one you should focus on creating.
- Highlight Your Value Proposition: Answer honestly:
Who are you?
What do you do?
Why you are better than your competitors?
As studied in CXL Institute, this would help you build your unique value proposition. Focus on your headline, your sub headline, pay attention to at least 3 of your offering’s benefits.
3.Have compelling Imagery/Graphics: Let your graphics help in boosting your message and brand’s unique selling points. In telling your brand’s story, you should leave no stone unturned.
4.Add personal touch that would inspire trustworthiness. People want to buy from “people preferably like themselves”. Use simple language, realistic looking people, as much as possible, avoid stock images.
5.Integrate feedback channels: Create facilities on the company’s website, such as discussion forums, where the customers can interact with each other, can be a good way to build and maintain trust online. These kinds of discussions, between the customers, can provide interesting and useful information for the company, which can be used to improve service performance.
Failing to grab your customer’s attention is your fault and not the user’s lack of interest.
To successfully grab your customer’s attention, you must be unique, strategic and realistic. More than that, you must find ways to make your customers trust you to make a decision and ultimately convert them to qualified leads.
While I can’t in good faith generate Oxytocin for all customers, creating emotional brand stories would help initiate the feeling of trust.
Every organization has its own story, the passion behind the work, the struggles and the victories. Telling these stories would first capture your customer’s heart and then release Oxytocin, the love hormone.
In all fairness,
People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe’ — Simon Sinek.
(P.S Happy New Year to all who love my story and drive me not to hoard information about my learning. Thanks, CXL Institute. For other articles about my learning, click on my page to read.)
