Customer Trust – Online Transactions
February 23rd, 2009 // 1:18 pm @ Fox
“Trust me. Give me your money or credit card details and I promise I will send you the goods/service. Scouts honour … promise … cross my heart.”
Trust is so important in online transacting. It is not like the customer is going into a bricks and mortar shop and buying something they can see and touch, and take home immediately. When purchasing online it is like flying blind. You can’t see it, you can’t touch it and you can’t guarantee getting it. It is a virtual sale and you may end up with virtually nothing.
How do you know you can trust an online company to deliver what they promise to and not rip you off? In two words – you can’t.
So why would you deal with a company that you don’t know from Adam?
At the end of the day it is always a risk. Here are a few tips to reduce the risk:
- Read the About page on a website. Sometimes they do not tell you much, but other times it may have a bio of the CEO or photographs of staff members and the company vision or mission statement. You can get a feel for if the site and business is genuine.
- Look at the Contact page of the site. Does it have a location listed? I am very wary of any business that does not have a phone number, fax number and physical address. Simply filling out a contact form is not enough for me to trust a company.
- Is the business or site affiliated with any industry bodies? Are there any icons to show accreditation? This often depends on the industry, but displaying affiliation or accreditation icons helps to establish trust.
- Check the privacy policy, terms and conditions and support information. This is often overlooked. How many times have you filled out a form only to be bombarded with SPAM forever after? If the business is international, don’t expect to have easy come-back with your local country laws. What happens if your parcel does not arrive? What happens if you are not happy with the service? Often terms and conditions will say that you (the buyer) are responsible for anything damaged in the post, or missing in the post, or an unsatisfactory purpose.
- A big one is checking that any form you submit, particularly with your credit card details, is a secure form.
This means that any personal or financial information is encrypted and secure. How do you tell if the form is secure? Always ensure the URL (web address) has https and not http in the front. 
A little padlock icon appears either down in the bottom right corner of your browser or top right. Each web browser shows things differently.
If you get a security warning popup do not enter your credit card details. This happened to me with a transaction once. I immediately stopped the transaction and phone the company to tell them that their security certificate has expired and their form was no longer secure. They had no idea what I was talking about.
- Testimonials from satisfied customers are good up to a point. Genuine ones can help build trust, but how do you know if it is genuine? You would not believe how many business owners write their own false testimonials. I have always had an ethical problem with false testimonials. I believe that potential customers can smell a rat from a mile away. Over-enthusiastic customers writing soppy testimonials doesn’t shine my shoes, but testimonials with a name, title and business (which can be checked) are more likely to build my trust.
I know a one-man commercial business where the staff photograph comprises of the business owner, his brother, his father and two administration girls from another office. His little business of one looks like a much larger concern. I wonder if anyone noticed the family resemblance.
In the words of Abraham Lincoln:
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.