Confidence is a hard thing to come by for many people, but there's no denying it — if you own a business, you want your customers to be certain of your business and its brand. But think about what confidence requires — authority and trust, and those two things are not easy to gain from customers overnight. Once you earn them, though, there's a better chance your customer will stay your customer. In fact, it takes about 6 times more money to get a new customer than it is to retain an existing one.
That being said, with strategic business decisions on your part as an owner, there are four specific steps you can take to instill confidence in your customers, regardless of how old or new they are to your business. Learn how you can improve a customer’s confidence in your business with these four tips.
Customers don't like to be kept in the dark and often respond well to businesses that make their practices transparent to their customer base. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to give your customers a step-by-step update on the status of your books and revenue. Something that many customers appreciate is accessing updates on social media platforms or emails to let them know what's new; that can mean a holiday sale, your business’s anniversary, or any other good news you'd like to share.
Social media can not only be used to keep your customers posted of your business updates, but also to interact with them on their own platforms. Use your business's social media account to answer questions that you see potential customers asking or address issues that your expertise qualifies you to help with.
Helping to humanize your brand by sharing on social media can absolutely help your customers feel confident — but how about confident and secure? If you've taken the step to get business insurance, make an effort to display that you're insured. This could be a logo created with one of the many free logo generators online or link on your website, or perhaps it's in email verbiage when new customers sign up for your email newsletter; you also can send customers a copy of your certificate of insurance.
Having business insurance doesn't mean that you're announcing that you plan to make mistakes, but rather, that you're protecting yourself and your customer if something should go wrong. Regardless of how you let your customers know that you have business insurance, be sure to inform them of it.
Confidence tends to be something that comes with understanding. Many customers will come to you because you're an expert in a field that they may not know much about. As a business owner, you can help your customers learn more about what they're investing in by teaching them more about what you do, from their perspective. This can be approached in different ways — you can share videos or posts on social media, or you can write a quick blog post with photos, detailing how you completed a project.
This type of content helps to increase a person's confidence in you via their understanding. It's helpful to help you gain the trust and authority needed for someone to become a repeat customer in the future.
If a customer has a good experience, they're more likely to continue coming to you for your product or service, so it's a prime opportunity to ask them to leave a testimonial or review. Testimonials or reviews are fantastic assets to share on your website, branding materials, or even with customers one-on-one, to demonstrate that you do your job well and are worth hiring.
There are many ways that you can go about earning your customer's confidence, but the one thing that you can't strategize your way around is time. Trust and authority can be improved by taking certain steps, and the ones above are definitely helpful, but remember that instilling confidence in your company and brand on behalf of customers will happen slowly over time. Maintain your positivity and continue operating your business with transparency, honesty, and quality service. The confidence will come!
Article By Simply Business
Simply Business is an online business insurance brokerage that lets small business owners compare and get affordable coverage from the most trusted insurers.