As our lives become more digitalised and closely intertwined with the internet, our online behaviour is evolving to subconsciously pick up signals allowing us to take smarter decisions and avoid getting scammed. Over the years a lot of us have learnt when not to trust the internet the hard way, take cropped Facebook profile pictures as an example. Deception may well be lucrative and enticing for some in delivering fast results, but a successful long term model for repeat business is intrinsically built around trust.
Regardless of how compelling your call to actions may be, or how fast your page loads on a mobile device, if visitors have doubts they will bounce right out. Fostering a sense of confidence amongst your players is crucial in breaking down trust barriers and ensuring players share their personal details and more importantly their hard-earned cash. Beyond this, it is imperative to achieve ‘trustability’ in order to rationalize and secure successive purchases from existing customers.
7 Ways to Build Trust Online
1. The Brand
A brand is a promise to the consumer and consumers tend to do business with the brands they like, know and trust. A brand tells them what to expect from your product and services, and is built on the trust resulting from the fulfilment of that promise. Raising brand awareness and getting your name out there gives credibility and gives visitors a sense of assurance when engaging with you.
2. Social Proof
In an age of ‘native advertising’ the reach of social proof is amplified through the usage of social media. There is a blurry line between genuine and sponsored content on affiliate sites, testimonials and blogs. However sometimes all a potential customer needs to overcome any concerns is reassurance from previous customers. Be it a referral from a friend, an endorsement from prominent source or the masses in the form of likes and ratings, social proof is a powerful influential tool.
3. Search Results
While insight from peers can go a long way, no human knows us and the internet as well as the search engine. Google is trusted with serving up over 3.5 billion results a day to guide users to the most relevant pages. Increased visibility through search engine optimisation not only drives more traffic but reinforces buyers’ confidence that quality, credibility, trustworthiness and authority have already been verified by Google’s machine learning.
4. Quality Time
Appealing design and intuitive navigation play an important role in an online context where face to face interaction is non-existent. First impressions count; a professional look and feel to website reinforces the legitimacy of your business, whilst interesting graphics, content and promotions ensure that the user will stick around and explore your website further. On the other hand poor translations, broken links and browser security will only derail customer trust.
5. Respecting Privacy
In an era where identity theft and the leaking of sensitive information have become all too common, it is smart to reassure customers that their data and sensitive documents are stored securely. The implications of a breach of privacy, will have a detrimental effect on the goodwill a brand has invested in building and maintaining over the years. It is important to respect the fact that some players chose to gamble online in order to remain anonymous and prefer to be contacted during specific times or never at all.
6. Service Quality
Each customer contact comes at a price but apart from the actual cost, these interactions can also be a window into certain inefficiencies in our systems or operations. Earning a customer’s trust starts with delivering a great personalized service and is enhanced by being responsive and fixing issues immediately when things do not go as planned. Introduce technical issues, delayed payments or the sunk cost of a gambler’s fallacy into the equation and the consumer can easily feel like he is being cheated.
7. Certification & Partners
Earning a certification seal from a licensing or accrediting body, serves to put the customer at ease in the knowledge that your operation has been audited by and received the green light from a reputable third party. In addition by showcasing and capitalizing on brand logos of the partners you are good enough to work with; be it a recognized game provider or a trustworthy payment method, can speak volumes about your business.
The customer journey starts well before the first click on your website, in a vast online marketplace where your competitors are only one click away – trust can be a strategic asset.
