HOW TO MAKE SOMEONE TRUST YOU ONLINE WITH YOUR BUSINESS WEBSITE

The success behind web-based businesses is consumer’s trust in the context of e-commerce, starting with their beliefs, attitudes, intentions and willingness to perform transactions at websites.

Trust is not only a short-term issue but the most significant long-term barrier for realizing the potential of e-commerce to consumers. Trust is a complex social phenomenon reflecting technological, behavioral, social, psychological and organizational interactions among human and nonhuman technological agents. 

According to 2001 Mc Kinsey & Co. research report, lack of consumer trust is a critical impediment to the success of e-commerce, a conclusion that is equally valid today. Thus, it is precisely the development of exchange relationship that are central to understanding the role of trust and trust mechanisms in the context of e-commerce.  Trust does not exist in vacuum; it needs the context of a relationship to develop. A comprehensive framework has been developed for understanding trust, in the context of internet enabled exchange relationships between consumers and web-based vendors in an industry.

Theoretical Foundation 

The framework draws on sound theoretical and empirical foundation from four main research streams: -Technology Acceptance model (TAM), Theories on trust, Theories on Relational dependence and how these models and theories are integrated through The Theory of Reasoned action (TRA)

TAM research investigates the adoption, diffusion, and use of technology in business organizations using TRA as a foundation. Research on relational dependence examines issues related to different types of relationships and their characteristics. Research on trust sheds light on this complex on the role in the development and maintenance of consumer-business relationships. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) suggests that a person’s behavior is determined by their intention to perform the behavior and that this intention is, in turn, a function of their attitude toward the behavior and subjective norms (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). TRA consists of five main components: external factors, beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behavioral outcome. Beliefs lead to the formation of attitudes that help determine eventual behavior including willingness to spend money online.

The consumer-web-vendor relationship is influenced by consumers’ belief regarding Web vendors. These beliefs are relating to usage and trusting. Consumers who have had a good experience at Amazon.com are likely to develop favorable attitude towards the company along with the intention to visit the site again. Hence this favorable experience clubbed with trustworthy evaluation of the site would lead to long- term exchange relationship with the web-based vendor. 

Consumer beliefs influence the formation of attitude towards a website and perceived trustworthiness of the organization behind it. Attitudes yield intention to use the site, leading to actual, confirmable visits .Favorable usage experience lead to development of exchange relationship with the lender that may subsequently evolve from transactional to long-term .A number of factors shape consumer beliefs, attitudes and intentions bearing on trust-based  consumer-vendor relationships in the context of e-commerce.

External factors like prior internet usage plays an important role in the formation of consumers’ usage belief.

Internet usage beliefs- Two usage related beliefs –Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use – explain the formation of attitude about using IT for business. Studies that applied TAM to e-commerce found TAM effective in explaining a significant part of attitude formation and usage intention for consumers visiting and using web sites. 

Attitude develops on the basis of judgements made through usage beliefs, usefulness, ease of use of a particular website. For customers who have already visited sites, past experiences influence future decisions about dealing with certain vendors. Vendor communications, advertising, product brochures and promotions help the consumer in making decisions. First time visitors take recourse to third party sources like news reports, safety issues, product evaluation. Both external and internal sources of information influence belief formation.

Trusting beliefs –TRA suggests that certain trusting beliefs determine consumer attitudes of trust towards web vendors. Below are the characteristics of the trustee have been analyzed as relevant to influence consumer trust in the usage of e-commerce: ability, integrity, benevolence and Relation Development.

Ability means the potential of providing a quality output in time;

Integrity suggests that the firm will fulfill agreement as promised;

Benevolence means a strong desire to serve buyer’s needs aside from an egocentric profit motive.

Although these three dimensions have been accepted as important in the literature of e-commerce acceptance, ability has received much attention. The two remaining issues are relevant since information supplied by the corporate websites has grown exponentially in the last years. Most firms have corporate websites which offers broad range of information such as mission statement, strategic objectives, functional details, customers’ profiles, history and financial information. The importance of corporate sources of information may be easily accepted as greater for development of initial trust. Internet has revolutionized how people search for jobs. Corporate websites are the most used sources to attract the employees. Data shows that all Fortune 100 companies and 94% of all global companies used their websites for recruiting.

Relational Development: Participation in e-commerce relationship presumes consumer dependency on web vendors’ products or services along with risk. It can lead to a short- term or a long-term relationship subject to the vendor taking necessary steps for usage value of the site together with facilitation of consumer’s trust. Market pricing relationships are shallow dependence relationships. Deterrence-based mechanisms include benefits and costs of staying, cheating or ending the relationships. In shallow dependence relationships, deterrence-based trust mechanism may be used by the consumers. 

Deterrence-based relationships are based on getting information knowledge-based services from the web vendor. Consumers who find the vendor authentic and reliable, may continue to have a good relationship which might lead to deep dependence. This trust would then unfold into an obligation -type trust mechanism maturing into a long –term relationship.

After understanding the comprehensive framework of trust, there are certain areas that are well worth caring about if we want to win the trust of our customers.

Build fulfilling relationships

Building a good relationship with the customers is very important. So, prepare a convincing “About Us “page listing down who we are and what’s important to us. Even the big brands like Nike have an “About Us” manifesto to connect with all athletes of all levels.

One can create relationships by generating content like blog posts to enlighten and educate customers with one’s brand and products and share and exchange their ideas through the Comment section.

Be honest and reliable 

To make our website trustworthy, one can add trust badges and trust seals. A trusted seal is a badge that can be added to our website to let our customers know that our site is legitimate and secure. Trust badges would include installing an SSL certificate.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a security protocol that provides privacy, authentication and integrity to internet communications. In order to provide a high degree of privacy, SSL encrypts data that is transmitted across the web. This means that anyone who tries to intercept this data will only see a garbled mix of characters that is impossible to decrypt.

These trust badges make the customer more comfortable and protected. The trust signals that an SSL certificate can give include a green address bar and a padlock symbol, website owner details in the SSL certificate and trust seals to be displayed on the website. You can get your SSL certificate from a best reseller like Clickssl an authenticate reseller offering different types of SSL certificates.

Exhibit social proof 

Social proof can be displayed through sharing user generated content, adding real statistics and displaying product reviews. Social proof is also known as informational social influence. It describes a psychological and social phenomenon wherein people copy the actions of others in an attempt to undertake behavior in a given situation. Pictures of satisfied customers can make social proof even more powerful.

Be transparent

Transparency makes a business inviting to customers. One needs to be transparent about the product information and shipping details. The more details one can give shoppers about the products, the better. Provide website visitors details like product features, exact measurements, product weight ingredients, warranty information and more. There are certain places where one can show transparency in online selling like how quickly they can cancel the orders, how long does it take to refund , how will a returned item be picked up ,will an exchange be delivered for the returned goods.

Offer 24*7 service

Excellent customer service is key to any successful business. Customers want to know that your business is available 24*7. Not only does this help in solving any issue in a timely manner but also brings an end to the question about a product, that’s preventing them from buying. So, one could consider live chat option in the e-commerce site.

As Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba said once, Opportunity lies in the place where the complaints are. If your customers have complaints or any pain areas where improvement is needed, be the first to take action. Be proactive in taking remedial measures that makes things easier for customers, which will go a long way in making our customers trust on website and brand name. Once we win the customers trust, loyalty and brand attachment are sure to follow. Then there is no looking back.