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Build Trust Through Reassurance

So now let's talk about building trust through reassurance. So how can you use social proof and trust signals to build trust throughout your store? We talked about this before, but I wanted to give it its own special section because we talked about reviews and how important those are, and I wanted to give you a couple of different examples of what social proof is and how you can use it throughout your site. So basically social proof is when it's a psychological phenomenon, this is the official definition, it's not my definition, where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect current car correct behavior for a given situation. So for example, the most basic form is if someone sees the wearing of really nice code, they're like, where did you get that coat? Oh, I got it from amazon dot com oh, I really love it. I'm going to buy so that's, like one of the simplest forms off social proof where you wanna you like something, you ask someone where they got it from, you go o...

ut and buy, you don't need to re product descriptions, you don't need to watch videos, you don't need tio read there about page or their home page, you just really know you want that product, and sometimes it really does work that way, I think. Word of mouth is one of the most powerful forms of marketing that you can have out there, and it really does fit in with social proof because if other people are doing what you're interested in or what do you like, you're more likely to do it as well, because you just want to be part of that and you simply sometimes do just like the product or the code or whatever it is that you are asking about. So why social proof we talked about why amazon? This is so important why people go to reviews first before they even re product descriptions and I know a lot of people who teach other people how to sell on amazon. They talk about having your ratings and reviews and really building that first because people really do look at that. So seventy percent of consumers say that they look at product reviews before making a pie purchase and product reviews are twelve times more trusted than product descriptions from manufacturer. So I know we talked about the importance of your product description and talking about benefits and features, but if you can add on top of that products reviews from your actual customers, it is so much more powerful than anything you could ever do just on your own and I know and the next segment we're going to talk about shopping carts and how to choose your shopping card but a lot of shopping carts do have product reviews feature, so if yours isn't turned on union, or if you don't have a lot of reviews, the id, make sure to turn it on and then go ahead and ask your customers what they like most at send them to their website, maybe give him a discount in exchange for a for a review. So super super important so let's look at some sort of more elements of social proof, so ratings that stephanie social proof. So this is amazon dot com this is elizabeth's book by, you'll see here she has thirty three customer reviews that are all five stars. Sometimes if I'm interested in the topic I already know before reading about elizabeth before reading her book, I know that other people love it, some more likely to immediately trusted that it's something that I'm probably going to love to. So amazon there one of the pioneers of customer reviews and I'm so happy to see that so many shopping cards now offer that feature, and a lot of people under utilized it. I go to a lot of websites where I see customer reviews and some just zero now I would rather you not have that feature. Then show zero because if someone sees zero on their your website kind of looks like a ghost town and it looks like people don't really trust that they they don't like your products enough to leave a review so I would recommend if we have zero reviews either build up your reviews fast or remove that feature altogether because it's going to work again into if people see that there's nothing there so my point is make sure that there's something there and encourage like you were saying, send your customers two weeks later send them a really nice email asked them to go ahead and raid your product, how they liked it and and all of those other things. Yes, tracy so let's say you had like certain bestsellers that we're getting lots of reviews and then other products that weren't getting any because, um as you know, like when you're developing a collection, you need to merchandise it in a way so that the other pieces sell what would you recommend in that case? As far as the reef these go, I would recommend definitely trying to get reviews for that and for some reason it's still not working there's other forms of social proof that we're going to talk about that you can also use instead of the reviews, so but yes, definitely having something on there is really important I've heard conflicting things about asking your customers for reviews, like I've heard that that you just shouldn't do it, and if they're going to review your product, they'll do it on their own. Yeah, I would, I think I disagree with that, I'm not sure who told you that, but I told that's like saying, if someone comes to your website, if they like it, they're going to buy but there's so many things that you have to do on your end to make sure that people by and reviews this sort of the same thing where someone might not necessarily think as of something that they should do, especially after their they don't necessarily need to come back to you or they're they've gone what they wanted, but it really is your job to go back to them and ask them what they like about it, why they like that, and I think they'll appreciate the follow up to I think, yes, some people and be like, oh, I don't want another email in that case, they'll deleted, but you'll get so much more out of it, and I think they'll feel more connected to you if you actually do keep that conversation, I think there's this tendency to think about one someone bought for me, my job is done, I don't have to do anything and I think that couldn't be more wrong I think your job kind of starts even though there's so much work to get people to buy buy your job kind of really starts once they've actually bought something I'm it's so much less expensive to get people to come back and keep buying again then to get a new person to come in and become a customer so I definitely would recommend asking people what they liked about it, how they use it, how it's been beneficial to them and again maybe not saying can you please give me a review but asking in other ways that gets them engaged than makes them feel like they're part of your community? Yeah traces the time I was just going to add something to that is the other day someone asked me to review something I've never reviewed anything on amazon and of course I wanted to review it because it was an awesome product I didn't even think twice, so I think sometimes people don't really think to review it and I know with tested testimonials for my products because I don't have a review system because of the way I sell my work, but um if I don't ask for a testimonial like sometimes I'll get an email saying like, I mean, a lot of times I get an email saying like, oh, that was it's so amazing experience was awesome, but on to take it further like I usually ask like what was your experience like and I also asked how can I get better because I want to grow so I mean there's a lot of information you can get just with a few questions yeah yeah yes I'm just gonna say that I I also buy from amazon and sites like that quite often and um I especially want to buy something from like say at sea um I will get kind of bombarded with hate and labor review and people will be a little bit aggressive about it and really soon after I buy and I feel like I haven't at that point even gotten the experience of using the products, seeing if it falls apart or anything like that so um although I do I would love to support somebody in that way and I would never think to voluntarily but I would love to add input and be a person that you know, molds their future wave connecting business um but it is that I like the two weeks it seems like really appropriate yeah, because that gives people enough time to kind of test it and try it out, but it doesn't leave enough time where they forget about it so so yeah, I think two weeks is a good amount but I really think too if you do it in a pushy way where you're on lee presenting it to them as I need something from you, I think that's, where people feel resistant, because if you say, oh, I need to have more sales, can you please leave me a review? That's? Why I'm going to get more sales that's totally different than saying, how is your experience? What did you love about it? How can we get better? Like tracy was saying? So I think it's, how they approach asking for reviews that often turns people off from giving the review so you can be too aggressive, but you have you do have to ask for it. Yeah, so I'm I'm glad you brought that up, too, because there is a fine line between being almost demanding it and using it as a way to get feedback and getting better and improving your products. Yeah, where you are writing them, do they? Then responded, then you again, response? And can I use your as a testimonial? O two right up front, ask if you're following up with what their experience was like ricin that m o say, can would you be willing to write a review? You know? So I'll use that email, I wont create anymore extra work for them, so if someone writes back and says, I just got your package and your soap smell amazing. Thank you so much. I will just write back and I said that's, so great to know I'm so glad you like it. Thank you for letting me know. Could I use that as a testimonial? So I'm not asking them to necessarily write a review, but not everybody is going to write to you after they buy something to tell you how they're experience was, which is why, after two weeks like elizabeth is saying it makes sense to send them an email to those people who didn't write back, and most people will you'll never hear from again. But again, you do want to keep the conversation going. Your job is not done. Once they bought something, you want them to keep coming back and recommend you to their friends and to their colleagues. Is that so on? So you still do have to keep the conversation going, and one way to do that is exactly by asking them what their experiences? Yes. Would you recommend doing something like on some sort of like auto response sequence so that you don't have to think twice about it? Like after they bought, like two weeks later after their orders arrived? That they get an email with the follow up for how how do you usually yeah, absolutely so the more you can automate all of this stuff, the better. So yes, on auto responder and on the follow up sequence would be great for that because you don't even have to worry about it and you still can be part of the conversation because what they write back, you can still respond to them, but you're saving yourself a lot of time and a lot of keeping track of everything because there's so much stuff we have to keep track of dad that's just one thing less less on your plate that you can still get done and get responses back, so auto responders would be great for that. Yeah, you know this, but I have I have an app that that does this for me, but also I can I can put that review, it allows me to put them if you want to facebook or twitter or something that like, just clicking onto that yeah, that's awesome! And we're going to talk tomorrow to a lot about how you can build even more trust by sharing all of this stuff on social media, so so yes that's a great app and I don't know the name of it, but I know pretty much every shopping card now that has thes and features offers you the ability to install an app that allows you to do follow up sequences and just follow up with your audience yeah great questions everyone all right so we talked about reviews but they're a little bit different than ratings ratings are where someone chooses the five star four stars but reviews is where they actually right and sometimes you couldn't do both you can only do one but reviews are just another great way to get social proof build trust and if I also come to this website and I see that twenty one thousand people have bought this and I know most of us are not going to have twenty one thousand reviews for just one product but it builds credibility without telling me that it's a great product and automatically I know it's something that other people love I can trust it and I'm more likely to buy from here then if there were zero reviews I sometimes feel like if there's no stars and no reviews I just feel like no one's buying this stuff and I don't know if any of you feel that that same way to a lot of you are nodding your heads but you don't want your website to be a ghost town and this shows people that other people are there other people are buying and if other people see other people doing stuff then they're going to do the same stuff too that makes sense s o testimonials is another great way to build your social proof, so these are gist, some examples and again they don't have to be really long it doesn't have to be ah whole paragraph about why they love your products, but any sort of feedback from your audience really, really helps, and especially I think this little check mark that they have here means that it was a verified purchase so that's an actual review for a customer, so again, people are seeing that other people are buying this, they love it there, leaving reviews, they're going to be more likely to by it. Another great way to build social proof is through endorsement, so this is for example, if you get press and this is on a jewelry website, this particular piece was featured on on the today show that's huge right that's a huge exposure, it means a lot to be featured on the today show. Not every brand could go up there and be features, so if you were to come to this web site and again, you see here that they don't have any testimonials also social proof or anything like that, but they have a huge advantage because this product has gotten a lot of press or has gotten some press in a huge national tv show, and it automatically billed stress so you'll see her that she put it in her product description, which is kind of bold, but I think it's it's a good idea because people don't see don't necessarily see a product description when maybe they on their on their main page of your shop, but they will see that right away and this is the other brand that we talked about earlier her workout pants were featured and shape magazine, and she put this not in her title, but she put it in her product photos so you can see and I think it's the first product for I think she just got this feature so it's the first thing that people see when they look at her web site and she has, um, the product description and all of that under all of this, but I just didn't have time for or I didn't have enough space for the screen shot, but this is just a great way to showcase your press. Yes, would you recommend reminding them about your satisfaction guarantee and the product descriptions as well? Yes, you can definitely do that time you could even have a link to it. Or you could just say, uh, you knew your satisfaction is guaranteed you couldn't return it if it doesn't fit, especially for something like this where you're kind of taking the gamble and you're not really sure if it's going to fall if it's right or not so in those particular cases where it's a little bit different than jewelry because you kind of can imagine yourself wearing it or what it would look like but with something like workout leggings you necessarily you don't necessarily know what it's going to look like on you so if you have a product where people are kind of I'm not sure if this is going to fit right or smell right or make me feel right or whatever then definitely put that in there to remind them and to let them know that you do care about them and if they're not happy you're not happy and you're willing to take it back so absolutely yes what if you have a press that is from products that you're not currently um that are currently available yeah I think if you do that a great place to put all of those is in your press mentions page that we talked about earlier or in your in the news page I like to call it in the news but I know some people just it's us press so absolutely yes put it on there if it's not specific to any product but even if it's still a product you sell you should still put it on that page as well so and this is a huge mention I think she even has she had on her home page as well so the more places where you can put it again, the more you can remind people, the better it is, and the easier you make it for them to actually trust you. Okay, another way that you can use social proof to build credibility is to have an endorsement. So this is my friend angela. She runs omar. Oh, my skin care and her product was god on award from allure magazine, so she has this right on here. I think you could even see see it when you look at the product before you see the product description on her shop age so it's right away, you know that this product has been endorsed by beauty editors at a top magazine and it's just such a great way to build that credibility right away, because you automatically trusted you don't need to see if it has any ratings, although her product that's have ratings, you don't need to read any of the testimonials, although that doesn't really help as well. But it's, just another way to subconsciously let people know that your company can be trusted. Your product can be trusted because other people trusted as well. So, really, your product page is often where people make the decision to buy or not on your home page, and on your about paige is where people decide if your product is for them or not, and if they want to find out more. But on your product page is where they go to actually decide. Ok, am I going to buy this, or am I going to leave and never come back? So is just so important to have a love. Those elements there, and keep reminding people about how your products are going to actually benefit them throughout their journey on your website by this is really. But they make that decision to add, to cart, or to just close the exxon their browser and never come back.