How to appear credible and trustworthy to your customer base
If you’re working as a tradesman, you may need to put in extra effort to make sure that your customers have a positive experience with your brand. After that first conversation, make sure you’ve answered all their questions. However, before they actually connect with you is where you need to put in the work.
How do you appear to those looking for your services? Can they find you easily on the internet? What does your social media profile look like? How can people get in touch with you? If you don’t have confident replies to these questions, it’s time to look into your brand’s credibility.
How to appear credible - building an established business
There are simple but effective ways you can help make your business look established. These include:
Increased online presence
In an age where the internet is an informational currency, it's almost impossible to build business credibility without an online presence. Having a website is an important element of building your online presence, but there’s much more to it. You need to optimize your website for SEO, blogging, and social media marketing.
This may sound complex, but it doesn’t have to be and doesn’t need to take up too much of your time. If you’re not familiar with SEO, there are courses you can take to upskill yourself, or you can outsource. And with regard to social media, there’s an array of automated tools that you can use to help you out.
Communication tools
The digital era means that all communications tools are digitised, including the telephone. Services like VoIP can help make your business look more professional, and help with efficiency. The call forwarding facility is used often, usually by tradesmen who are on-the-go. If someone calls your business number and you’re not in the office, you can have the call diverted to an alternative number, including your mobile phone. So, you’ll be able to be available without having to set foot in the office.
Voicemail has evolved over the years. Instead of just receiving a notification that you have a message, new voicemail services will email the message to you as an mp3 file. And, you can customise your voicemail message, to include business hours, ways to get in contact with you, and other useful information.
Be accessible
You need to be accessible to create a good customer experience. This means answering questions on social media, responding promptly to emails, and answering calls. Accessibility doesn’t mean being available every minute, because you do need to be productive too, but to be prompt in responding. Don’t leave customers hanging.
Voicemail and call diverting services will ensure that you’re always connected to your customers.
Involve your audience
What do your current customers think about your service? There’s one way to find out: client feedback. Most people steer clear of feedback because they fear the worst, and don’t like to hear that they’re not getting it right. But, finding out how you’re performing means you’ll know where you can improve.
Client feedback has other benefits. You can use positive feedback on your website and marketing collateral. People trust a product/service when they see how well it’s worked for others. Testimonials help your business appear established and professional. This type of word-of-mouth marketing is the best kind and doesn’t cost much.
Make your brand relatable
Brand relatability plays a big part in the customer experience. The more clients/customers can connect with you, the more credibility you’ll have. The best way to ‘humanise’ your brand is by finding your unique ‘voice; through your social media profile and other marketing tools.
People don’t like being talked down to, but relate to a brand that sends the message that we know what they’re going through, and here’s how we can help. This means creating content that is engaging and can connect with people on all levels.
The importance of building a trustworthy business
When building your brand, this is vital amongst your audience. Building and maintaining a strong brand as a ‘solo act’ will benefit you in the following ways:
Easy expansion
When you’re looking to expand on your product or service offering, brand credibility means customers will trust anything you offer, because they’ve never been let down by you before. If you are expanding and offering something new, it means that you’re opening up to a new audience. With a good reputation amongst your current customer base, new customers are very likely to follow.
Easy recruitment process
If business starts picking up fast, it’s likely that you’ll start needing more hands on deck. A credible brand not only helps with increasing your customer base but also helps when you’re recruiting new staff for your expanding team.
Employees want to work at a company that values their brand and has a good reputation within the industry. This says that you’re good at what you do and value your service offering A good reputation will target potential employees who share your mission and values.
Customer loyalty
A good reputation helps build a strong brand and leads to customer loyalty. There are three things customers look for when searching for a specific product or service: affordability, efficiency, good customer experience. If a customer has a premium experience with your brand, they’re likely to be accepting of premium prices. They’ll also likely to continue to use your product or service, and hopefully spread the word.
Competitive edge
What you offer, and how you offer it, is what sets you apart from your competitors. If you’ve been consistent in providing a great product and service, customers will be ready to buy into anything new you add, because they trust you, and this puts you ahead of your competitors.
To sum up, building trust with your current customer base will help you appear more professional. We can help you build trust with services that will always keep you connected. Whether it’s obtaining a virtual number, or installing your switchboard, Virtel-UK provides affordable packages that are easy to set up.