Tips for Local Businesses to Gain Customer Trust
Making your rivals look worse than you is great, but you can’t do this by running a negative campaign. It is much better just to prove, without degrading others, that your organization is better. People will put more trust into a firm that proves that it is the best rather than constantly berating their competitors.
Don’t Berate Competition
It seems like making your competitors look bad would be a great thing, but it is important not to do this by being negative. In its place, show consumers why your product or service is better. Keeping away from negativity shows people you are willing to stand on your successes rather than the failures of others, and this is a great way to build trust.
Build Actual Associations with Customers
Many marketers consider posting to social media an effective way to build relationships with clients. While this does give people a sense of what the company is all about, you have to go beyond this and let consumers know that it is real people behind the company profile.
One simple way of doing this is addressing comments and questions on social media. A different way to do this, while also showing that you really care, is to respond to online reviews. Yelp once reported that 1.1 million business pages had been claimed on their site, yet there are over 18 million corporations in America.
Without claiming a company page, it is difficult to respond to reviews, so a large percentage of companies are obviously failing here.
Be Transparent About Flaws
Every small enterprise will make mistakes, both in the offline and online worlds. When these happen, you will need to own up to them. Whether you have a single negative review online or an idiotic server garnered negative media attention for the company, simply make sure you accept the error and explain what is being done to ensure it never happens again.
Building trust is important in any relationship. Make sure your local business has a chance at success by not forgetting this.