Most business advice is geared towards responsibly (and legally) parting your clients and customers from their cash. Much has been written about the best psychological techniques used to convert a lead, how to follow up after a purchase, what discounts and promotions to put in place to edge out the competition on a repeated basis. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
But before you take someone’s money, you have to take their trust. Even if that trust is tentative, with a shaking hand reaching into the pocket or the debit card, you still need to earn it. People are quite good at not buying things, especially if you do anything to put them off. In some cases, like when learning how to start a homecare business, trying to earn your first clients for your fledgling law firm, or even having someone trust you with their driveway restoration, that trust is a high bar to earn. It can affect someone’s life quite significantly. But if you haven’t proven yourself, how can you gain trust?
After all, most people only trust us in our personal lives when they know how we act. A customer only has our word, pedigree and social proof, they don’t have first-hand experience.
In this post, we’ll discuss some methods to square this circle and make earning trust a matter of process:
Showcase Credentials & The People They Belong To
People want to know who they’re dealing with, not just what certificates hang on your wall. The qualifications of course matter, but showing the human behind those credentials makes them more meaningful and trustworthy to potential clients. You can’t show one without the other.
An obvious way to get around this is to include photos of your team alongside their certifications and experience on your site. Maybe your lead technician has fifteen years of experience and specialized training, but customers also want to see that he’s a real person who takes pride in his work. Personal touches like mentioning that someone is a local resident or has family in the area help build that human connection, and it also makes your business more real.
Photo by Alena Darmel: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-person-signing-a-contract-7641842/
List Client Work, Keeping A Mind For Privacy
Past success stories show your capabilities better than any marketing copy you could write. Showing the scope and quality of your previous projects should be included to help encourage potential customers confidence in your abilities, though you can do this while respecting client privacy.
This could be before-and-after photos, brief case studies describing challenges you solved, or testimonials that mention specific benefits clients received. Being specific about results while respecting privacy works well. Saying you helped a local family improve their home’s energy efficiency by 30% is more convincing than vague statements about customer satisfaction, and if you can link to a separate review page, all the better.
Run A Trial Period
Offering a smaller initial engagement lets people test your services with limited risk, and most see this gives you a confidence in your work. This approach also shows you understand that trust takes time to build and gives customers a chance to see your work quality and professionalism before committing any further.
Maybe you offer a consultation at a reduced rate, complete a small portion of a larger project first, or provide guarantees that reduce the customer’s financial risk. This strategy works particularly well for service businesses where the relationship and work quality matter more than just delivering a product.
With this advice, you’ll be sure to earn sustained client trust as time goes on.
