Reassuring Your Customers Amid The Failures
By Kim Wingate


We are all aware of how important it is to secure our
customers' purchase information from a technical perspective.
We also know that it is important to alert our prospects to
the technical security measures that we employ on our sites.
But, the technical aspects of security are only a part of
the prospects' current concerns.


Prospects are concerned about the security of their
purchases from a business perspective as well. They want to
know that the company they order from today will be there
tomorrow. People are concerned that they aren't just
slipping their credit card information through the "mail
slot" as the company closes its doors. Customers want to
know that the order they are expecting to arrive next week
will actually arrive, and not just end up as a line item in
some bankruptcy document.


The media fervor over recent high-profile dot-com closures
will surely have an effect on customer conversion and sales.
Closures and layoffs will no doubt give prospective
customers reasons to pause. To top it off, the media is not
only reporting on actual failures, they are reporting on
"anticipated" failures. How many orders did some of the
major e-tailers miss this holiday season because the media
was projecting the possibility of that e-tailer's future
demise?


So how do we calm these fears and re-assure our prospective
customers? By addressing the issue head on, of course. Don't
beat around the bush with your prospects and hope they get
the point. At the most, you only have a few minutes to
convince your prospects before they move on. Tell them
you'll be around and provide evidence to support your claim
of stability.


For example, you could drive this message home on a "Why Buy
From Us"-type content page. Through this type of page, you
could provide all the evidence a prospect might need. Your
"Why Buy From Us" page would, of course, contain the key
differentiating information about the quality of your
products and services, your price competitiveness, etc., but
the evidence of your stability would also be prominently
featured.


A major bullet point on this page could actually be
"Stability." Under this bullet, you could provide evidence
to support the claim. Your stability as a company can be
supported by communicating:


- How many years you've been in business.
- Who some of your major customers are.
- What your future plans are.
- Financial numbers, if public.
- Your position in the industry.


The point is, prospects need to know that you'll be around
tomorrow. They need to be assured that you aren't on the
verge of becoming another headline. In today's environment,
prospects are more likely to become customers if you can
provide the evidence to convince them that yours is a
stable company.


Kim Wingate, founder of AvidSurfer, is the publisher of Web
business case studies, reports, and manuals. A real-world case
study showing how a six hours of "tweaks" at one dot-com yielded
$13,500 per day in additional sales is FREE for a limited time!
http://www.avidsurfer.com/default.asp?src=artm

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