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8 Essential Ways to
Reduce Customer Anxiety for Your Website
1. Testimonials. Use testimonials that specifically resolve customer
anxiety or answer customer questions. For example, if prospective customers are
worried about how long it will take a product to be delivered, include a
testimonial that talks about how fast the customer received his order.
A word of caution: Use testimonials judiciously. Include only those that address
specific sources of customer anxiety, and ensure that each testimonial is placed
as close as possible to the step in the order process at which it is most
relevant. For example, use trustworthiness and customer service
testimonials near the payment processing step and those about delivery speed
close to the shipping information form.
2. Language and tone. Use language that is familiar to your target
audience. Pay attention to topic-specific terms and acronyms. Match the tone to
the buying situation.
3. Credibility indicators. Include third party credibility indicators such as
BBB, Trust-e, Hacker Safe, and affiliations with or endorsements by trusted
companies or trade associations. Once again, these should be placed near the
calls to action that they are most closely related to.
4. Site ratings. Include symbols or links to any sites that rate your
products or services such as ResellerRatings.com, BizRate.com, NexTag.com, and
PriceGrabber.com. Be sure to monitor these sites to ensure that they continue to
contribute favorably and promptly remove any that fail to do so; at least until
you have resolved the cause of the problem.
5. Guarantee. Offer a guarantee on their purchase such as a 90-day
risk-free trial; 100% money-back guarantee; or a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
Ensure that the guarantee is clear, prominent, and placed close to the "Order
Now" button.
6. Other anxiety-reducing site features. Include essential contact information, an "About
Us" page, and customer support information. This is especially important for
retailers when customers are assessing whether you are a reputable company.
Whenever possible, include a telephone
number on the check-out page as reassurance that it is easy to reach you in the
event that they have a problem or question.
7.
Eye path. Five elements control the eye path: size, color,
motion, shape, and position. Ensure that you design your pages such that the
most important decision elements are along the primary eye path. Listen to the
audio version of the clinic for expansion on this and the other elements.
8. Colors and themes. Use colors and themes that match your product. For
example in one case study, because of the nature of the product and the target
market, red, white, and blue colors were used to support the desired "official"
look and feel. The American flag was used for familiarity and a natural
extension of the color theme, and a "seal" to connote authority among those in
the primary target market of adults in the U.S.
Each of these elements serves to reduce customer anxiety by reassuring prospects
that doing business with you is safe and that you will deliver as promised.
As we discovered, reducing customer anxiety using the methods described in this
research brief increases conversion-to-sale by reducing the number of customers
who abandon the order process. Remember that the impression your site visitors
experience in the first few seconds after arriving on the landing page will
determine whether they stay long enough to objectively evaluate your offer or
whether they quickly move on to seek a "safer" place to shop.
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Marketing Experiments Journal
http://www.MarketingExperiments.Com
Members Edition
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Contact WingsDove for affordable and effective small business web design and
web site optimization.
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