December is magical and, at the same time, the busiest month of the year. It’s the time when customers all over the world are preparing for Christmas and searching for gifts. Don’t you think it is also the right time for your Shopify store to boost sales and increase the number of loyal customers?
Whether you are an experienced online store owner or a newbie, you still have to resort to using various marketing strategies to maximize Christmas sales. You can make use of sales, Christmas emails, cross-sells and upsells, or implement customer reviews to your store with the help of a free reviews app Shopify.
Whatever you choose, it will never work without customer trust. That’s why let’s find out what customer trust is and how to leverage it to increase Christmas sales.
Customer trust: definition
Trust is a key to converting visitors into loyal customers. To build trust, you have to understand your buyers’ expectations and needs, provide them with top-notch service and treat them well.
Trust is a reflection of your attitude to your customers. It shows the faith of your buyers in your brand, their confidence in everything you do for them.
Importance of customer trust
According to Gartner research, 74% of buyers have high expectations about how brands treat them. 83% of buyers will never buy from stores they don’t trust.
As you can see, trust plays a crucial role in customer and brand relationships. It helps you keep your customer base and attract new ones. As a result, the number of your buyers increases, as well as your sales and bottom line.
Let’s highlight the main reasons why customer trust is essential.
Key for personalization
Nowadays, customers expect a personalized approach, a special attitude tailored to their needs. For this reason, companies collect customers’ data.
In fact, that can’t be done without trust. Thus, having access to the information about your customers, you must protect it to avoid losing your buyers’ trust.
Loyalty improvement
When customers trust your brand, believe in its constant improvements, best experience, they become its ambassadors.
They not only turn into loyal customers but also give positive feedback and share their testimonials with others.
Life-long relationships building
When customers find a store they really like, they want to shop there for as long as possible. It is essential to maintain their faith and trust in your brand. Purchasing from one store means having an emotional connection to the brand. For you as a store owner, that means building life-long relationships with your buyers and gaining loyal customers.
Ways to gain customer trust
As you can see, trust is the very right thing to leverage to maximize Christmas sales. How to gain it? Actually, there are several ways.
Provide exceptional customer service
The pre-Christmas fuss is the time when customers especially require someone they can trust. Who will they think about first? Indeed, about the brand where they had excellent purchasing experience and top-notch service.
It’s important to show care about your customers. You should help them solve their problems by offering unique solutions and personalized approaches. Respond quickly to all their questions, delivering all the necessary information to customers.
Exceptional service is the direct way of building customer trust.
Build trust with testimonials
Do you know that 72% of customers trust brands more if they have positive reviews? The shoppes believe other buyers as much as their personal opinion. Thus, there is no better marketing strategy than demonstrating customer reviews in your store.
With a free product review app — like Webtex — it becomes much easier. It gives you an opportunity to not only build trust but also increase sales and bottom lines. With the app, your customers can place their testimonials, attach images and videos, send smart review request campaigns, and more.
As testimonials build trust, you can create a review page and put them on the landing page, below a shopping cart, or any other place in your store.
Transparency is a must
Customers should remember a lot of stuff during Christmas shopping. Thus, it’s crucial not to complicate their life even more but make it easier by providing them with transparency. They should know beforehand what to expect after adding products to the cart or after placing an order.
Transparency will help customers have an excellent shopping experience and increase their trust in your brand. For your store, it’s always a win-win situation, as you get a loyal customer and maximize your sales simultaneously.
Ask for feedback
Customers can show their loyalty to a brand only when they are satisfied with the service provided. How could you find out what they think about your brand? Sure, by asking them for feedback. Customer feedback helps you understand what works well and what you should improve to fit customers’ needs and expectations.
Moreover, by asking for feedback you show your buyers that their opinion is important, and you care. You develop trust by getting customers to feel involved in company improvements and knowing their opinion and needs are essential.
Final thoughts
Trust is a great tool to improve your relations with customers. To build it, provide your buyers with excellent service and testimonials, be transparent and ask them for feedback. Then, you will see that your Christmas sales are maximized in direct ratio to their trust.