You’ve heard the term know, like and trust… but the real question is how do you actually create that? Today we’re going through 6 things you can focus on right now to help you build the know, like, and trust factor to grow your eCommerce business.
As an eCommerce business owner, you probably wear a lot of hats… no matter how big or small your team is, you’re still deeply involved in the day-to-day of your business… you might have a to-do list a mile long and it feels like you have all these responsibilities…
and technically you do.
But if you strip away all. the. things… your job boils down to one main objective — create a great experience for your customers. From the product you buy to the content you post on social media and even how you manage your customer service, it’s all about giving those customers a great experience.
If you do that well and if you serve them well then they will buy from you repeatedly, they will tell their friends to buy from you and they will become advocates for your brand. Ta da! Now you’ve got yourself a business.
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How to create a great experience for your customers
What does it really take to create that experience? What does it take to get a customer to become a loyal customer and tell all their friends about you? What does it take for a customer to follow YOU as the business owner when you launch another business?
That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard about the know, like and trust factor?
This stems from a quote by Bob Burg, a speaker, and author who talks about sales, marketing, and influence. Is his book, the Go-Giver he says:
“All things being equal people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like, and trust.”
Sounds simple enough, right?
I mean, think about it. You buy from businesses that you know, like, and trust. You’re friends with people you know, like, and trust.
But what really goes into creating that?
What are the actionable things you can do to build that with your customers?
Know and understand your ideal customer
Like everything else in business and marketing, the first step is to really understand your ideal customer.
When you truly understand who your customer is and what is important to them, you’re able to create an experience they love, that brings them back for more and has them telling all of their friends.
Not only does it make it easier to create or bring in products you know they’ll want to buy, but it informs the type of content to create, emails to write and the customer service experience to create.
Revisit your ideal customer regularly
Hopefully, you already know who your ideal customer is. And even if you do, it’s worth it to revisit this ideal customer on a regular basis, because as your business evolves and our world changes, it’s possible that your ideal customer will change or that what is important to them changes.
The COVID pandemic is a perfect example of how people’s priorities can change and how you likely had to shift your messaging a bit to make sure it was still speaking to your customer avatar.
Start with these 3 questions when creating your ideal customer avatar
The process of creating an ideal customer avatar can be an episode all it’s own so for the purposes of today’s episode we’re going to keep it high-level.
- What do they want/expect
- How do they want to be treated
- What are their fears, desires, and needs, pain and pleasure points
While we are keeping it high-level for the purpose of this episode, I do want you to dig deep on these questions and get to the root… go beyond the surface level stuff.
Building an ideal customer avatar
Let’s build an ideal client avatar together. For this exercise, we’ll pretend we’re a beauty brand with a simple 3-step skincare system.
Let’s say we have a working mom of 3 young kids all in grade school, she’s a marketing director at a large corporation, always leading meetings for her team, and is an important fixture in her community and is very involved in her kid’s school activities. So let’s answer these questions based on this avatar.
What do they want/expect?
- Considering she has a pretty high-level powerful job and is involved in school activities, we can infer that her image is important to her. She likely appreciates life’s luxuries and she expects the best out of her team, her children and her social circle.
How does she want to be treated?
- Because she is such an important figure in her community and her company, she expects to be treated that way. With the utmost respect and that she is more than just a number.
What are her fears, her desires, and her needs?
- Because she has achieved so much in her life and career she may be afraid of losing it all, she wants to be taken seriously and looked up to. She wants to be seen as successful, be well-liked in her community, and have a strong loving relationship with her family.
As a beauty brand trying to reach this customer, what are some things we have to portray and messaging we can use to reach this woman?
Ultimately we need to increase our perceived value through things like luxurious packaging and a beautiful website. Our branding should feel clean, modern, and sophisticated.
Our marketing messages can speak to looking and feeling our best for confidence from the boardroom to the PTA meeting.
We can also infer that she’s likely time-poor and needs her beauty regimen to be simple but effective. Because our brand consists of a simple 3-step system, this is going to be really important to her and we’ll want to make sure we talk about this as one of our unique selling points (USPs).
Now that we know this about our customer, we can reverse engineer our business to make sure we’re speaking directly to her and creating an experience she’ll love.
Be Authentic
I know you’ve heard this a million times, but it’s still worth repeating. In today’s digital (and quarantine) world people are craving connection. And more and more, people want to buy from people and companies they share values with and that they can relate to.
At the end of the day, like attracts like, so if you want to attract those people who are most likely to appreciate you for you the best thing you can do is just show up as you are. Ultimately, it truly is the path of least resistance because trying to be someone you’re not is totally exhausting and you’re not likely to build a business you love that way anyway
Take me for example. I have a mouth like a sailor and I don’t apologize for that. I even drop an F-bomb in my podcast intro.
At first, I was a bit hesitant to release it that way, and of course, when my mom heard it she was like: “The only thing is…”
I knew exactly where she was going with that. But I decided to leave it because that’s just how I fucking talk. And if someone doesn’t want to hear that, then they’re not going to enjoy listening to my podcast or ever want to work with me anyway… so I might at well repel those people from the start.
And while I’m sure it has for sure repelled people from me… it’s also attracted my perfect client to me. I’ve had multiple people tell me it’s the best podcast intro they’ve heard and that knowing I do talk like that is what sealed the deal for them. And as a service provider, I consider myself so damn lucky to have the most amazing clients ever. People I look forward to hopping on calls with and who I connect with immediately.
And as a product-based business or any business really… unless you’re selling something completely brand new and unique that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the market, YOU are the thing that sets your company apart.
Be unapologetically you, whatever that looks like. And remember that when you try and water down your message to talk to everyone, you end up talking to no one. You’re not going to be for everybody and that’s OKAY.
Your Why
Have you ever heard Simon Sinek’s TED TALK — Start with why? People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
If you’ve never heard it, you need to listen here. If it’s been a while since you’ve seen it, go watch it again. I re-watch it regularly because it’s a great reminder that we’re more than just what we sell, which links back in with the authenticity piece.
Yes, I help female entrepreneurs increase the traffic, sales, and profit in their eCommerce businesses. But the reason WHY behind that is because I want to put more money into the pockets of female entrepreneurs.
I quit my job to go full-time in my business because, while I loved what I did, I didn’t love who I did it for. Because as a female in the corporate world I saw first hand how it felt to be dismissed, and looked over. I knew there was a cap on my earning potential and that ultimately I was being held back from accomplishing everything I’m capable of.
Women go into business for themselves to create lives they only dreamed of, to support their families, have more freedom, and give back to the communities that have supported them along the way. I wanted to be a part of that by teaching them everything I learned the hard way. To give them the short cuts and share the information other people weren’t sharing on the internet.
No offense to any men that are listening. I’m certainly not a man-hater — but female entrepreneurs, especially in the product and eCommerce space are grossly underserved and I wanted to change that.
Sharing that and putting it out there as an important part of the eCommerce Badassery brand has attracted other women who are looking to do the same thing. It’s what has allowed me to connect with other service providers in the space to bring you even more value. It’s how you know I truly have your best interests at heart and that I want you to succeed in your business. My passion shines through when I teach and my clients see that and can feel how much I care about what I’m doing and that it’s about more than just the money to me.
I’m not the only one who teaches you how to run an eCommerce business, but there’s a reason why you choose to listen to my podcast or to work with me instead of someone else. Of course, you need to be confident in that I actually know what the fuck I’m talking about, but you also know that I’m not just in it to get paid. I’m in it to support you, to teach you, and give you the tools and education you need to thrive in your business long after our time together.
Be Transparent
Being authentic is all about being you. Being transparent is about being upfront and honest with your people.
Now, this doesn’t mean you have to always air your dirty laundry on the internet, but it does mean owning up to your mistakes and giving your audience a glimpse into what’s really going on behind the scenes.
A great example of this is Everlane. Not only do they share what factory each of their items are made in, but they also show you the price breakdown for the item including the materials and labor, to the duties, and the transport cost.
This doesn’t mean you have to be as transparent with your pricing. That’s just how they chose to create their business. It’s a great example of a company that really values transparency and hopefully sparks some ideas for you.
My own business is another example of this. When I first started eCommerce Badassery I still had a day job. And I never hid that. It was important my audience and clients knew from the start that I had this other obligation, and I was always upfront that the work I did for them would take place in the evenings and weekends. I wanted them to know that while I had limited availability to get on calls with them and might not answer their emails in the middle of the day, that didn’t mean I wasn’t taking the work seriously.
The same goes for my social media audience and my Facebook group specifically. I wasn’t showing up there every day. It was slow going at first but my group members knew that and when they did come to ask questions I was always there to answer them as quickly as possible. They knew just because I wasn’t showing up every day didn’t mean I wasn’t always thinking of new ways to support them in their business.
Be clear and set expectations
I’ve learned that the majority of customer service issues come from unmet expectations. As the CEO of your business, it’s up to you to make sure you’re setting and communicating those expectations. If the customer didn’t understand something, it’s likely because we didn’t explain it well enough.
Don’t get me wrong — you can plaster something in giant neon letters on your home page and people still don’t see it because they don’t read. It doesn’t mean that there are some customers out there that are impossible to please… but my point is that we should always be trying to do our best to communicate that information and it should be top of my mind.
Pre-plan how you’ll handle certain customer service issues + systematize it the best you can
This is the last thing I want to discuss today in terms of building the know, like and trust factor.
Think back to your own experience as a customer. Was there ever a time where you had an issue to handle with a company and the first person you spoke to couldn't help you or they didn’t have the authority to? So you have to wait for the manager, and then the whole process gets dragged out?
As a business owner you certainly can’t give your team carte blanche to do whatever they want, but it’s definitely helpful to give them as much authority and autonomy as you’re comfortable with to get the fastest resolution possible for the customer.
In fact, there was a study done a few years ago in which 47% of consumers consider a fast response to an inquiry or a complaint the mark of an ideal customer experience.
It’s hard to predict every possible customer service issue, but start with the basics and start building out a standard policy and procedure for those situations. Maybe you give your customer service team the authority to offer a 10% discount or refund to a customer when a shipment is delayed, or a standard step-by-step to follow when a customer receives a damaged item.
As you come up against new situations, document them all and how you would ideally handle them. Revisit these policies and procedures once or twice a year to make sure they’re still in line with your business goals… but this way as you and your team grows, you’re able to give them the tools they need to do their job, not have to always come to you for answers and create a great experience for your customers.
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