Building Trust In A Skeptical Online World

Asking customers to part with their hard earned cash isn’t easy. It’s even harder if you’re an online brand, with little reputation, and not yet a household name.

That’s what we at Cove are facing as we work to build one of New Zealand’s first truly digital insurance brands.

Besides dropping millions on TV and radio campaigns, what can challenger brands do to build trust in an increasingly skeptical online world?

Exceptional Customer Service

Trust and credibility can both be built through exceptional one-to-one customer service. No matter how many awards you win or testimonials you share, nothing beats a responsive customer service experience which exceeds expectations. It will instantly build the comfort & trust required to get the sale.

For online brands this can be achieved through ensuring both live chat and an 0800 number is answered within seconds by a real person, and then exceed expectations by ensuring this first contact is prepared to answer all questions and empowered to put a solution in place immediately.

Since potential customers don’t always get the chance to experience exceptional customer service until they need assistance, it pays to showcase customer reviews to potential customers pre-purchase.

Social Proof

Social proof is one of the most effective ways to make potential customers feel comfortable before buying. If users can see that 500 people have already tread the path they are considering and were chuffed with the experience, then they’ll have more confidence walking that same path.

Ask customers to review their experience at every stage of the process, after any customer service interaction. Reviews can be captured through trusted third party platforms such as Google Reviews and Feefo, then resurfaced on your own website and within your online purchase journey.

Relationships Before Conversions

In insurance, sometimes you know before someone buys a policy that they’ll never be able to make a claim on it, and denying a claim (believe it or not) is the last thing we want to do – it’s horrible for both the customer and us.

An example might be a customer who is in the process of buying a private use motor vehicle policy when we have access to data showing it’s registered for commercial purposes.
If we know a customer isn’t the best fit for Cove, we’ll let them know there is a better option for them at a different brand. In the case above we block the purchase altogether.
Intercepting a customer just before they enter their credit card details seems counter-intuitive, but building that relationship and ensuring the customer knows we have their best interests in mind will pay off when they truly need us.

Be Human

‘Virtual Humans’ and chatbots have been quite hyped recently, but we’ve found the more we have real people available to help, the more customers rave about us.

People like to connect with people, not brands. Showing who is behind the brand, or what it’s like behind the scenes in building your brand, helps to be more relatable. Hiding anonymously behind a logo keeps the customers at arms-length.

Final Word

At the end of the day nothing beats exceptional customer service from a real, empathetic team.
If you can succeed in providing exceptional customer service in an increasingly impersonal online world, then trust and confidence in your brand will follow.