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Why auto response emails build trust 2nd April 2010

Any online business has a major challenge in primarily establishing trust with the client. If you are a well known or well advertised name such as Go Compare or Confused this is less of an issue as the general public are more likely to trust something where they have already made a connection – albeit in this case with a large, moustached tenor bellowing into you goggle box or a gangly, bestriped,  cartoon person looking puzzled.

 In the absence of a familiar character persuading you vocally or otherwise that your site offers great value it is down to the online business to build trust as rapidly as possible.

So how do you build trust with an online client who doesn’t know you from a bar of soap, or even Adam if you prefer? One of the ways this can happen is by continued repeated contact in a professional and informative way.
Within reason the more often you contact someone, the more comfortable they will feel about your company or organisation and its credentials. The caveat here is this has to be done in a professional way and really shouldn’t be overdone – emails every day will upset.  Untrained staff, badly written emails or anything that falls below a certain standard will erode trust rapidly.

The other element to building trust is doing what you say and doing it fast. If you promise something and don’t deliver you might get away with it – once. If you are slow you might get away with it once.

The most important aspect of this trust building dialogue is summed up by the familiar phrase "You only get one chance to make a first impression". Making a first impression can be as simple as getting an auto-response email showing that we know you've been in contact with us and we will be dealing with you very soon.

All our evidence shows that that a professional auto-email response that provides your clients with a very presentable copy of their quote in their email inbox makes an even better first impression and is convincing in terms of demonstrating to clients that you are a serious and reputable organisation. After that of course it is vital that other aspects of your client communication strategy are equally convincing. This will really only matter if the first impression is a good.

If you wish to comment on the above or discuss please use the contact us page of our website.