Cripperz Articles!

When customers consider whether to do business through your site, they may be very interested in the posted policies regarding privacy, security, and refunds. If you provide information to them, customers realize your company is open about its dealings and is willing to guarantee certain rights that customers retain.

Posting these policies actually places control back into the hands of the consumer. Afterall, if you state at your site that you offer a 30 day money-back guarantee for dissatisfied customers, they know you’ll stick to it or risk a lawsuit. How does each policy type, privacy, security, and refund protect the customer and add to trust?

Privacy policies let customers know pieces of information they provide will be used by your company, and it allows them to discern whether they should provide certain information. If you are frank about who will have access to what sensitive information, and you allow them to modify, add to, or delete certain information, they remain in control, and trust increases.

Security policies let customers know the lengths you will go to in order to protect their information from crackers, as well as any guarantees you offer about the security of your site in general. For example, if your company stores information for the customer, and if some catastrophe, whether physical or cracker, results in the loss of that data, you might guarantee that off-site backups will restore information within a certain time period. Again, when customers know what you’ll do to protect their interests, they’ll trust your company more.

What if customers have a problem with the quality of the product or service they receive? Do you make guarantees to your customers, giving them control of the situation if they find the delivered goods unacceptable? Or are they stuck with the deficient product and out whatever money they spent receiving the goods? IF you let them know ahead of time what to expect from you by including a refund policy on your site, your trustworthiness will increase.

Never, ever be anonymous to your customers, but allow them to be anonymos to you. Let customers know exactly who you are. Include pictures of employess, if appropriate, on your company information pages. Let the customers see that there are actual people and NOT SCHEMING THIEVES!

Give them a physical address so they know your company isn’t a fly-by-night operation. Show them that you are in the public eye and don’t mind the spotlight because you have nothing to hide.

Allow your customers to shield their identity from you as much as possible, however. Sure, if you have to deliver a product to their door, you’ll need a shipping address. you’ll need a name and credit card information if they want to pay by credit card. But do you really need to know their household salary, the number and ages of their children, and what types of junk mail they like to receive? Absolutely not. The information is helpful to you from a marketing standpoint, but it won’t make or break your company.

Don’t require customers to give any information that isn’t absolutely necessary. If customers is anonymous, you, as a company, are less able to take advantage of them or to compromise their privacy, security, or peace of mind. By default, trust level increase.