Whom Do You Trust?
BY RANDY KEMP
Awash in tidal waves of analyses that predict explosive growth and
soaring profits for e-commerce, have you asked yourself if you really know
your customers? Along with all of the effort and attention expended on
products geared for garnering customer retention and loyalty, e-businesses
need to understand how their customers think.
You have seen the figures and heard the prognostications. In spite of a
predicted shake out of "dot com" enterprises, research firms
generally agree that the global Internet economy will be worth trillions
of dollars within three years. Items purchased most frequently online seem
to be books, CDs, software, clothing and health and beauty products; but
the list grows inexorably. This year has seen e-trading and financial
services take off. Interestingly, customer surveys have shown that, while
many consumers feel ill at ease about using credit cards for online
purchases and have reservations about privacy, neither is an inhibiting
factor to e-commerce. At the same time, e-customers expect higher levels
of customer service along with the convenience of shopping online. Throw
in the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act recently
signed into law by President Clinton (see Mia
Carley's June 2000 column for more information on the law) and you add
another spice to the e-commerce statistical stew.
Statistical alchemists transmute peoples' opinions, preferences and
behaviors gleaned from surveys into data that, after acute analysis, are
molded into programs and strategies to resolve problems, get people
elected, identify socioeconomic trends and attitudes and, yes, sell goods
and services. While predictive analysis and real-time modeling programs
facilitate our manipulation of this data, interpretation is another
matter. Due to the ever-increasing pace of e-commerce, the data seems in a
constant state of flux. Often, last month's breakthrough analysis becomes
this month's pipe dream (or understatement).
In 1929, German physicist Werner Heisenberg gave a series of lectures
at the University of Chicago. (Some of you may have read that Heisenberg
either did or did not sabotage the Nazi quest for the atomic bomb during
World War II.) In these lectures on quantum theory, he defined the
Indeterminacy Principle, more commonly known as the Uncertainty Principle.
Simply stated, the Uncertainty Principle maintains that it is physically
impossible to measure the exact position and the exact momentum of a
particle at the same time. Also, the more precise the measurement of one
quantity, the less precisely the other is measured. In other words,
everything we know is wrong, but only half of the time.
Of course, if you went through life adhering to the philosophical
ramifications of the Uncertainty Principle, you would spend each day
waiting for something not to happen. That would not do. So we make certain
assumptions: there are patterns to what we observe, what we observe is
measurable and what we quantify reflects "normal" events that
are repetitive and have validity for describing the world around us. The
data may not be totally accurate, but it is close enough for jazz. Why? We
trust it.
Two years ago, the Better Business Bureau's Web site, BBBOnLine,
commissioned a study of consumer confidence in shopping on the Internet.
In essence, the study concluded that people would shop more online if they
knew (or could be assured) that the e-businesses were reputable, and if
they felt confident in the security of the sites for paying online for
their purchases. Last year, we learned that as people become experienced
online buyers, their expectations of online vendors rise, in terms of
service and the "buying experience." (Could it be that
familiarity does indeed breed contempt?) In other words, provide an
environment that promotes trust and the cybershoppers will beat a packet
protocol path to your e-portal.
A Persian proverb from before the age of the overland silk trade with
China states Trust in God, but tie your camel. In this brave, new world of
e-commerce, trust is a multilane highway. You have trust in your
employees, management teams, business plans and strategies, systems,
applications, vendors and customers. In turn, by both your virtual
"face to the world" and your actions, you must earn the trust of
those very same entities. Your customers trust you to provide quality
goods and services, a level of privacy with which they are comfortable and
effective assistance in addressing their concerns. The cornerstone of what
we call customer loyalty is trust. This is a startlingly old concept:
failing a customer means losing a customer.
If you want to instill customer loyalty, first build trust. Employ some
common sense approaches at your Web site. Ensure that your infrastructure
is reliable, responsive, secure and effective. Visitors should feel
welcome, not intimidated. The "easy-to-use, multichannel
communications tools" you deploy at your site should operate as
advertised. For example, many sites provide a self-help application that
uses an intelligent knowledge base. Keep it simple. On one Web site, the
self-help facility asked me to rephrase my query so many times that I made
my purchase at another site. There is nothing more frustrating for
customers than being drawn into the mire of a self-help mechanism that
cannot even help itself. Educate your customer interaction agents; make
certain that they buy into your goals and objectives and are compensated
for their trust and loyalty. Borrowing the "bricks-and-mortar"
imagery so popular today, trust is built one brick at a time. Each course
of brick and mortar, carefully laid, provides greater strength for the
foundation of your e-business. Consumers will respond with appreciation of
your efforts, trust in your operation and loyalty to your products and
services. Most important, provide a level of privacy and security that
addresses the fears (real or imagined) of that first-time online buyer.
Trust fosters loyalty; loyalty breeds customer retention, which in turn
bears the fruits of e-commerce success.
The author may be contacted at Rkemp@tmcnet.com.
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