How do online brands go about winning the trust of their customers?

Not so long ago, popular wisdom had it that established companies trading in the real world were doomed to play second fiddle in the future to more nimble Internet startups, tuned in to the ways of the wired consumer. All the dinosaurs of the old economy could hope to do was to get their own online operations up and running as quickly as possible before the startups stole too much of their business.

But in the recent months, sentiment seems to have swung back in the opposite direction. The first big Internet startups have gone down under, and more and more stories emerge of just how quickly many dotcoms are blowing their cash on expensive advertising campaigns to attract visitors to their sites. Those old businesses that have managed to stay in business all these years are suddenly looking quite respectable once again. In the current climate, the clicks-and-mortar model, where the online operation has the backing of a well known and long established off-line brand, is flavour of the month. When shopping online, consumers like to go to a brand they can trust.

That at least is the conclusion of recently published Henley Centre research. The research found that for consumers shopping online, trust in a company is crucial; more important than convenience or better prices. Consumers want to deal with brands they perceive will deliver goods and services reliably, according to the report.

The main point that most Internet organizations can take from this research is that it shouldn’t be a purely cost-based decision that puts them online. What they need to think is the amount of investment in the back-end infrastructure that needs to be made to give people confidence that should something go wrong, should they need help or advice, there is an infrastructure behind them to support them and get them through the website. Trust then builds very quickly and people then tend to use them more.

When people come to the site, it must appear professional, with clear and open policies about who the company is and what it is saying, with details of how the company can be contacted other than through the website. People are much more confident if there’s a telephone number, an address or an email address there.

Amid all the horror stories surrounding Internet companies’ poor record on fulfilment, one name is consistently held up as an example of how things should be done. When Amazon.co.uk set up shop in UK, it did so with benefit of a good brand name established by parent company Amazon.com. But, as the UK arm’s marketing director explained. "It’s no good sitting on our laurels and hoping the good name from US will help us succeed here. We have to do everything right here. We have to have an effective website, we have to have great products, we have to have great content and we have to fulfil extremely well and extremely quickly."

To win trust, sites must appear professional with clear and open policies about the company

At the end of day, when you strip away all the drama about Internet companies, people are asking to buy something, and all that counts is : can I get what I want, can I get it quickly, will I get what I ask for, and will it be good value? When you hear it put so bluntly, it sounds obvious. So why have so many e-traders been getting it so wrong and alienating their customer base?

They get this concept of a virtual company where you can outsource everything. So you outsource the website to a website designer, and you outsource the fulfilment to a company that has warehouse and a relationship with a white van company, and it's just nonsense because those are critical things that you do that give the customer satisfaction.

If an online brand can’t convince consumers that it deserves their trust on its own, there is no shortage of schemes willing to offer independent endorsement of a website’s integrity. If the certifying body’s criteria are met, the website is allowed to display a logo which reassures consumers that if anything does go wrong, the e-tailer will seek to put things right.

Apart from the schemes offered by trade associations, the two main website certification schemes operating in the UK, are Which Web Trader (run by the Consumers Association) and Clicksure. Which Web Trader is free of charge and has so far signed up around 900 websites, while Clicksure is paid for, which has so far signed up just a handful of companies.

In the UK, in an attempt to bring a degree of standardization to website certification without resorting to legislation, the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), with the Consumer’s Association and the Alliance for Electronic Business, have formed Trust UK. Trust UK is supported by the government and it will accredit schemes such as Clicksure, Which Web Trader and those operated by trade associations that certify websites.

The danger is that if the criterion is made too restrictive and expensive then a lot of the new e-traders either won’t want to do it or won’t be able to afford to do it. Those should be brought into the fold as well, so a balance should be struck, wherein everybody is moving in the right direction from just a few moving in the right direction – it’s a very difficult balance.