All You Need To Know About Building Trust In The Financial Services Industry

In the financial services industry, trust is everything. Your business needs to build trust with consumers, or you won’t see many customers. Here are some incredible tips that will help your business become more trustworthy:

Clean Up Your Image

Let’s face it; no one will trust you if your company doesn’t have a good image. Everyone judges a book by its cover nowadays. First impressions are made before someone gets to know you and your business. It’s all decided on how you appear to the public. If your company gives off bad vibes, then no one will trust you with their money. You must appear friendly, and have a clean image. The best way to do this is to ensure nothing tarnishes your reputation or makes your business look bad.

The thing is, there are many factors that can alter your image. One of the biggest of which is your experience. If your company has completed lots of jobs and got great feedback, then you give off a positive image. But, if you carry out a lot of work, and it’s not good, then you give off the opposite image. Another key factor is your employees and what they get up to. If someone sees your employees doing bad things, then it reflects badly on your brand image.

Provide Constant Support For Customers

Customer support is an incredible way to build trust in the financial services industry. When dealing with their money, people want to know they have plenty of support. If something goes wrong, they’ll want to speak to you no matter the time or place. If you can’t provide constant support, then consumers are less likely to trust your business. It looks out of place if a company isn’t striving to be there for their customers at all times. There’s no excuse for providing a low level of customer support.

So, you must ensure that you’re providing support for people at all times. To do this, you need to provide multiple communication methods. Set up a phone network that allows people to call your business when they have problems. Similarly, you need live text chat on your website and a social media customer service team. All of this comes together to create the ultimate support system for your customers. Now, you have to ensure that you can provide this service around the clock. 24/7 support is a must for all businesses in the finance sector. One way you can achieve this is by getting a professional IT support company to monitor your systems. Of course, make sure they offer FCA compliance IT support for you. The last thing you want is to have a company make alterations to systems that breach rules and regulations. If all of your systems are monitored, there’s less chance of them experiencing outages. So, you can provide support for your customers all day, every day. As such, you build trust as they know you’re always there for them.

Get Personal With Your Customers

Another way to build trust is to get personal with your customers. Make each individual seem cared for, and not like they’re just walking and talking bags of money. You see this far too often with companies in the financial sector. They don’t treat their customers as individuals, and it can lead to a decrease in trust. One example of this is not using customer names on documents. Yes, it saves time as you can just send out the same automated letter to everyone. However, it doesn’t make your customer feel cared for. They want to be addressed by their proper name and not something like ‘Dear Valued Customer’. If they’re such a valued customer, call them by their first name!

Getting personal and caring for your customers builds trust as they feel more comfortable with your business. It makes things feel less formal, and more like they’re talking to someone they’ve known for years. Automated responses can grind people’s gears and put them off a company. If they get responses that feel genuine, then they start to feel like they matter. They’ll trust you as they think your company truly cares about them. It’s harder to get personal than it used to be. This is because the financial sector is now doing digital. Everyone is doing things online, rather than going to your business personally. But, you can still offer a personal approach, and build trust.

Discuss Trust Issues

Arguably the easiest way to build trust is to discuss any trust issues. Get everything out in the open, so your customers no longer worry about it. There are many things in the financial services sector that promote trust issues. For one, consumers are worried about how you’ll handle their money. Secondly, they want to be sure that everything is secure and confidential. Thirdly, people want to do business with companies that are approved by financial authorities. If you aren’t, there will be a severe lack of trust.

So, how can you discuss these issues with your customers? Well, I have two ways to go about this, one is traditional, and the other is for online businesses. If your company has an office or retail store, then it’s likely clients will come and visit. When they’re there, you can ask them if they have any issues with trust. See what they say, and then assure them that your business is 100% trustworthy. Show them how you can negate any of their issues, and they’ll have more faith and confidence in you. If your business is solely online, then you have another method to take. On your website, you need to include a section that promotes your business as trustworthy. Make it loud and clear that people can trust you, and list the reasons why. For example, you might show that you’re FCA approved and have 100% secure transactions. Tell consumers what they want to hear, so it eases their worries.

And there you have it; that’s all you need to know about building trust in the financial services industry!

Image courtesy of Wikimedia.