How to Make Buyers Feel Good About Doing Business with You

It may be easier for your customers to find you on a Google search than it is to find your contact card in their phone or PDA. Surprising, but true. How many times do we add a contact’s e-mail to our Rolodex, but never take the time to hunt down their phone number and add that in, too?

It happened to me all too recently. There I was, standing in a parking lot, needing to talk to a great freelance writer I know, but I just didn’t have her phone number handy. In fact, I had been pulling up her name and phone number from e-mail, and just couldn’t find her last message fast enough. So I used my smart phone to Google her name. She came up in the first result (as my name also does) and there she had it … her phone number right there on her Web page. Easy to find! Within 5 minutes we were on the phone, and I was able to book her time in the 15 minutes I had available that day.

How much easier, would it be, to simply have a vendor’s phone number in the banner?

Of course, it depends on what type of business you are in, and how much effort you want to spend answering incoming phone calls, but guaranteed it will help people to find you easily and quickly … even faster than if you had a phone book listing.

The other reason you might want to add your phone number is to “reduce friction” on your Web site. Friction is the resistence people feel when they do business on the Internet. Research has found simply having your phone number will boost opt-in rates and improve sales. It’s just  another way people can quickly get in touch with you. It also shows you are someone “real.” Having your picture in the header and a clear statement about what it is you do also reduces friction by making it obvious within 5 seconds what your site is about.

What are other ways you’ve found to reduce friction on your site? What do you think your customers looking for when they come to your Web site? What personal touches can you add to make it fun to do business with you? Share your ideas in the Comment section below.