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Blog on e-business and online payments.

How To Verify Company’s Trustworthiness?


A brand can be built using many methods. What you cannot do is not build it at all. Every business is working for their reputation by interacting with clients or partners. And it’s their opinions that usually are the most helpful when deciding about potential shopping or partnership. Most people prefer to use services recommended by their friend, so our clients’ satisfaction should be more valuable than any ad campaign, media coverage or strong market position.

How to help first time clients decide to use our services? What if we haven’t yet gained reputation of a trustworthy merchant and not all potential clients are determined enough to look us up on the internet (e.g. price comparison websites)? Of course, you can tempt them by lowering your prices, but in most cases buyers prefer to pay extra and be sure their transaction will go smoothly.

On the other hand, how can you convince your potential business partners that your company is reliable and financially stable? Is there a way to back up your arguments?

One of possible solutions is getting a certificate verifying your reliability as a merchant. There are many different kinds for different types of companies, so the requirements for obtaining such a certificate may vary.

Privacy protection

The first step is verifying your website. Clients are getting more and more aware of what information they leave online and how it can be used. One sentence about the content being secured with SSL isn’t the solution – many internet users don’t know what it means, while others will think it’s not enough. That’s why ensuring your visitors that their data is safe and will not be shared with other entities will gain their trust. Certificated verifying the site’s safety are issued by e.g. TRUSTe.

However, before looking for an appropriate certificate elsewhere, make sure to create and post your own privacy policy.

E-commerce

One of the most popular business verification services is Trusted Shops. Its website allows customers to check how the merchant has been assessed before receiving their badge – they need to provide high quality service and inform their clients about terms and conditions, payments, returns etc.

Knowing how popular such programs have become, Google itself launched a Trusted Store program. Since the company needs no introduction, having a badge with their logo guaranteeing high quality service is a valuable feature of every e-shop website.

Creditworthiness

In the times when many e-businesses suddenly go bankrupt, more and more companies want to ensure their customers that they are financially reliable. Being verified by a third party or an independent entity is a convincing argument for potential partners.

It might be worth to sign up to National Debt Register. Besides getting a certificate of reliability, the business will also be listed in their register. Anyone who wants to look up a company will get information on their financial situation or debt status.

Certificates from business partners

PayLane Verified Merchant seal

Verification programs are often offered by companies which don’t specialise in such a field, but due to their type of business they offer customers similar services. The perfect example of that would be online payment processors. In order to start cooperation with a new business, they have to conduct a verification process, which, depending on the offered services, may be long and detailed. Moreover, new companies are verified also by banks that work with the payments processor.  They have access to various databases and analyses that they neither reveal nor share, but there’s no better source of information regarding the company’s reliability than banks.

Badges are issued also by big international companies, such as Authorize.net or PayPal, as well as local payments processors like PayLane.

Of course, the aforementioned (and not only) certificates are a clear sign for the potential clients. By presenting an appropriate badge on our website, we increase our company’s trustworthiness – the bigger the issuer, the more impressive the certificate. It also minimizes the number of actions that the potential client has to take. Therefore, there are fewer steps on which they can change their mind about shopping on our site and instead we ensure them that clicking “buy now” is 100% safe.

Mr. Banks is actually a fictional character, but does some real work. This makes him PayLane's fictional employee of the year :)

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