Brand openness or brand transparency means that a brand talks about itself as much as possible in order to increase consumer confidence.
It is important for people to know how who and in what conditions the product they buy is made. Fewer secrets equal to more trust.
Recognition
The more often a brand comes to the attention of consumers, the more often its products are bought.
Trust
The easier it is to find brand information, the more trust it gets. If there is information about it, it means that it doesn’t hide secrets from buyers and is ready to answer all questions and solve every potential problem.
Loyalty
Nowadays there are so many products of different brands that it is becoming harder and harder to choose. Therefore, when a buyer finds a brand product that he trusts, he ceases to pay attention to other products and gets rid of a headache of choosing.
Recognition and loyalty can help the brand in case of problems. Remember the exploding Samsung smartphones – this was a great mistake of a brand, but thanks to its strength and loyalty of costumers, people continue to buy Samsung.
Had this happened with a little-known brand – customers would not have forgiven it for exploding gadgets and would never have contacted it again.
Content and design
In the age of digital openness, visitors who come to your website are already familiar with trusted and reliable sites, so they have an idea of what the online business should look like.
You can see your business as honest and reliable, but if your content or design does not meet their expectations, they will decide that you are either not worth the trust or that you don’t care enough about the users in order to create a good experience.
Provide the information
It is unlikely that you will trust someone who is hiding something from you, right? Everything on the web is as in real life — people like it when the site has all the information that is related to customer experience.
It’s very important to correctly position the contact information (for example, a section in the main menu), indicate what is included in the base price and what additional payments a client may expect. Provide links to the return policy and warranty information, tell about delivery rates before the customer buys something.
A user can spend only 35 seconds on a website and decide to close it with a thought “I will not use the services of this company because they don’t want to show me their prices, but ask me to send a request. Something is shady and I won’t waste my time on it “.
Depending on your business, you can go beyond and share even more information.
Comparing courier services, users expect to see not only tariffs but also approximate delivery times. Absolutely the same as when ordering Uber or Gett, you expect to see the approximate time when a taxi arrives. The same principle can be used for delivery companies: potential customers want to know how quickly their order will be delivered, and what happens if they are not at home during the delivery.
By the way, in such services, users actively go to the page with frequently asked questions.
When it’s easy to find important information on the site, it creates the image of a transparent company that understands its customers.
Remember, users need to see information about possible surcharges, and they do not want to fill out long forms in order to get this information.
Although the detailed form will give the user accurate information, the cost of interaction is too high. Most of the potential users will tell you the same: “I just want to know the price. I hate being forced to fill out something. ”
In such cases, for the sake of a good impression, it is better to sacrifice the specifics of the business and provide a price range, not forgetting about additional items (taxes, delivery duties, minimum cost, etc.).
Pop-ups and forms
Pop-ups with registration and closed content are great examples of sites you don’t want to trust. Always have in mind that you should provide something to the costumers and not the other way around. To ask for something before you share something valuable is a very bad idea.
The first impression of closed access to information reduces interest in the site. A lot of users won’t use a product delivery site they are asked to register in order to see the information on the site. Another mistake that is very common is that such websites ask you to enter your address in order to show you a list of stores nearby. Remember, that all kind of forms and the pop-up calls on the site to register can only turn off all the potential costumers.
When it’s easy to find information about your company on the Internet, it means that you are transparent and confident in your products.
Design options and styles are changing, but the principles that underpin the creation of a reliable site continue to work. One of the great way to gain trust in your product and website is to give your costumers good content. You can share photos of your product, stories, or you can even try a good podcast production. It can be very engaging and interesting for new clients.
Conclusion
It is always important to understand why you are applying a particular method in design, rather than blindly using it. When you understand why people pay attention to the quality of design, transparency of information, useful content and presence on other sites, you can easily adapt to new changes in web design.
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