Community: It's About Building Interactions and Trust

People go online not just to be informed but also to interact with other people, comparison shop and get other's opinions. Filling this need at your Web store has the potential to turn viewers into customers and customers into repeat customers. The ability to ask questions, discuss problems and raise issues develops a sense of trust in your site and your products and it helps develop customer loyalty, which in turn fosters repeat visits – a critical component to the success of your web store.

Discussion boards and forums, chat rooms, and discussion lists can provide content because they generate information by their very nature. And the more times shoppers visit your site, the more familiar they are with it. The more familiar they are, the more comfortable they might be in making a purchase from you instead of another online merchant.

Communities add “stickiness” to your site. Stickiness refers to the ability to make people stay longer. The stickier the site, the more loyal the customer becomes. Loyalty builds trust, which is key in business. You should include as many interactive community tools as possible on your web site.

The major tools of the interactive community are discussion boards or forums, customer-service chats, customer chat rooms, email discussion lists, and newsletters (a service where customers subscribe for period updates with offers and information).