Ask HN: How to earn trust from users and increase conversion rate

[leomayleomay]

We are operating an app helping people apply visas using their mobile phone (fill forms, submit supporting documents by taking pictures etc.), we have acquired 300+ customers in less than 2 weeks, and 350+ visa applications created, most of the customers stop after the 1st step (Basic personal information), they won't take further step, only 2 users completed the whole process, and they are very happy with our assistance. We believe it's because of lack of trust, people are not willing to give out their private informations, but how could they trust the other traditional agents?

[Mz]

I am not readily finding any of the things I want, but your website needs to LOOK trustworthy. It can't be too flashy. It needs to look conservative and banker-ish.

You need it to have the right kind of written copy and there can be no typos. You must clean up anything like that. It will signal to people that you do sloppy work and can't be entrusted with anything more important if you can't bother to clean up typos, misspelled words and grammatical errors.

You also need some explicit signals that your site is trustworthy, such as relevant "endorsements" or verifications by the kinds of organizations that do that kind of thing.

(There may be a few other things you need, but this is a place to start.)

[leomayleomay]

thank you for all the great advices, the website is actually a landing page, we will see if we can have a more trustworthy user experience, we will also have someone proof read the content to ensure no typos or grammatical errors appear on the page

[mtmail]

Not your app (since you didn't post a link) but I see many websites on Show HN missing basic information like the company address, contact person, phone number. Often it's only a [e-mail], domain registered with privacy protection and obvious stock photos, sometimes fake-looking testimonials.

Number 7 on Show HN right now: https://realideas.site/, I personally wouldn't register since the only contact is an email address

https://toortl.com/about is only slightly better with links to the linkedin profiles of the founders. It is a company? Is it registered/incorporated? Do they have an office? Why no copyright notice/terms-of-serivce/privacy notice. I assume it's a hobby project.

On my own project (https://geocoder.opencagedata.com/) the footer lists tax and company registration numbers. I hope that makes us a little more trustworthly towards companies (B2B). In reality we've never received a letter other than tax related stuff.

[leomayleomay]

oh, sorry, the link to the app is https://itunes.apple.com/app/visard/id1102137634?mt=8, the website is http://www.visard.co.nz/

[brudgers]

'300 customers' means 300 people paid money for the service. If people are not paying money, then they are not customers. Requiring people to pay money is a good way to filter out people who are unlikely to trust your process and ultimately, if the goal is to have a business, then getting people to pay is a necessary step toward validation. Charging people is also a reality check on the product creating value. If it doesn't seem reasonable to charge for it then it might not be a good product.

If people are not completing the process, then the product might not meet the market. In that case it's not a matter of increasing conversions, it's a matter of creating a better product.

Good luck.

[leomayleomay]

yeah, that's true, to be more precise, we have 300+ users registered for less than two weeks. People are searching `visa` in App store then see our app, we have 300+ registered users in a short period of time, which means the need is there, people are not paying since we are not that trustworthy, i am still believing it's a good product, but we do need to do more reality check see how people are willing to pay for the service

[brudgers]

Because 'Visa' is also the name of a major credit card provider, there are likely to be a significant number of people searching under that term whose needs are entirely different.

My standard concern is that it is much harder to iterate and communicate with users when the delivery channel is an app in an appstore versus a website. It is also more difficult to anchor pricing to a sustainable level and offer personalized service.

Expertise navigating international travel is something that may have more value than a potential customer's flagship mobile device. In an app store, it is going to be nearly impossible to extract that value because...well there's somebody who will offer a service that is similar for free or $1.99. In the app store, the $1.99 service will be largely indistinguishable from a $999 service due to the standard format of app store sales pages.

[gt565k]

I'd suggest trying to get some kind of endorsement / verification from a government entity or something like a law firm, or any other entity that will boost your credibility. Then display such endorsement on the first screen the user sees when accessing your app.

I think people are scared that your app is not legitimate and the information they share could be used to harm them.

[leomayleomay]

yeah, actually, we are supported by Immigration public section, but they can not endorse the app because there are other players in the market

[stevewilhelm]

Take a look at Staford's Web Credibility Research. The work is a bit dated, but many of the findings are still useful.

https://credibility.stanford.edu/research.html

[leomayleomay]

cheers, will do

[pryelluw]

Its not trust thats the problem. Its marketing. You don't seem to have a marketing systen in action. To me its pretty clear that you need to work on converting those 300+ users into paying customers through a drip campaign and special offers.

[itamarst]

Have you talked to the people who stopped halfway?

[leomayleomay]

yes, we have tried to contact some of them, since we've been communicating with customers about their visa applications, the main reason they gave us for stopping halfway is they don't trust us, they have big concerns their privacy will be compromised

[BummyMon]

On your website, create a section where describe your process in processing the visas and indicate within that process what you will do to keep their data secure.

[leomayleomay]

hmm, that's a brilliant idea, will try to describe that on the website