Show clients your commitment to protecting the transaction while helping them understand their role in the process.
Today’s businesses face a unique challenge. They must find ways to showcase their trustworthiness to audiences that are increasingly distracted. That challenge becomes even more important in title insurance.
Businesses are continually signaling to audiences in various ways whether or not they are trustworthy. At the audience level, those trust signals can include everything from a modern website and responsive communication to customer reviews, branding and clear messaging. But once an audience member becomes a customer, another level of trust is required. Customers need to understand both your commitment to protecting the integrity of their transaction and the critical steps they need to take to help keep it secure. Let’s see what it takes to do both.
Step 1: Segment strategically
Creating trust signals that feel meaningful but still respectful of your audience’s time starts by understanding them. Your audience is not a monolith. It is an array of constituencies, each with their own motivations, fears and needs. Considering “buyer personas” is a great way to begin building trust. You will then better understand what each audience member is looking for from a title agency and know how to position your services in a way that grabs a buyer’s attention.
When building out these personas, resist overthinking it. Simply ask what each audience segment is worried about, what they need to do next and how much they already understand. That way, you can cut right to the chase and highlight why you are best positioned to meet their needs and address their fears. For example, is your buyer purchasing their first home or are they a seasoned homeowner facing the digital closing process for the first time?
Step 2: Put fraud prevention front and center
As you build your customer personas, you will also need to convey to each of them the inherent risks in today’s fraud landscape. At Alliant National, we encourage agents to adopt a simple principle: VERIFY, THEN TRUST: Every file, every party, every time. The challenge is bringing consumers into that mindset in a clear and practical way. Real estate transactions, where hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars are exchanged, remain attractive targets for scammers, and customers may not fully understand the threat level, especially when they are caught up in the many moving pieces of a transaction. This represents an obvious opportunity to build greater trust. By making your agency’s fraud-prevention practices as visible as possible, you can help your customers feel more secure in your ability to protect the integrity of their transactions, while also helping them understand the role they play in keeping those transactions safe and maintaining the necessary protections of their personal information and assets.
Some best practices for getting customers the information they require without overburdening them include:
- Make fraud warnings obvious: Place short, clear reminders in all emails, website pages and other customer-facing materials and always encourage the exchange of critical information through your secure agency closing portal.
- Avoid jargon: Customers need a quick and crystal-clear understanding of your ID verification practices, secure portals and other anti-fraud procedures—written in plain English.
- Give customers a safe point of contact: Provide a designated point of contact upfront, along with instructions on which number to use and which situations merit a pause, particularly before sending funds. Customers should be reminded that if something changes or feels unusual, they should not rely on a recent email or another communication stream. They should return to the original contact information you provided and verify before taking the next step. For example, your customers should always be reminded that you will NEVER change your wire instructions at the last minute. Direct them to the trusted point of contact should they receive such a direction.
- Create standard fraud-prevention language: Ensure your customers receive the same guidance at every touchpoint. Team training is important here. Your team should continually reinforce the same messages and procedures, so the guidance does not get muddled and consumers do not become disengaged. The threat level is high and customers need to appreciate that from the minute their transaction is initiated.
With these steps, even the most distracted and scattered audience will more easily understand your commitment to keeping their transactions secure. That builds trust in your organization while also helping customers understand the steps they can take—and need to take—to help protect their transaction. Your customers have a critical role to play, but trusting that you will guide them appropriately and safely will be a valuable tool in their protection.
Step 3: Visuals are very important
Ensuring your agency exudes credibility and trustworthiness begins with your website. Adhering to modern web design practices, using consistent fonts and colors and ensuring mobile responsiveness are all non-negotiable. Reviewing client-facing forms for accuracy, correct branding and messaging, particularly around fraud, and a smooth user experience is also important, as is auditing the communications and physical documentation that come from your agency.
Be the resource that your customers require. Secure links to checklists for closings, fraud prevention tips, and frequently asked questions and answers make certain to your customer that you are their reliable resource throughout the closing process. You are the resource they can trust at every stage.
Step 4: Review your reviews
Remember: The communication channels you “own” are just the tip of the iceberg for establishing trust. Today’s audiences are channel switchers. When choosing a company in which to place their trust, they will vet not only your site and social media channels, but also third-party sites, reviews and customer feedback.
You need to be similarly active in these spaces. Whether it be your Google Business Profile or various review sites, you must be ready to respond to questions, offer advice or address complaints. If you do this well, time-crunched prospects will see you as a convenient and communicative business partner. If you don’t, you risk disengagement. Make a customer satisfaction survey part of the post-closing outreach to your customers. Allow them to sing your praises or learn from your mistakes to enhance the next transaction experience.
Step 5: Highlight the human
Last but certainly not least, few things help build trust and relationship as much as highlighting the human element of your business. As we all know, relationships are everything in the title and settlement industry. Sometimes in real estate transactions, the human factor can feel lost under procedures and paperwork, which is a big problem when trying to elevate your agency’s credibility. Overcoming this means connecting customers to the specific people they will engage with as their closing moves to completion. Clarifying roles and reinforcing the verification steps customers should follow before acting on transaction instructions is also critical to a positive and trust-based customer experience.
VERIFY, THEN TRUST is at the heart of our business
It can be a real struggle to help customers feel comfortable and confident enough to entrust you with their transactions…and their MONEY! One reason is that it’s becoming an enormous lift to even connect with customers in our fragmented and fluid digital age. That’s where these trust-building steps can make a difference. By showing customers that you are committed to protecting their transactions—and by helping them understand their own role in the process—you can build trust, which will benefit your customers and your agency’s future success through referrals from satisfied customers.
