Wednesday, July 30, 2008

How To Scare Customers With Your Website Trustseal?

I got an email from Borrell Associates to download their latest report "Say Goodbye to Yellow Pages", which seemed like an interesting topic to read. For the uninitiated, Borrell Associates is a leading research and consulting firm tracking local advertising and releases special reports in this segment.





Now Borrell website has a typical way to take everyone through a shopping cart to even download the free summary. While on this page I just noticed (see screenshot above) a new trustseal from Trustwave and clicked on it out of curiosity. What popped up surprised me - Trustwave says it "does not recognize this organization" - their organization and identity is "Unknown". Scary!





While it was OK with me for a free download, this would have no doubt scared most buyers who would be ready with their credit cards to pay for the (full) report. I wonder how many potetial customers Borrell would've lost.

The lesson to learn here is - Use the trust seal on your shopping site only if is valid and working. If for any reason (like expiry...) the trustseal doesn't recognize your company - just chuck it off from your site. It's always better NOT to show this scary message to paying customers.
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