
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&#x27;t take further step, only 2 users completed the whole process, and they are very happy with our assistance. We believe it&#x27;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?
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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

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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 hello@companyname.com, domain registered with
privacy protection and obvious stock photos, sometimes fake-looking
testimonials.

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

[https://toortl.com/about](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/](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](https://itunes.apple.com/app/visard/id1102137634?mt=8),
the website is [http://www.visard.co.nz/](http://www.visard.co.nz/)

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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

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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](https://credibility.stanford.edu/research.html)

~~~
leomayleomay
cheers, will do

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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.

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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

