5 Ways iovox Creates More Trust in Online Marketplaces

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With a global customer base selling a variety of products through online marketplaces, iovox has learned a great deal about the importance of call tracking in establishing a safe place for commerce. As our founder and CEO, Ryan Gallagher recently said, “We’ve learned through our customers that trust is the unseen backbone of the marketplace business model.”

Online marketplaces are one of the fastest growing business models today.

One of the most important ingredients in the success of an online marketplace is trust – both from a buyer and a seller perspective. Buyers have to trust that they will be able to make a satisfactory purchase. And sellers have to trust that the marketplace will bring them the adequate volume of business and the right type of buyers to justify investing their time and money.

Trust is cyclical. If sellers are happy with your marketplace, that will attract more sellers. That, in turn, will create more options for buyers and more of them will start using your marketplace.

Trust is central to the growth of your online marketplace. So how do you build more of it?

Here are five ways iovox helps build trust.

Prove ROI
The most important question every seller will ask about your marketplace is – will it work? Is it bringing them enough business?
Sellers need a simple way of knowing which leads are coming from your marketplace. After all, chances are that they would have posted listings in several other places too.
Sellers list their own business numbers in their advertisements and listings. However, this makes it impossible to know how the caller found them, unless of course, they actually ask the caller. Very few sellers ask that question to inbound callers, because it damages the flow of the conversation.
Consequently, even if your online marketplace sends them dozens of leads, they have no way of knowing how valuable your contribution is. That knowledge is essential for them to continue staying on your platform.
Using iovox numbers can help you prove that ROI.
The iovox solutionProvide sellers with iovox numbers to include in their listings. These are unique virtual numbers that redirect calls to the sellers’ own business numbers. There’s nothing to download and sellers don’t need to sign up for any additional telecom services.
Iovox can provide you with an unlimited number of unique virtual phone numbers, which you can give to your sellers.
These numbers help attribute the call to your online marketplace with two simple features.
Call WhispersWhenever a seller receives a call, they will hear a short, pre-recorded voice stating the name of your marketplace. Something like “This call is from X Marketplace.”
Zoopla and OnTheMarket, two of the UK’s largest Property-marketplaces, use Call Whispers & Alerts across its network of Realtors to attribute the source of leads.
Texts and EmailsIf they choose to, sellers will also get emails that specify which calls were from your marketplace. That will give them records to keep track of their leads.
The Advantage of SimplicityIovox also provides call attribution data and advanced analytics in its seller dashboards, but the simplicity of call whispers works better for some marketplaces.
For example, one of our European auto marketplaces had the tough task of trying to convince dealers in their network that their marketplace was a source of new car buyers. For dealers who are successful running their business more by instinct than analysis, they had to “experience” something before believing it.
Enter call whispers and email alerts. Both of which provided tangible evidence of buyer interest. Once the dealers realized the value that was being created through call tracking, they took the next step and started studying the data via our analytics tools to look for ways to improve on call conversions.
Call Whispers, texts and emails create a direct experience that resonates far better with most sellers, and builds the trust that can help your marketplace truly grow.
Prevent Spam Calls
When sellers post listings on your online marketplace, they expect calls from people who have an interest in making a purchase.
However, mentioning a phone number in a listing might also lead to dozens of spam calls, from humans or robocallers, trying to sell you credit cards, insurance, phone subscriptions, event venues, business services, etc.
Spammers love to scrape online marketplaces to build their databases, which they use themselves, or sell to spam calling companies.
The bigger your online marketplace grows, the bigger a target it will become for spammers. And if your sellers get too many spam calls, they will think twice about renewing their subscription with your marketplace.
So how do you protect your sellers from spam?
The iovox solutionIovox uses advanced spam filtering technology to minimize spam calls. Our databases filter out known spam numbers, and our algorithm also detects suspicious caller behavior and blocks new spammers from getting through.
Maintain Buyer Privacy
In several marketplaces, sellers are individuals rather than businesses. An example is a real estate marketplace such as Zoopla, where a homeowner might list an apartment for rent himself, rather than go through a realtor. Another example is Autotrader UK, the UK’s largest automotive marketplace where individuals post listings to sell their cars.
Many of these individuals would prefer not to share their personal number on the listing, out of concern for getting nuisance calls. Moreover, given the rising concern over data privacy, fewer people are sharing their personal details online. However, sellers also know that providing a phone number is important to encourage buyers to contact them, which presents a Catch-22 situation.
The iovox solutionProvide iovox virtual mobile numbers to the sellers on your marketplace. These calls will then get diverted to a seller’s personal number, which remains private.
There’s another benefit.
When buyers on your marketplace see a mobile number, they also have the option of sending a question via text, which many buyers are more comfortable with.
“We advise all of our private sellers to use it because it helps to protect their numbers from scammers and nuisance customers. It’s a solution we emphasize to prospective customers, and is something that has helped us to develop a trusted relationship.” – Kelly Jessop | Product Lead, Auto Trader UK.
Auto Trader UK’s Trustpilot score has increased from 6.7 to 9.3, and they attribute this phenomenal rise to iovox. You can find out more in this case study.
Seller privacy is an essential component of trust. If you can help preserve that, you will get far more sellers on your platform.
Facts Beat Opinions. Use Real Info to Grow Sales.
Attributing calls to your marketplace is just the first step to building trust. Bigger companies on your platform will want to go much further and maximize the number of quality leads they get from you.
How can you help them sell more, and look at you as a trusted partner in their business?
The iovox solutionIovox provides detailed call analytics through its enterprise dashboard. This gets you access to data such as:
- Missed calls
- Peak times of day
- Geolocation of callers
- Marketing campaign effectiveness
- And a lot more
For example, knowing the time of day when you get the most calls will help your sellers staff their inbound call teams more efficiently. Unique iovox numbers can be used for different advertisements on the marketplace, and identify the best-performing ads.
We enable you to provide each of your sellers with a dedicated dashboard. The more insights you provide them to help them sell more, the more they will view you as a trusted partner rather than just another listing portal.
Encourage Buyers to Call More
So far, we have spoken about creating trust with sellers. How can your marketplace establish more trust among buyers?
Here are a few ways.
The iovox solutionBetter Call ExperienceWe allow sellers to record all customer calls. This is an extremely valuable resource for training inbound sales teams to deliver a far better experience for callers. That improved experience will translate into more frequent buyer visits and endorsements among their friends and family.
Better ListingsOur analytics help sellers to optimize their listings to match buyer needs more closely. When buyers begin to find what they want more easily, they will keep coming back to your marketplace.
Local NumbersWe provide iovox numbers from more than 60 countries as well as local numbers. Regional and local numbers play a huge role in encouraging more buyers to dial the number.