Why retailers should consider adding Google Trusted Store badge

19 Aug 2015 Dominic Comments Off on Why retailers should consider adding Google Trusted Store badge

Google Trusted Store helps customers to identify websites which Google have looked at and feel confident in recommending. Once Google have reviewed the website, they will either tell the retailer that they are happy to recommend them or not.

If they are happy to recommend the website, then the retailer can show a relevant badge on their site stating that they are a “Google Certified Store”. The Google Trusted Store badge is only displayed on sites that have demonstrated excellent delivery and customer service.

How does it work?

Once customers have placed an order, they will see a popup asking them if they would like to opt in to Google Trusted Store Purchase Protection, which is on a per order basis – so each order must be opted into.

Should they opt in, then Google will receive contact details for the customer and contact them after they have received their order – and ask them a series of questions relating to the service they received.

Benefits of Google Certified Store

• Instills confidence with your customers that you offer a quality service
• Improves conversion rates as badge shows Google trust to customers
• Increase sales as badge likely to be rolled out across Product Listing Ads / Google Shopping
• Seller ratings are pushed through to Adwords and Product Listing Ads as an indirect benefit
• They will also show the shipping and shopping experience across Adwords Review Extensions

Qualification Criteria

• You must process at least 200 submitted orders on a rolling 28-day basis.
• The average time it takes for orders to be shipped must not exceed 10 days.
• No more than 6% of all submitted orders may be cancelled.
• Your store and checkout pages must be on the same domain.
• You have to be able to add JavaScript code to your site pages and confirmation pages.
• You must create daily feeds of shipment and cancelation details.
• At least 50% of your shipments must have tracking numbers.
• The products must be shipped to the customer and not to a retail store
• At least 90% or more of all shipments must be shipped by the estimated ship date
• At least 80% of deliveries are made within the timescale we specify

What does badge mean?

The Google Trusted Store badge lets shoppers know that your shop is a great place to shop. To earn the badge, shops work with Google to demonstrate that they deliver orders on time, have low occurrence of customer issues, and resolve customer issues quickly.

These service ratings will be monitored on a rolling basis to ensure that customers are receiving a positive service from retailers.

Approval Process

After deploying a piece of code on your site and testing to show it works, retailers apply for the Google Trusted Store program. For 30 days after tis Google will collect information from your customers on their shopping experience and, after 30 days, will contact retailers with approval or rejection. If they do not get enough information they may extend the qualification period to 90 days.

If rejected, Google will advise why and give retailers another (up to) 90 days to resolve issues internally and improve on their service – at the end of this period they will advise a second time if approved or rejected. Retailers can re – apply for the program and this mean dropping back into the approval process.

What kind of issues arise?

If issues arise with orders or delivery, customers can request Google’s help, and Google will work with the shop and the customer to resolve the issue as best they can. Google will however direct the customer to try and resolve with the retailer if possible.

Typical problems which occur include

• The customer does not receive the correct item
• The customer’s item is not in the promised condition
• The customer is billed an incorrect amount
• The item is not delivered in a timely manner
• The merchant does not honour their return policies

Resolving issues

As mentioned the customer is directed to try and resolve the problem with the retailer as much as possible. If they cannot, they can then get in contact with Google who will then contact your contacts in the Google Trusted Store account who will be responsible for managing resolution of the issue. When customers contact Google, an “escalation” is created – these will be shown in in the dashboard.

Important!!!!!

• Whilst 1 in 3oo escalations are allowed, lets understand what this really means. Any escalations raised are ONLY if the customer is not happy how the retailer has resolved the issue. This is important to note – if you have 10% of orders being delivered incorrectly BUT all issues are resolved happily then likelihood is no escalations will be made.
• If an escalation IS made, Google will allow 1 in 300 orders to be escalated – should you experience any more escalations, the account may be suspended
• For this reason it is important retailers note when an escalation is created, they should contact customer immediately to resolve the issue within 1 working day
• Transaction volume is based on a rolling 90 day average and the dashboard will not show number of transactions but simply if we meet the minimum transaction volume.

Categories: All Posts, Conversion, Google, Paid search, Trading Tips

Tags: Conversion, google, Paid Search, Trading Tips