Business professionalism influences customer buying decisions. It’s a primary signal of credibility that contributes to sales, loyalty, and long-term success.
If your business doesn’t look professional or credible, you’ll no doubt experience low customer trust and even lower conversions. Why would customers buy your products if your website is poorly designed? They would rather go to your competition at the sight of any unprofessional sign on your part.
Ten Signs Your Business is Unprofessional
Want to know if your business looks unprofessional? Use the ten signs below as your business legitimacy checklist.
- Personal Email Address: If you use a personal email address for business communication, you hurt your credibility. And, with how easy it is to set up your email address under your company’s domain, there’s no reason to use personal email.
- Home Address: Using a home address for business mail or for business registration is a major red flag. A professional business address in a commercial space inspires much stronger trust.
- Missing Contact Information: Whether on your website, social media accounts, or printed ads, missing contact information hurts your business. Making it easy for customers to contact you is a sign of professionalism.
- Poorly-Designed Website: A website or an online shop that’s hard to navigate doesn’t inspire confidence. Customers can view it as a sign to not feel safe doing business with you. In other words, how can customers purchase or support your business if they get confused in the maze that is your website?
- No Reviews: Reviews are proof of legitimacy. Customers look for them to see if your products work or whether the market has had a positive experience with your business.
- Inconsistent Branding: Inconsistent branding makes your business look sloppy and unprofessional. You could be turning customers away because your website logo doesn’t look familiar or doesn’t match what they know.
- Outdated Social Profiles: Social media accounts are important for any business, and they should be regularly updated to reflect current information, such as your business hours, website, and contact details.
- Broken Links: Just like inconsistent branding, broken links also project a sloppy, unprofessional impression. They’re signs that tell the public that you can’t be bothered to maintain your website. Broken links definitely hurt your credibility.
- Limited Business Information: Your business is unprofessional if customers can’t figure out what you do, where you’re located, or how to contact you.
Which Problems Hurt Trust the Most?
The red flags above are all important, but some hurt your reputation more than others, especially from your customers’ POV.
Pay attention to problems surrounding business trust signals, as these issues in particular will affect your professional image the most. Business trust signals are cues that assure customers that your business is credible and legitimate.
From the list above, consider prioritizing the following to uphold customer trust:
- Not using your home address for business purposes.
- Having a website and social media accounts with complete information.
- Displaying business reviews to help customers make informed purchase decisions.
Quick Wins You Can Implement Today
We know it can take a bit of time to tend to all the small details that lead to your most professional business look. But you have to start somewhere, and the key is to get started now.
Don’t have the time or resources to fix all professional image issues all at once? No worries. Here are quick wins that you can implement today:
- Set Your Business Email: Connect it to your domain or get a Google Workspace account for as little as $6.30 a month.
- Update your Website and Social Media Accounts: Start from your contact information and basic branding elements, and be sure that your logo is uniform across all of your social media accounts.
- Accept or Display Reviews: Set your Facebook page to accept reviews to allow potential customers to verify your business’s credibility.
- Stop Using Your Home Address: Luckily, that doesn’t mean renting a commercial space. What you can do instead is to get a virtual business address. A virtual business address can be set up online in minutes, and is a service that allows you to use a real street address (typically in a commercial space) for your business.
Long-Term Improvements for Lasting Credibility
Sustained success starts from a strong step one, and as the saying goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Take it one step at a time and strengthen your business image by addressing trust signals and working on long-term credibility strategies.
- Showcase Reviews on Your Website: Once you’ve amassed a good amount of reviews from Facebook, Trust Pilot, and other platforms, consider flexing them on your website, online store, and social media accounts. You can’t always trust customers to go to specific review platforms, therefore it’s better to take the reviews to them instead.
- Move to a Commercial Business Address: A commercial address provides you with a professional edge while keeping your business secure. It’s reassurance for customers, who tend to wholeheartedly support credible, established businesses.
- Expand Reach with Multiple Virtual Addresses: Reaching other markets is likely one of your business goals. This is far easier to achieve with a virtual business address. A virtual address allows you to have a business address in other cities or countries without needing to physically occupy a space. It’s a modern, simple, and economical way to achieve large-scale success and contributes significantly to the long-term credibility of your business.
