Like in any relationship, trust and respect are the key ingredients to a good business partnership. And in the online world, people are only likely to do business with you if they can get a good feeling – before they actually meet you – that you are trustworthy. It’s actually the little things that make all the difference, a nice smiley picture, the offer of a cup of tea… in addition, of course it’s always good to be able to show a track record of being a responsible ‘online citizen’ (hmm that reminds me… maybe I need to take the tag off those Facebook photos of me photo-bombing my cousin’s wedding dressed in a Badger suit).

TrustCloud are building a platform for your ‘trust reputation’

It’s interesting to see services like Trustcloud and Klout  coming up with innovative ways in which you can link all your online transactions and business relationships  together to give you a virtual ‘credit rating’. This is especially important in the ‘sharing economy’ where your trust rating can actually affect the amount you might be able to earn (if people feel that they can trust you then they are more likely to choose to do business with you even if it means paying a little bit more than for the same product or service from someone else.) If these services take off we’ll be linking them into our service so watch this space!

In the meantime, where to start…? Well – as we said it’s the little things that count. Here’s some quick wins when signing up at Storenextdoor;

1. It’s true what they say about photos being worth a thousand words – I think our advice is to make sure that those words are nice ones 🙂  A personal description doesn’t have to be long but a short friendly introduction that makes the impression that you are a positive and friendly type makes all the difference to whether people recognise you as a safe haven for their stuff.

[On a general note -you can rest assured that no one who uses Storenextdoor is ‘anonymous’ – we have their contact details and, in order to go through with a contract their bank details must also be provided. So there’s no point trying to make stuff up or give false information because we spot it pretty quickly and your account won’t actually work! Please Note: Personal bank data is only stored by our payment partner, GoCardless.]

2. To enhance the ‘trust rating’ of your profile we also encourage you to link your Facebook profile to your account (if you have one) – you’ll soon be able to see if you already know people that know the person that’s contacting  you in a six degrees of separation kind of way… [no, Kevin Bacon is not currently a Badger but stranger things have happened].

3. Build your reputation by asking for  reviews and recommendations after each contract – you will soon be able to display these on your profile.

4. Be prompt in responding to messages and questions – we recommend 24 hours as a maximum but ideally you would get back to an interested party straight away. [You’ll be glad to hear that we an mobile app for Badgers is on our development roadmap which will obviously make this really easy if you’re a smartphone user.]

5. Spruce up your space and take nice photos as it shows you are serious about doing business online and see it as an investment in a potentially longterm route to earning extra income (why stope once you get started?).  If you can show that you want to offer the best experience and are conscientious about looking after someone’s stuff they are more likely to choose you to do business with and to recommend you to others.

It’s also worth remembering that we go the extra mile to ensure the platform gives you all backup that you need to be a confident micro-entrepreneur;

• All contracts are covered by personal liability and contents insurance
• All transactions are done via the site so no cash payments are involved
• Your contracts are backed by our legal terms and conditions
• All your messages and communication can be done securely via our website
• We hold a record of your contracts and storage history for future reference
• We provide clear, downloadable guidelines on how to store safely
• We look after your data (please see our Privacy Policy)

We want  your experience to be positive and fruitful one and hopefully this will be the start of a beautiful friendship with us here at HQ. We are here to help you get started so please contact us if are thinking of making a listing but have any doubts about the safety and security aspect of a peer to peer service.

Viva the self-storage revolution!

@MissMo