When companies are buying software and even services (legal, consulting, etc) today, they are more often than not requiring their vendors to complete a security review. Vendors must demonstrate their commitment to security, compliance, and transparently sharing how they conduct business to win and retain customers. 

A trust center (trust portal, or trust page) has become one of the most common ways of showcasing a company’s security posture, acting as a public-facing extension of an organization’s security and compliance programs. With increasing scrutiny from customers and regulators, the role of trust centers has evolved significantly, providing not just information but it's also used a strategic advantage in sales processes.

In this article, we will break down what they are, why you need them, what features to look for, and what you should include in your trust center.

Trust Center 101

What is a Trust Center?

A Trust Center acts as a centralized customer-facing repository offering prospects detailed information about a vendor’s security posture. It serves two primary purposes: showcasing a company’s security measures transparently to build trust quickly and providing an automated way to share sensitive documents and security and compliance information.

Traditionally, many companies used a webpage on their own website to make this information public. The challenge was that internal teams spent a lot of time managing and updating this info and also had to deal with customer requests manually; the only way to request a SOC 2, for example, was through emailing the security team at the company. 

Modern trust centers go beyond being static webpages and behind-the-scenes document repositories. They are dynamic platforms that proactively build trust by providing real-time, easily accessible information about an organization’s security posture where customers can search directly for what they need and download anything on-demand.

Some trust centers even have options where customers can upload their questions and get AI generated answers from the content the company chooses to share.

What’s included in a Trust Center?

Most trust centers include:

  • An overview of the company’s stance on security, compliance, and privacy
  • A list of compliance certifications
  • Security documentation, compliance information, and policies available to download
  • Frequently asked questions about security and compliance
  • A list of subprocessors
  • A list of companies that “trust” that vendor

Examples of Trust Centers

Conveyor-hosted Trust Center

Safebase-hosted Trust Center

Vanta-hosted Trust Center

Key benefits of trust centers

  1. Saving Time on Security Reviews:
    • Streamlined Processes: Trust centers automate responses to security documentation requests, reducing the burden on security teams to manually send this information to customers.
    • Self-service Information: Customers can access information like compliance certifications and security documentation they need directly, minimizing the need for direct interactions and allowing for quicker decision-making during the security review process.
    • AI Integration: Advanced trust centers leverage AI to summarize key security information, helping customers find what they need efficiently.
  2. Improving Trustworthiness:
    • A Showcase of Your Company’s Security Posture: It provides a single source of truth, ensuring that the information is accurate and up-to-date, which is crucial for maintaining customer trust and proactively showcases the work your company is doing on security, privacy, and compliance in an organized manner.
    • Insightful Analytics: Customer data from trust centers can reveal customer interests and common questions, which allows organizations to refine their security programs accordingly.
  3. Accelerating Sales:
    • Shortened Deal Cycles: By providing readily available security information, trust centers help speed up the sales process, reducing the time needed for security reviews, and improving win rates by 42%.
    • Measurable Impact: Trust centers integrated with CRM systems can track their influence on revenue, demonstrating their value as a driver of business growth.
  4. Importance in Purchasing Decisions:
    • IDC research highlights that a well-maintained trust center is a critical factor in purchasing decisions. Organizations with robust trust centers are perceived as more trustworthy and are more likely to be selected over competitors. The presence of a trust center demonstrates a company’s commitment to security and compliance, which is increasingly important to customers in a landscape marked by frequent data breaches and stringent regulations.

Will a trust center deflect security questionnaires?

It depends.

If you’re a small tech company selling to other SMBs and only process their website data, your customers might be more likely to self-serve the information they need from your trust center. If you’re working with large banks, the chances are they will still send you a security questionnaire to complete even after accessing your trust center.

Preventing questionnaires depends on factors such as leverage of the customer (size of deal), maturity of their security organization, and willingness to self-serve. The type of data you process and what industry your customers are in also play an important part. 

Looking at Conveyor data in our AI Predictions report for 2024, Conveyor answered the most questionnaires for companies in these industries:

Even if a trust center won’t deflect all of your security questionnaires, it’s still an important step to proactively and transparently share your security posture as it is proven to speed up deal cycles and improve win rates.

Ok, so how do I implement a Trust Center?

General considerations

  1. Customer Experience & Usability: It must be easy to navigate or customers won’t use it. Customers also prefer not having to create a separate account to log into your trust center.
  2. Platform Integrations: Choose a platform that integrates seamlessly with existing tools and systems, such as your CRM and e-signature vendors. 
  3. Security Questionnaire Workflows: Opt for platforms that support automated responses to security questionnaires.
  4. Easy to maintain - whether you build in-house or buy a solution, it has to be easy and affordable to maintain; otherwise it just becomes a burden to use.

Table Stakes Features for Trust Center vendors today

  • Passwordless login for customers (they don’t have to create an account)
  • Custom URL (security.company.com for example)
  • 1-click NDA
  • 1-click document downloads for your customers
    • Searchable FAQs
  • Integrations to automate access approvals (Salesforce, Slack)
  • Auto-watermarking of downloaded documents
    • Subprocessor list
  • Analytics on customer activity

AI Features to Look for

  • Upload questionnaires for instant answers
  • Chatbot to help customers find what they need
  • ‍

How to set up your trust center

What URL is most common for Trust Centers Today?

We scanned more than 500 public trust centers and the most popular domains to name your trust center are:

Here’s a breakdown of trust center names:

What Documents should you add to your Trust Center?

The documents you should add to your trust center are the ones that are most frequently requested by your customers. Once you have one in place and analytics to track popularity of certain documents, it will be easier to know which to update. 

If you’re just starting out, here is a list of recommended documents to add based on the most accessed documents across Conveyor trust centers:

  • SOC 2 Type II
  • ISO 27001
  • Security program summary
  • Penetration test executive summary
  • Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery policy
  • Security whitepapers
  • System diagrams
  • DPA
  • Privacy Policy
  • Transfer Impact Assessment

What FAQs should you add to your Trust Center?

After looking at a year’s worth of data between the thousands of companies building trust using their Conveyor trust centers, we pulled the 10 most commonly accessed questions:

We recommend you make these answers available to your customers (behind your NDA) so customers can easily find them on their own.

  1. How and where is the data/application hosted?
  2. How is data encrypted in transit?
  3. How is data encrypted at rest?
  4. Do you complete security reviews of vendors?
  5. How are backups handled?
  6. Can customer data be deleted at the request of the client?
  7. Do you use a centralized identity management solution such as Single Sign On?
  8. Are security policies and procedures reviewed and updated?
  9. Do you have a security and awareness training program?
  10. Do you have a formal vulnerability management process?

Change management with Sales Teams

One of the most challenging activities of implementing a trust center into the sales process is all of the change management that needs to be done with your sales teams. Getting them familiarized with the new process is the key to success.

Here are our recommendations on how to get your trust center live and integrated into your team's processes:

  1. Get Sales stakeholders bought in early in the procurement process for a trust center vendor – or – when you’re building your own.
  2. Request support early from your IT/eng team to integrate with your CRM so you can automate access and only manage edge cases
  3. Add your current security packet and go live, you can refine and add more (done is better than perfect)
  4. Prepare launch communication and training materials for Sales and Marketing so they understand what's changing and why this will make their lives easier. 
  5. Hold training sessions or send training videos that include the why, the how, and the to do’s/don’t do’s. 
  6. Get feedback from sales teams and customers on the process

How do I measure performance?

Key metrics to consider

At the highest level, communicating business impact by tying trust center activities directly to revenue will be important for leadership to understand and justify the ROI. To get more granular in reporting on performance of your team over time, you can also measure:

  • Number of security reviews with a security “touch” and those without
  • Win rate tied to reviews with a security “touch” and those without
  • Time it took to complete security reviews tied to deals closed
  • Time it takes for a customer to get granted access
  • Time between access to first documents downloaded and security review closed

To figure out how to best prioritize your time spent on updating documents and FAQs, you should review:

  • Top documents downloaded
  • Volume of downloads by customer
  • Which customers are accessing which documents
  • Which questions are reviewed or accessed the most

Beyond internal performance metrics, a key metric to adoption and success of reducing deal cycles is customer satisfaction. This means how easily can a customer get the information they need to complete their review. This is trickier to measure and typically can only be done through a formal survey like an NPS survey. Something you can do is to have sales teams collect customer feedback if a survey is not feasible or look at metrics such as number of tickets or requests from customers that are having trouble accessing the portal or finding what they need.

Want more info on how to track performance? Download the Ultimate Guide to Security Review Metrics.

‍

Trust Centers as a Competitive Advantage

A well-implemented trust center is no longer just a nice-to-have—it’s a must-have. By centralizing your security posture, compliance information, and frequently requested documents, trust centers not only enhance transparency but also accelerate sales cycles and build customer trust.

Whether your goal is to streamline security reviews, boost win rates, or enhance your brand’s credibility, investing in a trust center positions your organization as a forward-thinking, trustworthy partner to your prospects.

‍

Next Steps: Implementing Your Trust Center

How do I get started? Here's a brief outline of the steps you'll need to take:

Audit Your Existing Security Assets

  • Identify your most frequently requested documents and FAQs.
  • Determine which of these are customer-facing and should be included in your trust center.

Choose the Right Platform

  • Look for platforms that offer integrations with your CRM, passwordless login, analytics, and AI-powered features.

Collaborate with Internal Teams

  • Get early buy-in from sales, marketing, and IT teams.
  • Involve them in the implementation process to ensure smooth adoption and alignment with your workflows.

Launch with a MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

  • Start with essential documents and features.
  • Optimize and expand based on customer feedback and analytics.

Measure Performance

  • Track key metrics like document downloads, security review completion times, and win rates.

Educate Your Customers and Team

  • Provide clear training materials and guidance for your sales team.
  • Communicate the benefits of using the trust portal to customers, emphasizing ease of access and transparency.

—

Ready to start? Learn more about Conveyor’s trust center software or spin one up in minutes for free here. Add your NDA, documents, FAQs, and more using our easy drag and drop editor and get started building customer trust today.

‍