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Insight Video Series hosted by Ian Jindal: Best Practices in Social Commerce
Participants include
Kimberly Correia is Business Development Manager for major British retailer Marks & Spencer.
Andrew Kirkcaldy is Online Marketing Manager for DRL Limited, which owns www.appliancesonline.co.uk, the UKs largest online kitchen retailer.
Gina Deeble is Head of Interactive Content for QVC-UK, a top multichannel retailer popular on television and online.
Andrew McClelland is Director of Projects and Marketing for IMRG, a membership community for the e-retail industry, whose vision is to maximise the commercial potential of online shopping.
Matthew Henton is Marketing Director at eSpares, the UKs largest spare parts retailer, specialising in accessories and consumables for electric home appliances.
Brett Hurt is founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice, a provider offering products that enable social commerce.
They discussed the six major phases of social commerce success 1. Implement. What does it take to persuade key people in your organisation to consider giving customers a voice online? 2. Acquire. How can you acquire the content you need to be successful? 3. Amplify. What are the best ways to leverage user-generated content beyond the site? 4. Operationalise. How can consumer opinions impact your whole business? See how organisations use these impacts to transform from the inside out. 5. Analyse. What are the key metrics for success, and how are they best uncovered? 6. Expand. Whats next for social commerce?
Dont let fear or lack of information delay you from getting started.
eSpares Marketing Director, Matthew Henton (far right), discusses the incredible amount of information uncovered after launching online customer reviews with Brett Hurt and Gina Deeble. Apprehension can surround any new major initiative. Here are some of the considerations and solutions retailers found when working to add product reviews to their sites. Negative reviews can have a positive impact. In the beginning, Gina Deeble from QVC-UK worried about negative reviews. We thought, What if we have a best-selling item that gets a negative review? There was a best-selling ice cream maker that sold tens of thousands of units that got many negative reviews. It turned out that customers were unhappy, but the item was so inexpensive that they didnt bother to return it. Before reviews, buyers and the merchandising team would have never known there was a problem with this popular product. Negative reviews helped QVC-UK address the product issues, and they continue to monitor reviews to ensure quality is high and customers remain satisfied. They also get a good idea of what customers think of their overall brand, to determine if theyre meeting their quality goals. In fact, Bazaarvoice have found that 88% of all reviews written in the UK are positive, with an overall average rating of 4.3 stars out of a possible five.
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The Bazaarvoice J-Curve shows that 88% of customer reviews in the UK are positive (4- or 5-star rated). Get the organisation ready for the customer voice. Dont surprise your company with customer reviews; let them know when and how they will be deployed, and take time to illustrate how they will help each department. Customer reviews are like an ongoing customer focus group, giving unedited feedback as people use your products. QVC-UK involved several teams from the beginning of its implementation. The e-commerce team is responsible for implementation and continuous improvement of its use on the site; merchandisers are responsible for making marketing decisions based on the data; and the customer service team reviews all rejected reviews and responds with a personal phone call to every writer of a rejected or negative review. Marks & Spencer did a customer reviews pilot program before rolling it out across their entire site. This helped them make a solid business case internally, helping them alleviate fears and secure high-level buy-in. Matthew Henton from eSpares recommended that you Clear your diary after you launch customer reviews you will have so many learnings to take action on! Eighty percent of your content is contributed by the top 20% of your customers, said Brett Hurt from Bazaarvoice.
Argos collected over 70,000 reviews in a single day by running a past-purchase email soliciting feedback.
Amplifying content: Marks & Spencer tests customer reviews in their stores
Kimberly Correia of Marks & Spencer discusses testing reviews with Ian Jindal. Once users contribute, their authentic content can have a positive marketing impact far beyond the website. Test, compare, repeat. For example, eSpares uncovered some interesting data, almost by accident. They sent an email to customers that focused on lime scale removal, including a buy now button for related products. As an afterthought, they added a link to read reviews. When they looked at the final results, they saw that the read reviews button got more than four times the click-through rate than the buy now button did. While conversion from the read reviews button was lower, the actual sales from the read reviews button were more than twice as high. They also send one Tweet per day via their Twitter account that focuses on a customer review. In this email from eSpares, the link to read customer reviews drove four times as many click-throughs and twice as many sales as the Buy Now button.
Marks & Spencer is testing reviews inside their stores, showing key reviews on key products. Since ratings may change over time, the in-store signage reads, for example, 4.5 out of 5 stars as of [date]. They plan to train in-store staff about what the reviews mean, and will change out reviews often to keep the content fresh. Put reviews where shoppers shop. Brett pointed out that, in the U.S., several brands are making reviews available on mobile devices, so shoppers can find reviews wherever they are, whether they are in a store or looking at a catalogue. In the U.S., cosmetics retailer Sephora posts a sign that invites shoppers to go to m.sephora.com to read reviews. DRL Limited sees much of its traffic come from Google AdWords. They are using reviews in paid ads, getting nearly twice the amount of click-throughs they get from ads without reviews.
Share first-person experiences with retail staff. Retailers with physical stores often think their sales associates are the least informed about reviews, so many stores are working to share reviews with their in-store staff. QVC has given access to many of its staff, so they can read reviews in aggregate. Other retailers include customer reviews in their advertisements and direct mail. Brett shared another trend: manufacturers are sponsoring content on retailers sites and getting involved in conversations with consumers. For example, a lawn care products manufacturer sponsored a community Q&A area on a DIY site in the U.S., bringing more brand awareness to the manufacturer where consumers are shopping.
Sephora encourages in-store customers to read reviews on their mobile phones at m.sephoara.com.
Matthew Henton of eSpares shares how the data inherent in customer reviews helps the entire organisation improve, as Kimberly Correia listens.
eSpares pointed out that they have been able to reduce the overall amount of work for most teams. In a lot of ways, reviews serve as an early-warning system for bad products, said Matthew from eSpares. We discover product faults very early. Relationships with suppliers become more efficient. For example, reviews help retailers predict which products are successful or faulty, so they can decide how much to restock very quickly. According to Brett, this feedback loop is down to about three days in some cases.
Ian pointed out that, in many ways, usergenerated content creates more work for retailers, in a good way. There are more chances for retailers to shoot videos, communicate with suppliers, and communicate with the community at large. As retailers discover exactly what consumers need directly from the consumers themselves they can better react and focus on what will help nourish those relationships. The world is becoming more social, said Brett. The conversation and power has shifted customers now speak directly to retailers, and its the retailers responsibility to use this data as operational fuel.
Analysis varies for each retailer, but its an important part of the mix
Andrew Kirkcaldy of DRL Limited shares how he measures the impact of social commerce with Mathew Henton. The impact on the most important business metrics is whats most important. So how do retailers best measure results? Measurements vary based on many factors. DRL first looks at engagement on the site, to determine if people are now spending more time on the site, if they are interacting with the content. To do this, they look at the interaction of people who click on read all reviews or click on the reviews tab from the product pages. Then they compare conversion rates of people who read reviews to conversion rates of those who do not read reviews. They have seen a 40-50% increase in conversion for this segment. Brett recommended not just looking at conversion. You must look at how this content is holistically affecting the business. Look at product returns, search engine traffic, improvements in merchandising, and other activities. Gina from QVC-UK pointed out that, because their products move so quickly, it is difficult to pinpoint specific ROI on conversion. Instead, they look at the impact customer-generated content has had on brand loyalty, product improvements, and their Net Promoter score. They also call on highly-engaged customers to write new content, to let them know how valuable this content is.
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eSpares ran an A/B split test, which is the most accurate type of test to determine causality. They randomly selected three products that had a significant amount of reviews and similar ratings. Then, for five months, they randomly served site visitors either product information that contained review content or product information without review content. The test ran until there was a statistically accurate sample size for all products, and no promotions were run during testing period. For each product, eSpares measured the relative increase in conversion rates for the visitors who were served customer review content versus those who were not. They found that reviews drive a 14.2% conversion increase.
All the extra stuff were doing easily justifies the investment, said Matthew from eSpares. People have always been making decisions, but they never had access to true customer opinions. This is what [user-generated content] has filled in for us. It has helped us answer the WHY. Reviews can help decrease product returns. Marks & Spencer is looking at thresholds of certain product lines and categories, and we see conversion double in some cases, according to Kimberly. They are also looking at the rate of engagement: the number of clicks on tabs and read all reviews. Kimberly says that Marks & Spencer customers often order multiple sizes of each product to find the right fit. Were hoping review content will help reduce these return rates. Marks & Spencer also looks at Net Order Value, taking product returns into account, and in the future, they plan to examine the number of products that have been improved or redesigned because of customer conversations. The value-add is not just on the product conversion, but the overall site improvement, said Andrew from DRL.
eSpares tested the impact of reviews on sales, finding reviews increase sales conversion by 14.2%.
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All six steps are critical in building a successful social commerce strategy
While all of these brands have innovated with user-generated content, and seen great results, there is much more on the horizon. Retailers are learning that they must not only listen to the customer voice, but react and respond to it. Todays customer has more power than ever, and those that contribute will continue to change the products we purchase and the way we shop. You can view the entire Internet Retailing video series here. To keep on top of online retailing trends, stay in touch with Internet Retailing, and read Bazaarvoices thought leadership blog at bazaarblog.com. And let us know what you think. How have you used the customer voice to improve your organisation?
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