Best Practices in Social Commerce

8/6/2019 Best Practices in Social Commerce

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/best-practices-in-social-commerce 1/12

How Top UK Brands Win with Social CommerceInsight Video Series hosted by Ian Jindal: Best Practices in Social Commerc



2

There’s a lot of buzz about how customers talking to customers on product pages can help drive sales

for online brands. But how well does it really work, and how difcult is it to gain great results?

Ian Jindal, Editor-in-Chief of Internet Retailing Magazine, sat down with several top UK brands to dig into

what works best in a series of six video podcasts. We’ve crystallised their primary learnings in this paper.

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 UK’s

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 UK’s 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.

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. What’s next for social commerce?

They discussed the six major phases of social commerce success



3

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 didn’t 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 satised. They also get a

good idea of what customers think of their

overall brand, to determine if they’re 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 ve.

Don’t let fear or lack of informationdelay 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.



4

Get the organisation ready for the customer

voice. Don’t 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 fromthe 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 recommendedthat 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.

Star Rating

The Bazaarvoice J-Curve shows that 88% of customer reviews in the UK are positive (4- or 5-star rated).



5

Social commerce begins when consumers

start to contribute, and it won’t happen on

its own. Some companies use the “big bang”

approach, where they make a big play to

gather thousands of reviews at once, while

others start slowly.

Be ready for a big bang. After Argos added

customer reviews to their site, they sent emails

to anyone who had made an online purchase for

the past six months, asking them to share their

opinions with other shoppers. They brought in

70,000 reviews in just one day! These reviews,

collected over a year ago, are still beneting

Argos and Argos shoppers. DRL Ltd. ran a

similar campaign and gathered 10,000 reviews

in a short amount of time.

Soft launches also breed success. Marks

& Spencer, however, did a softer launch ofcustomer reviews, without a lot of promotion.

They used package inserts in all parcels to

build awareness slowly over time.

Gina shared that QVC-UK also did a soft

launch. Testimonials have always been part of

their brand, so customers automatically began

contributing as soon as they could. Today,

they only subtly promote reviews through box

stuffers and in their programme guides, for

example. They are considering launching a

promotion or post-purchase emails to help

continue to boost review volume.

Altruism boosts reviews. Research has

shown that most people write reviews because

they are altruistic – they want to help other

people. For this reason, eSpares decided not

to incentivise customers who share reviews,

but they played up the altruistic angle. A few

weeks after a customer makes a purchase,

eSpares emails them with a message that

reads, “You’ve already repaired your own

products. Now be altruistic, and share your

opinion.” They get a 3% response rate on

these emails, on average, and this approach

enables them to continuously add new content

to their site.

How will people contribute in the future?

Kimberly Correia from Marks & Spencer saysthat she believes more and more brands will

use Facebook and Twitter to contribute

reviews and other types of content. This

targets consumers where they already interact,

making it easier for them to participate.

Acquiring content: Big bang or slow start?

Argos collected over 70,000 reviews in a

single day by running a past-purchase

email soliciting feedback.



6

Once users contribute, their authentic contentcan 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 nal results, they sawthat 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.

Kimberly Correia of Marks & Spencer discusses testing reviews with Ian Jindal.

Amplifying content: Marks & Spencertests customer reviews in their stores

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.



7

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 changeout 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 nd 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 toread reviews.

DRL Limited sees much of its trafc 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 rst-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 morebrand awareness to the manufacturer where

consumers are shopping.

Sephora encourages in-store customers

to read reviews on their mobile phones

at m.sephoara.com.



8

Customer insights can have an impact on allareas of the business – far beyond just sales

and marketing.

Involve all the teams that make sense

in your business. Gina from QVC-UK

recommends planning ahead on which teams

should be involved in looking at customer

opinions – don’t wait until you have launched.

At QVC, the customer service team and

buyers/merchandisers see all reviews. Thecustomer service team is responsible for

tracking the company’s Net Promoter Score,

for example.

Teams receive automatic weekly and monthly

reports which were set up before QVC launched

reviews on the site, so the teams got information

from day one. Gina reports that “everyone has

embraced the content and rich data.”

Customer input is a major corporate asset.

It’s also creating a new phenomenon, where

consumers actually know more than many of

the retailer’s own employees. eSpares wanted

to make the most of all the user-generated

content they collected from its customers, so

they created the eSpares Advice Centre, which

combines customer reviews, questions and

answers into one knowledge centre.

“If we don’t [create a resource for advice], ourcompetitors will,” said Matthew. “We want to

use our customers’ own voices to really drive

the direction of our business.”

Pay attention to ways user-generated

content saves department resources.

At eSpares, they added a new position –

a dedicated person to speak with suppliers

and answer customers’ questions. Their

implementation of community Q&A haslessened the work of their customer service

team, with the new employee and the greater

community providing answers.

Matthew Henton of eSpares shares how

the data inherent in customer reviews helps

the entire organisation improve, as Kimberly

Correia listens.

Operationalising customer opinions:content impacts the entire organisation



9

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

efcient. 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, user-

generated 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 it’s the retailers’ responsibility to use this

data as operational fuel.”



10

The impact on the most important business

metrics is what’s most important. So how do

retailers best measure results?

Measurements vary based on many factors.

DRL rst 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” orclick 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

trafc, improvements in merchandising,

and other activities.

Gina from QVC-UK pointed out that, because

their products move so quickly, it is difcult to

pinpoint specic 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.

Andrew Kirkcaldy of DRL Limited shares how he measures the impact of social

commerce with Mathew Henton.

Analysis varies for each retailer,but it’s an important part of the mix



11

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 signicant amount of reviews and similar

ratings. Then, for ve months, they randomly

served site visitors either product informationthat 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 we’re doing easily justies

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 lled in for us. It has helped us answerthe 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 ordermultiple sizes of each product to nd the right

t. “We’re 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, nding reviews increase sales

conversion by 14.2%.



12

eSpares plan to let customers write reviews

on the Advice Centre, so they can provide

their opinions on the stories and articles there.

Eventually, consumers will be able to search

for articles that are top-rated.

When consumers respond, retailers must be

ready to react. “The customer is becoming

more in control, but the way retailers respond

is critical,” said Brett. “If customers want three

more colours, you can offer those colours.If prices are cheaper elsewhere, you can

respond by lowering the price. Analytics and

data are very liberating. By taking advantage

of the voice of the customer, you remove

anxiety…you now know why customers

do what they do.”

Brett also shared that more and more brands

will integrate user-generated content with

social networks. “You want [consumers] to

share their reviews – Tweet it, share it with

Facebook friends.”

More luxury brands will dive into social

marketing and user-generated content; this is

happening quickly in the United States. Mobile

reviews will continue to gain momentum, and

more users will contribute photos and videosto retailer sites.

Social commerce expansion:Brands talk about what’s next

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. Today’s customer has more

power than ever, and those that contribute willcontinue 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 Bazaarvoice’s thought

leadership blog at bazaarblog.com.

And let us know what you think. How haveyou used the customer voice to improve

your organisation?

All six steps are critical in building asuccessful social commerce strategy

http://www.bazaarvoice.com/insight-videos

http://www.bazaarvoice.com/insight-videos

Best Practices in Social Commerce

Documents

Transcript of Best Practices in Social Commerce