Standing out and building a community of loyal fans is hard, and it’s even harder after the surge online shopping had in 2020. The mammoth amount of competition out there is constantly fighting for even the tiniest slice of ecommerce action.
To gain a competitive edge, brands must put their customers first.
In fact, companies voted customer experience as the most exciting opportunity for businesses over the next year, and it makes sense. Why? It’s because the customer experience drives sales. Research shows that brands with a customer experience mindset drive revenue 4-8% higher than the rest.
When your customers have a bad experience, it can wreak havoc on a brand and dramatically affect the bottom line. The problem is, it can be tricky to improve, especially if you don’t know where to start or what your customers actually want. This is where those customer reviews come into play
Not only do they help bolster customer support best practices, but these powerful assets give you a deep understanding of your customers — something that DTC brands are leveraging to the max. Customer-centric brands like Born Primitive, Beardbrand, Bombas, Tuff Wraps, and WAG are nailing customer experience by tapping into reviews and using them to leverage the buyer journey.
Read on to learn how reviews and UGC are helping brands create a 5-star customer experience.
Reduce the risk of returns
A clothing brand isn’t going to know how a jacket sits on every single body type, and they’re certainly not going to include this information in their product descriptions. Unfortunately, this can be a sticking point, especially since online shoppers aren’t able to try on products before they buy.
This unsurprisingly leads to more returns (while in-store returns are around 8%, online returns hover around 25%).
There’s a solution though, by strategically using reviews and UGC, brands can provide online shoppers with in-depth insights to help customers get exactly what they’re looking for. This is particularly essential for brands that use reviews with additional product and customer attributes, like shopper size and product color or type.
Born Primitive does exactly this, sharing customer attributes and photos alongside reviews to help buyers get an idea about how items might look on them.
Improve products and procedures
Your products are the crux of your business.
Fail to get your products right, and you’ll struggle to grow a flourishing business. This is one of the most important customer support tips for Shopify merchants — know thy customer and give them what they want.
Brands can fuel product development and internal procedures with customer feedback to continue to optimize the customer experience, all you need to do is listen.
Using real-life feedback from buyers to improve how they view and buy products, as well as the products themselves, ties into the customer-centric vision that successful DTC brands share. It also shows your customers that you’re an honest, and transparent brand working to give them the best product and best experience.
Take LSKD, for example. They’re using customer reviews to improve their products and to better align with customer wants and needs. The brand uses Okendo to capture reviews, respond to them, and gather crucial customer feedback.
In fact, the brand’s popular Rep Tights have been molded over the years by customer feedback to ensure they take on the attributes buyers are looking for. Through reviews, customers are able to share their thoughts on specific product points to fuel development.
Involving customers in this part of the process creates a community around a brand, and ensures you’re giving customers what they want.
And think about it: if a brand is giving customers everything you need, why would they go elsewhere?
Provide personalized and efficient customer support
Support and customer experience go hand-in-hand. If customer support is good, the customer experience tends to be good too.
Creating a good customer support experience is all about streamlining responses and separating those easy-to-answer questions from more complex ones. Brands can use reviews to automate commonly asked questions and personalize support based on the type of review a customer has given.
On a more basic level, reviews help retailers identify customers who might be experiencing problems with their order. This, in turn, allows brands to address and resolve issues by responding to customer reviews, turning the experience from bad to good in a matter of minutes. Which can end up saving a company from hitting a bit of a rough patch, or issue with further customer responses.
Tuff Wraps regularly replies to less-than-stellar reviews with extra information and an email address that customers can use to get in touch with support. This can help customers feel seen and heard and completely turn around what was initially a poor experience. Combining reviews and customer support in this two-pronged approach aligns with the common best practices for customer support on Shopify.
If you’re experiencing this issue with customers leaving negative reviews, we’ve got something that might help. With Gorgias’ integration with Okendo, you’re able to diagnose these problems and handle them seamlessly from a single dashboard. By leveraging this integration, merchants gain full visibility on customer reviews and their support history.
Use reviews to carve a better customer experience
As many of us know, reviews are key to creating a positive customer experience, especially when they form such a crucial part of the buying journey. Shoppers actively seek out peer reviews before they buy to get a better understanding of a product.
This is where Okendo can come in again, since it encourages customers to leave reviews complete with visuals and helpful attribute information. You can then use the reviews that come rolling in to glean valuable insights into the customer experience and identify ways to improve your products and the overall experience for your buyers.
Signup to Gorgias and leverage reviews to create a 5-star customer experience.
