The document discusses the importance of online customer reviews for businesses and outlines a strategy for collecting, responding to, and leveraging reviews to improve customer experience, grow business, and increase revenue. It provides examples of how ThriftBooks implemented a review strategy through proactive collection, responding to all reviews, and integrating reviews throughout their acquisition funnel, which resulted in increased growth, improved customer retention and service, and a more optimized business.

1. Reviews Happen:
A Strategy of When & How
to Respond

2. Mike Ward
President
ThriftBooks
Presenters
Jordan Garner
Director of Marketing
Trustpilot

3. Agenda
Intro to ThriftBooks & Trustpilot
Why Customer Reviews Matter
Collecting Reviews
Responding to Reviews
Leveraging Reviews
The ThriftBooks Success Story
Q & A

4. Introduction to
ThriftBooks & Trustpilot

5. ThriftBooks by the Numbers

6. 95% of consumers rated
ThriftBooks 4 or 5 stars

7. Trustpilot by the Numbers

8. Social Proof for Future
Shoppers
Consistent and Genuine
Feedback
For Consumers
• Free for all – consumer review site
• Discovery and recommendation platform
• Social sharing and community experience
For Businesses
• Automated review collection system
• Customer engagement and interaction
• Insights and analytics engine
The Trustpilot Community

9. Why Customer Reviews Matter

10. 50% of Americans who are aware of advertising don’t trust
what they see, read or hear in advertisements.
44% think advertisements are dishonest.
-YouGov.com
“

11. 72% of people trust consumer opinions posted online
(2nd only to “Recommendations from people I know”)

12. Need
recognition
Product
specification
Evaluation
of options
Purchase
decision
Post-purchase
Influenced
by reviews
Look for
reviews
Leave
reviews
How Consumers Purchase
Look for
reviews
Leave
reviews
Look for
reviews
The Consumer Buyer Journey

13. 90% of consumers say
buying decisions are
influenced by online reviews
The Impact of Reviews on the
Consumer Buying Journey
72% of consumers will take
action after reading a
positive review
Customers are likely to spend
31% more on a business with
“excellent” reviews

14. The Age of the Consumer
Companies must become customer obsessed and the only sustainable
competitive advantage is knowledge and engagement with customers.
“
-Forrester Research

15. Reviews are happening
EVERYWHERE…
…you need a STRATEGY!

16. Collecting Reviews

17. Impact of Asking for Reviews Proactively
NOT asking for reviews:
50/50 split positive/negative at best
(likely many more negative reviews)
Proactively asking for reviews:
83% positive reviews
More balanced representation of a business

18. Building a Trustworthy Brand  Be Proactive!
Of the 4.3M reviews we've
helped customers collect
since May of 2015, 86%
have been 4 stars or higher

19. • Desired focus of feedback?
• Collection vehicle?
• Timing?
• Call-to-Action?
• To incent or not to incent?
• Reminders?
• Where to collect reviews?
Considerations for Review Collection

20. • Open & discoverable reviews
• Verified reviews & recourse to report if suspicious
• Opportunity to respond & consumers to update
• Easy, non-invasive experience for the customer
• Trust signals (names, date/time stamp, etc.)
• Review format  CONTENT!
• Third-party validation
• Social sharing
What to Look for in a Review Platform

21. Implementing a Proactive Collection Strategy
1
Design a collection
flow in your existing
customer journey to
align with your goals
2
Measure the results,
optimize the collection
rate, & iterate3
Identify your org’s
goals for a proactive
review strategy
NEVER STOP ASKING!

22. Responding to Reviews

23. • Should we respond to reviews?
• Will responding to reviews improve retention?
• Can I actually save unhappy customers with a response?
• Can responding to reviews turn into revenue?
Common FAQs Around Responding
YES
to all of the above

24. Content of Responses Always apologize
Address customer concerns
directly
Give the customer a forum for
follow-up
If the situation warrants, also
reach out privately – not
everything should be discussed
in a public forum
PRO TIP: Ask the reviewer to
update their review if resolved…

25. A
Example:

26. 1 Positive
Tone of Review Responses
2 Personal
3 Professional
4 In line with your brand
PRO TIP: For any 3rd party platform that is actively receiving customer feedback,
CURATION & RESPONSE is crucial!

27. • Resolving issues for unhappy customers to win them back
• Encouraging happy customers to be return customers
• Promoting customer advocacy among brand champions
• Showing that your company cares & takes reviews seriously
• Giving your company a chance to build a brand voice
Benefits of Responding to Reviews
= REVENUE(remember to actually ACT on the insights you uncover)

28. Leveraging Reviews

29. Need
recognition
Product
specification
Evaluation
of options
Purchase
decision
Post-purchase
How Consumers Purchase
Insert TRUST SIGNALS on every step of your
acquisition funnel to give prospects the verification they
need to move forward until CONVERSION

30. WEBSITE

31. SOCIAL

32. SEARCH
Paid Search
(via Seller Ratings Ad Extension)
Organic Search
(via 3rd party sites & rich snippets)

33. DISPLAY
Banner, Re-Targeting, Social Media Ads…

34. EMAILS

35. The
Success Story

36. The Strategy:
Make it easy for all customers to leave reviews for ThriftBooks in one
central discoverable location
Respond to reviews to address & resolve any issues, encourage return
business & customer advocacy
Make reviews easy to find for prospective customers throughout their
acquisition funnel

37. On-Site Integrations:
Home Page:
Testimonials Page:

38. Off-Site Integrations:
SEM:
SEO:
Facebook:

39. The Results:
GROWTH

40. The Results:
CUSTOMER SURVEY
Recent survey of customers and non-customers asked to rank the
importance of elements of our site and others
FINDINGS:
 Reviews and trustworthiness of company in top 3 factors
 Thriftbooks.com scored parity with Amazon
 Far ahead of competitors in the vertical

41. The Results:
CUSTOMER SERVICE & RETENTION
Integrating customer reviews with existing customer profiles in CRM
→ more sophisticated customer contact strategy & enriched data
→ save & retain more customers
BUSINESS OPTIMIZATION
Asking customers to review ThriftBooks in one central location on Trustpilot
→ high quantity & quality consolidated customer feedback
→ better identify & analyze trends
→ improve site, offering, and business

42. To-Do List
1. Proactively collect reviews from all of your
customers in a central location
2. Respond & resolve ALL reviews
3. Leverage your reviews to grow & improve
your business
- sharing reviews EVERYWHERE
- encouraging customer advocacy
- mine reviews for insights
4. Measure your success!

43. Mike Ward
@ThriftBooksUSA
Jordan Garner
@TrustpilotUS
@jordanroseg