TurnTo Blog


InkJetSuperStore wins award for Social Media Marketing

Congratulations to InkJetSuperStore for winning the Social Media Marketing category of Retail TouchPoints’ Customer Engagement Awards 2012!

You can read Retail TouchPoint’s article here and download the complete Customer Awards Report from there, but in a nutshell it was through a nomination process, the winners were selected based on, but not limited to, four specific criteria:

  1. Unique shopping/promotional offerings
  2. Customer engagement strategies
  3. Customer analysis
  4. Technology innovation

Using the TurnTo technology, InkJetSuperStore has increased conversion, AOV, and loyalty.  Here are some of the results from the past couple of months.

  • Shoppers who asked questions or read Q&A from others converted at a rate 80% higher than those who didn’t – an especially significant lift since Inkjet Superstore is a replenishment business with a high repeat customer rate and a very high conversion rate.
  • The average order value of shoppers who interacted with TurnTo was 14% higher than the AOV of those who don’t.
  • 16% of all purchasers answered the question “Why did you choose this item?” following check-out (through the TurnTo Purchase Sharing function).

You can see from the complete list of winners below, InkJetSuperStore is sitting in good company:

  • 8ta
  • Casual Male Retail Group (CMRG)
  • David’s Bridal
  • Foot Locker
  • Hot Topic
  • Inkjet Superstore
  • Moosejaw
  • Rutter’s Farm Stores
  • Tasti D-Lite
  • Urban Outfitters

And if winning the award was not exciting enough for InkJetSuperStore and TurnTo, George and I were at the Retail TouchPoints booth @ NRF on Monday as he accepted the award on behalf of ILan Douek, President of InkJetSuperStore, as Ilan was unable to attend.

Here is a pic of me with the Inkjetsuperstore.com award

 

Over here we like to say “When you connect your shoppers to your customers, good things happen!” and apparently that not only means conversion, loyalty and SEO for our customers, but now includes industry recognition…again, congratulations to InkJetSuperStore!

To learn how TurnTo can improve the metrics that mean the most to you and your business, give us a shout @ 908.752.9658 or email sales@turnto.com (yes, a shameless plug from me).


The OL effect – an easy way to improve sales that you’re probably not doing

This is such an important validation of the effectiveness of social merchandising that, if we’d thought of it, we would have commissioned a market research firm to write this study for us.  But, even better, it’s actually a peer-reviewed article produced by a team of university marketing professors and published in the journal of the American Marketing Association, the Journal of Marketing Research.  It’s titled: Online Social Interactions: A Natural Experiment on Word of Mouth Versus Observational Learning.  (There’s also a nice write-up and interview with the lead author on Red Orbit.)

The findings are straight-forward: Online, as in the physical world, people are more likely to buy things that they see other people bought.  There’s no word of mouth here.  This isn’t about customer ratings and reviews.  This is just about seeing the purchases of other people.  The merchandising lessons are simple:

  1. You can improve conversion rates by showing shoppers that other people have really bought a product (on the product detail page)
  2. You can encourage consideration by showing the purchases other shoppers made (in your product discovery/recommendation/cross-sell merchandising)

The study looked at a period when Amazon put up and took down the “what other people bought” section on their digital camera products to see what effect having/not having this information had on sales.  Using these data,

The authors observe a herd behavior among consumers when the OL or sales information is positive, but surprisingly, they observe no herd behavior when consumers face negative OL or sales information.  [OL stands for "Observational Learning", which in this case means "seeing what other people bought".]

In other words: when shoppers saw that other people were buying a particular item, they became more likely to buy it.  But if an item didn’t have peer-purchase information, that absence didn’t hurt sales.  So you don’t need sales coverage for your whole catalog – show purchase information where you’ve got it, and don’t worry about it where you don’t.

Here are a couple examples of stores using tools that deliver the OL effect.  For lesson #1 (on the product detail page, showing shoppers that other customers are also buying the item), have a look at the 98 check-out comments on these shoes at GoJane (scroll past the Q&A).  For lesson #2 (showing products that other customers are buying to encourage consideration and cross-sell), have a look at the “See what your friends bought” tab on the right edge of the window here at emitations.  What effect do these tools have on you?  Does this sort of merchandising make you feel like buying?

If you want to take advantage of the OL effect to improve your sales, give us call.

 


Are you teaching a class when you should be hosting a party?

Most brands’ and stores’ greatest single asset is the goodwill of their customers. And most do little to leverage this goodwill for marketing gain.  There’s a fallacy in marketing land that just because you have a presence on social networks, you are doing “social” marketing.  But when you look a bit closer, you see that most social initiatives by brands look a lot like traditional marketing and merchandising, just in a new place.

The essential idea of “social commerce” is: connect your shoppers and customers directly to each other. Not only does this help turn your shoppers into customers, but it strengthens your relationship with your customer base. Sounds obvious, but for most brands it’s a deep paradigm shift. Most brands still think in terms of a hub-and-spoke model of communication; the brand is at the center managing a dialog (or monologue) with customers. Sure, customers talk to each other about the brand here and there, but the brand really wants to dominate the conversation.  The metaphor is brand-as-teacher; customers are the class. But there’s another approach in which brands actively facilitate dialog between their community members without dominating it.  These connections don’t just help bring new people into the brand fold, they also deepen the affinity existing customers have with the brand.  The metaphor is brand-as-party-host; shoppers and customers are the guests. Maybe the guests get a little interaction with the host during the party, maybe none, but either way, they are primarily interacting with each other.  The brand doesn’t get the same opportunity as in the classroom model to drive home its officially-approved message, but instead the brand earns a more powerful, social type of influence – by having the guest list stocked with loyal supporters.

Though more subtle, the influence of the party-host approach can be both deeper and farther-reaching.  Mikołaj Jan Piskorski has just published an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “Social Strategies that work” taking a rigorous look at the online social efforts of 60 businesses in a broad range of verticals.  He concludes:

What the poorly performing companies shared was that they merely imported their digital strategies into social environments by broadcasting commercial messages or seeking customer feedback. Customers reject such overtures because their main goal on the platforms is to connect with other people, not with companies. That behavior isn’t hard to understand. Imagine sitting at a dinner table with friends when a stranger pulls up a chair and says, “Hey! Can I sell you something?” You’d probably say no, preferring your friends’ conversation over corporate advances. Many companies have learned that lesson the hard way.

In contrast, the companies that found significant returns devised social strategies that help people create or enhance relationships. These work because they’re consistent with users’ expectations and behavior on social platforms. To return to our dinner analogy, a company with a social strategy sits at the table and asks, “May I introduce you to someone or help you develop better friendships?” That approach gets a lot more takers.

To make this concrete, take a look at the Facebook presence of a handful of your favorite brands.  See what page they have set for you to land on.  Is it a crafted brand message, or does it have customers and fans talking to each other?  Go to the brand’s wall. Are customers posting, or is it dominated by posts from the brands, with customers generally addressing their replies back to the brand?  I just went to the FB page for the Gap.  I landed on a high production values spread called the 1969 Denim Studio.  No customer voice there.  Then I went to their wall.  There are 18 posts showing.  All 18 of them are from the store.  Here’s the dialog responding to the first one:

It’s not that this sort of brand marketing is bad.  It’s just that it’s not SOCIAL.  It’s missing the opportunity of providing a forum for shoppers and customers to engage with each other.  In contrast, on Sephora’s Facebook wall, two minutes ago, 26 out of 26 posts  were from members of the Sephora community.  It’s not as tidy as the Gap’s – not all the posts are positive or interesting – but the approach does produce exchanges like this:

and this:

Another another place where you can see the difference in approaches in action is the social question-and-answer applications on ecommerce sites.  If the Q&A dialog is primarily between the shopper and the store staff, that’s not social, that’s customer support.  Hey, we love good customer support as much as the next person, and if that’s the goal of Q&A, fine.  But most stores find that channels like live chat and phone/email are optimal for support, while Q&A is uniquely positioned to enable dialog between shoppers and customers.  So if the store dominates the Q&A dialog (or if the Q&A system is not built to effectively produce shopper-customer exchanges), then the store is missing all the value that a social approach can generate: the credibility (and generally positive sentiment) of truly social answers, deeper shopper engagement, and stronger bonds with past customers.

Check out the difference between the Q&A dialog here on the product page for a camera at Staples.com, where most of the dialog is with staff, and on the page for a camera at Adorama.com, where most of the dialog is social.

 

So as you sit down with your team to map out the next phase in your social commerce strategy, ask yourselves this: are you teaching a class when you should be hosting a party?


3 “Holiday” Social Marketing Tips for Yahoo! Store Merchants

(This post was written by our partners at FastPivot.com, one of the leading providers for the Yahoo! Store platform. They have a deep knowledge of ecommerce store building, organic search optimization, email marketing, paid search inclusion, and social commerce integration.)

 

Ecommerce merchants began preparations for the holidays over a month ago; some even started mid-summer. To prepare for the big holiday rush that most e-tailers experience, ramping up design, development, staffing, inventory, etc. is all part of the normal prep. list. But what about social media marketing?  Do the upcoming holidays mean e-tail merchants should multiply their messaging 800%, and wrap it neatly in a holiday promotional hum-along? Try that approach, and watch customers avoid you like the winter flu. But, you can’t be blasé about it either.  Tis’ the season to ring-in the sales, and no matter what kind of sleigh you’re driving, it takes social media mouthpieces to announce the Ho-Ho-Hos.

Here are three social media marketing tips to keep in mind as you build your holiday marketing campaign:

1)     Social media marketing isn’t just about the holidays. It takes time to build a following on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or wherever your target market is. If you don’t have anything in place by now, go ahead and start, but don’t do it just for this year’s holidays— Social marketing should happen throughout the year.

2)     Customize your messages for different channels, and avoid being repetitive with posts. While you may have spent hours writing a holiday sales blog, and want to post dozens of links to it to fans and follows, remember to at least change the text around the link each time you put it out there. Make sure to stir in a little seasonal cinnamon too. Some programs, like Tweet Deck, won’t allow duplicate Tweets anyway. Keeping it new won’t just get you new followers and more traffic, but it will keep your existing network from yawning—which is a prelude to ‘unfollowing’ or ‘defriending’ you. Also remember not to be a loner out there—and chat it up with others as you push your own messages.

3)     Ideally you want social fans to come back to your site to interact. Along with using on-site social engagement tools, like TurnTo’s best-in-breed Social Q&A product, take the time to develop custom on-site contests to encourage your fans to be ecommerce shoppers (not just social media lurkers). Check out the one-of-a-kind social media contest FastPivot recently built for ecreamery.com: http://www.fastpivot.com/social-commerce-success.html

While there are literally dozens of strategies to keep your social media marketing healthy and cranking for the holidays, it’s important to start with the basics. For many Yahoo! Store merchants, launching social means creating accounts on the top platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), and adding corresponding social media buttons to your site. This part is easy and convenient– It’s keeping it up and forever optimizing that becomes the challenge. It’s also important to distinguish between the social buttons that link to your account, and those that allow your customers to click the “like” button associated with products and pages so all their social network friends can check them out too.

 

Visit FastPivot.com to learn more about how to best position and manage your brand on social:  http://www.fastpivot.com/social-media-packages-ecommerce.html


A nice shout-out for LightingShowroom’s use of TurnTo

It’s always nice to get positive feedback from someone, and it’s even nicer when you don’t know them yet. The team at KitchenDesigns.com recently had some nice things to say about one of our clients, LightingShowroom.com, and the on-site features that they use to improve the shopping experience. In their post, they mentioned two of the products in TurnTo’s Social Commerce Suite. First, they referenced our best-in-class Social Q&A product Ask Owners:

“In addition, [LightingShowroom.com] has integrated social hooks that fascinated me. Their “ASK others” button allows a person to direct questions to past customers about the product or to pose any kind of question to the staff or to Facebook contacts.”


Then, they brought up our Social Merchandising application which allows customers to “see what your friends bought here”:

“If this isn’t enough, they incorporated a slider on the right that displays things other clients bought and includes social hooks where you can engage in a dialog about the product purchased. It can also select from zip codes if you would like to ask local buyers what they thought…”


We love to be reminded that our work at TurnTo is having benefits for both our customers, and especially for their shoppers. Thank you to everyone at KitchenDesigns.com for the shout-out!



What’s the best online shout-out that you’ve ever given or received? Tell us in the comments below.


Nice list of the benefits of ecommerce Q&A

We don’t usually link to our competitors’ blogs (they don’t usually link to ours…).  But PowerReviews put up a nice summary of the benefits of ecommerce Q&A that’s well worth a read.  We just want to add one important thing: imagine how much greater these benefits would be if your Q&A system actually generated a large number of fast social answers, instead of – how to put this – bupkis?


What to do if your “social” Q&A doesn’t actually get social answers?

[For a downloadable version of this study, click here.]

To date, Q&A on ecommerce sites has been primarily a tag-along application to customer reviews (provided by vendors that specialize in customer reviews). This approach results in a Q&A model that’s more like customer reviews than a true social experience between shoppers and customers, missing the benefits that a truly social approach to ecommerce Q&A provides.

The key to Social Q&A is that shopper questions should reliably and quickly get answered by real customers, and participants should have the ability to go back-and-forth beyond the initial question, if they choose to. If shopper questions receive customer answers only rarely or after an extended period, the shopper is disappointed and the store has missed the chance to provide a fast reminder to the shopper about the purchase she was considering. Further, getting past customers to share their experience with real shoppers is a great way for stores to keep their relationships with the customer base fresh. The rise of social networks has conditioned people to expect a high level of interactivity from social applications – so if a Q&A tool isn’t providing that, it’s not really Social.

On many online stores’ Q&A systems, we’ve observed that most answers come from store staff.  That can be an OK supplement to social answers (especially if the staff are really experts), but the store may be better off directing those questions to a live chat or phone line so the staff can interact with the shopper in real time.  And if a shopper wants to know something subjective – like how the product held up after 3 months, or how it felt, or just if it’s really as fabulous as they hope it is(!) – they may only want an answer from someone like them who really bought the item.  A Q&A system that relies heavily on staff answers also isn’t really Social.

That’s why TurnTo created an approach to Q&A for ecommerce that reliably provides a true Social experience – multiple, fast answers from real purchasers with continuing back-and-forth dialog. To measure the difference between the TurnTo approach and that provided by the leading customer reviews vendors, Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews, we conducted a simple test. We asked 16 shopper questions on a range of sites with Q&A powered by TurnTo and these other vendors, and we tracked how long it took for the answers to arrive.  Here are the aggregated results:

 

Methodology:  In our test design, we tried to keep the playing field level. We asked general questions that could easily be answered by anyone with experience with the product. We tried to ask the identical question about identical products wherever possible. Where not possible we tried to pick featured items on the Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews sites likely to have high traffic and have been purchased many times (no new arrivals items were used). We tried to pick sites where the Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews Q&A tools were implemented in a highly visible way on the page. That meant that the PowerReviews and Bazaarvoice sites were not always the largest in each vertical (in particular, in the photo gear category), but more often than not, the Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews sites had far more traffic than the TurnTo sites, and they did so in aggregate. We checked the item page where each question was asked at exactly the specified intervals and counted posted answers. We also provided our email address with each question asked and counted answers received by email.  (The Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews stores often emailed answers well before those answers appeared on the sites, in some cases even before the questions appeared on the sites.)  None of the sites were alerted in any way about this test. All questions were submitted on Wednesday, August 10, 2011 between 9am and 11am eastern time.  Here were the test sites that we used:

On each site, we asked 4 questions.  So in total, we asked 16 questions per vendor.  Here are the details of the answers received, by individual site.  (All numbers are for social answers – answers from customers – except those in parentheses, which are answers from store staff.)

Staff answers:  We also tracked answers from store staff.  These are shown in parentheses in the table above.  At the end of the two week test period, the questions on PowerReviews sites received a total of 10 staff answers vs 7 social answers.  The questions on Bazaarvoice sites received a total of 5 staff answers vs 9 social answers.  No staff answers were received on the TurnTo sites – note that 15 out of 16 questions on TurnTo sites received at least 1 social answer within 24 hours.

We encourage you to try this test for yourself.

The raw data:  Here are the urls for all the item pages for all questions in the test.  The asker is “Andrew P”, “Andrew RP” or “Anonymous” – also look for a submit date of August 10th where that is shown.  Note that on the Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews sites, we counted answers received by email, even though some of those answers – in some cases, even the questions – were not posted on the site by the end of the test period.

SunnySports (TurnTo)
http://www.sunnysports.com/Prod/HSRAP.html
http://www.sunnysports.com/Prod/ERKTS.html
http://www.sunnysports.com/Prod/NFCVJWN.html
http://www.sunnysports.com/Prod/TMBCHTM.html

GoJane (TurnTo)
http://www.gojane.com/54695-stuff-pleated-twist-front-clutch.html
http://www.gojane.com/55317-stuff-floral-print-wayfarer-sunglasses.html
http://www.gojane.com/52138-shoes-patent-platform-pump.html
http://www.gojane.com/45392-shoes-mid-rise-combat-boot.html

KitchenwareDirect (TurnTo)
http://www.kitchenwaredirect.com.au/The-5-in-1-Multi-Cooker-5L
http://www.kitchenwaredirect.com.au/Global-Ikasu-7pc-Knife-Block-Set
http://www.kitchenwaredirect.com.au/Red-Pizza-Maker
http://www.kitchenwaredirect.com.au/Scanpan-Classic-Covered-Chef-Pan-32cm

Adorama (TurnTo)
http://www.adorama.com/INKD7000.html
http://www.adorama.com/CA702002ISU.html
http://www.adorama.com/GBSLBK.html
http://www.adorama.com/IDS8GBUC215.html

Sierra Trading Post (PowerReviews)
http://www.sierratradingpost.com/high-sierra-us-snowboarding-team-backpack~p~3901j/
http://www.sierratradingpost.com/marmot-titan-backpacking-tent-2-person-3-season~p~88182/
http://www.sierratradingpost.com/marmot-precip-jacket-waterproof-for-women~p~2283c/
http://www.sierratradingpost.com/asolo-fsn-95-gore-tex-hiking-boots-waterproof-for-men~p~72552/

Johnston & Murphy (PowerReviews)
http://www.johnstonmurphy.com/product.aspx?pid=80786
http://www.johnstonmurphy.com/product.aspx?pid=72913
http://www.johnstonmurphy.com/product.aspx?pid=80374
http://www.johnstonmurphy.com/product.aspx?pid=75845

Hayneedle (PowerReviews)
http://www.hayneedle.com/sale/fagorelectricallinonemulticooker.cfm
http://www.hayneedle.com/sale/calphalonkatanacutlery14pieceknifeset.cfm
http://www.hayneedle.com/sale/presto03430pizzazzpizzamakeroven.cfm
http://www.hayneedle.com/sale/rachaelrayhardanodized10piececookwareset.cfm

Abes of Maine (PowerReviews)
http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item=NKD7000
http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item=CN7020028ISII
http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item=NKCFDC1
http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item=SDCF8GBXA61

Bass Pro Shop (Bazaarvoice)
http://www.basspro.com/Badlands-Diablo-Day-Pack-Backpacks/product/102015/-1507491
http://www.basspro.com/Eureka!-Solitaire-Tent/product/58274/90919
http://www.basspro.com/The-North-Face-Venture-Jacket-for-Ladies/product/10224821/134865
http://www.basspro.com/RedHead%C2%AE-Everest-Hikers-for-Men/product/19193/115209

Bluefly (Bazaarvoice)
http://www.bluefly.com/Rebecca-Minkoff-fire-engine-leather-Beloved-Mini-crossbody-bag/cat20428/315738502/detail.fly
http://www.bluefly.com/Betsey-Johnson-black-contrast-stem-wayfarer-sunglasses/cat60024/314050001/detail.fly
http://www.bluefly.com/Pour-la-Victoire-aqua-patent-leather-Irina-platform-pumps/cat20458/314292102/detail.fly
http://www.bluefly.com/Ash-black-leather-Remix-studded-tall-boots/cat20448/312714301/detail.fly

Walmart (Bazaarvoice)
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Hamilton-Beach-6-Quart-Stay-or-Go-Slow-Cooker-33162/4012120
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Ginsu-14-Piece-Stainless-Cutlery-Set/7942211
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Presto-Pizza-Oven/3218
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Stansport-13-Cast-Iron-Fry-Pan/16349862

Cameras Direct (Bazaarvoice)
http://www.camerasdirect.com.au/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product2_10001_10002_19502
http://www.camerasdirect.com.au/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product2_10001_10002_10620
http://www.camerasdirect.com.au/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product2_10001_10002_11838
http://www.camerasdirect.com.au/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product2_10001_10002_11588

 

Bazaarvoice is a registered trademark of Bazaarvoice, Inc. PowerReviews is a registered trademark of PowerReviews, Inc.


As the relationship between content and commerce evolves, community will become key

It used to be simpler.  Advertising was the main bridge between content and commerce.  If you had the sort of business that generated an audience (a content business), you’d monetize that by selling ad space to the sort of businesses that sold “stuff” (a commerce business).

Then, along came the internet, and the amount that content businesses could get paid per eyeball fell drastically relative to the old print world.  The content businesses that worked online were those that either developed a radically lower cost of content creation (esp social) or those that were able to generate vastly more eyeballs.  But many content businesses still have the relatively high cost of professional content production and haven’t expanded their readership online enough to compensate for lower ad rates.  These businesses, in particular, are (finally) starting to get more creative about alternatives to advertising to monetize their audiences.

Today, the New York Times reports on an interesting example.  The title says it pretty clearly: Magazines Begin to Sell the Fashion They Review.  This struck us because we’ve been working with another business that has been pursuing that strategy for a few years.  FW Media is a print publisher for enthusiasts of writing, painting, collecting, and similar subjects.  When they brought their publications online and saw the fall in ad revenue, they  tackled the changed environment head on.  Instead of selling their audience for pennies per visitor to advertisers, they decided to capture 100% of the commerce value of their visitors by opening their own online stores offering products that the readers of their content properties would want.  It’s a great case of taking lemons and making lemonade: the internet diminished their advertising revenue, but at the same time it made it possible for them to skip the advertising step entirely and directly fulfill the commerce demand they were creating. And now, in the NYTimes, we read:

“What magazines have always done is to create desire in consumers,” said Mr. Granger of Esquire. “The next logical step is to fulfill that desire by selling the product. If we don’t do it, somebody else is going to.”

While this strategy of directly joining content and commerce under one roof appears to be working for FW and may also work for Vogue, GQ and Esquire, we think there is a third path to bridge content and commerce that will prove at least as powerful: community.  In addition to changing the way content is delivered and stuff is bought, the internet has also made the way people participate in both for more active.  Got an opinion about something you just read?  Comment on it.  Got an opinion about something you just bought? Review it.  Got a question about something you are thinking of buying?  Ask about it.  Bought something?  Answer those questions.  Community no longer means “the people who read your content” or “the people who buy your stuff”.  Now community means “the people who interact with each other around your content and your stuff”.

Today, content site communities and commerce site communities are separate because that’s how the technology works – one community per property.  But technology limitations fall when they don’t match the way people really interact.  Communities, in the real world, are defined by shared interests, not URLs.  So in the future we see, whether the commerce and content businesses are managed separately or share a roof, their communities will be joined.  Fashionistas will read Vogue, buy from Saks, and interact with each other seamlessly on both.  Watercolorists will learn technique at  The Artists Network, shop at NorthLightShop, and interact with each other seamlessly on both.  Photographers will read Popular Photography, shop at Adorama, and interact with each other seamlessly on both.  And that seamless interaction will provide a new and powerful way for content businesses to monetize.

So if you manage a content business and are trying to find more value in your audience, think about building ecommerce capabilities, and also think about ways to build stronger bridges to your ecommerce partners by leveraging your shared communities.


What To Do When Shoppers Don’t Trust Your Customer Reviews

The New York Times recently published a piece about the industry of paid customer reviews.  This story surfaces periodically.  Even if it’s only a small percent of reviews that are paid for, the perception that positive reviews are bought (or that negative reviews are suppressed) undermines the value of all reviews, even the legitimate ones.  Here’s a typical comment responding to the NY Times article:

“When I search Amazon, I only trust the negative reviews. Too many of the 5-star comments sound phony.”

So if you have customer reviews on your storefront, what can you do to address review-skepticism?

One option is to augment your customer reviews with a Social Q&A system that enables shoppers to get their product questions answered by people who actually bought the item or service they are considering.  Done right, a Social Q&A system delivers answers to a shopper question within hours from multiple buyers of the item, and it enables the shopper to continue a back-and-forth exchange with those purchasers for follow-up questions.  In other words, it provides the sort of social experience that would be very hard to fake.  So shoppers can be confident that the answerer’s sentiment is trustworthy.

Further, a store’s willingness to put shoppers directly in touch with real customers says a lot about the confidence the store has in its products, service and customer satisfaction.  This confidence produces a “halo effect” that adds to the credibility of the store’s customer reviews, too.  Shoppers might figure “why would this store fake their reviews when they are giving me direct access to their customers?”

While customer reviews will continue to be an important part of the online shopping experience, complementing them with Social Q&A is a powerful way to improve review credibility and address the concerns of the review skeptics.

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Have you ever spotted a customer review online that you just knew was not legitimate?  Tell us about it below.


Ecommerce Award for TurnTo

Normally, we at TurnTo reserve our blog for topical posts about online commerce that will lead to spirited discussions about the state of the social web… but sometimes we win awards and can’t resist a little self-promotion.  We’re honored that we were recently named an Ecommerce Junkie Award winner.

The team at EcommerceJunkie.com selected TurnTo based upon Ask Owners, our best-in-class Social Q&A product.  As they noted, “Many of TurnTo’s retail partners have even said that Ask Owners provides more quality user-generated content than their very own customer review systems.”

They go on to say, “It has been awhile since we awarded a Junkie based on a technological feature but Turnto is certainly deserving of this month’s edition of the award!”  Aw, shucks.  You’re making us blush.  Thanks so much to the whole Ecommerce Junkie team.