On March 4, Bazaarvoice hosted a webinar focused on the benefits of user-generated content (UGC) throughout the entire organization. Moderated by Bazaarvoice's Heather Brunner, the webinar cited exemplary statistics from Bazaarvoice clients Skymall and Oriental Trading Company.

UGC provides intelligence and value throughout the organization, not just in marketing. Forward-thinking companies allow their feedback to improve their overall business structure. In addition to the obvious benefits to sales, UGC can lower operational costs such as reduced returns and support calls, as well as helping reliability departments pinpoint design flaws or manufacturing errors. However, successful permeation requires grassroots initiative within the company as well as from the top down.

Retailer Skymall has integrated UGC throughout all of their customer touch points – on their Web site, mobile site, through their catalog as well as on their CRM system. Many of their phone customers ask, "Is this a good product?" With reviews linked to the CRM system, customer service representatives can provide shoppers with real customer feedback, resulting in higher conversion, higher AOV, and shorter transaction time. The agents also have insight into every reviewer interaction, reaching out to those whose reviews are exceptional, either positive or negative. As a result, Skymall has successfully transformed annoyed customers into happy repeat purchasers.

Oriental Trading Company (OTC) pulled together an eight-person SWAT team, bridging the merchandising, marketing, and inventory departments, to break down review content by the action needed and the department responsible. Thanks to this system, the team were able to catch a design flaw based on reviewers' comments. After investigation, they took the item off their Web site, replaced inventory, and publicly responded to customers about the flaw, creating additional processes to alert them to similar failures in future.

To date, OTC has responded to more than 700 products, updating product images on 10 percent; updating product copy on 19 percent; discontinuing 38 percent; and returning 32 percent to their vendors. As a result, OTC has seen a 16 percent increase in conversion of 4- and 5-star products.

The voice of consumers is powerful for your enterprise. Listen to your customers. Take action. Then close the loop. If you missed this webinar, ask your Bazaarvoice Community Manager to send you the link.

This blog post was guest written by Rebecca Dutta, International Community Manager

I asked Lubna Seago, Customer Experience Manager at Wickes, to share their 2009 review strategy with us.

Why are Customer reviews important to Wickes?

Customer reviews have had a huge impact since we implemented them on our site last year. They are now established as an economical and effective way to build a lasting, meaningful, and profitable relationship with our customers.
Opportunities and advantages in implementing our online product review functionality have been identified as follows:

• A growth of customer trust in the website.
• Increased confidence in the integrity of the Wickes brand.
• The rapid establishment of a customer community.
• A reliable and useful customer information resource, which can be analysed to reveal a number of underlying trends in consumer behaviour.
• A source of original material for adverts and marketing campaigns.
• A unique way of identifying under-performing products (and product areas) which may be in need of development.

You are currently running a fantastic multi-channel campaign focusing on the pride Wickes take in delivering quality products.  How does your new review tagline ‘It’s got your name on it’ tie in with your new campaign?

At Wickes, we are proud enough of every single one of our products and services to 'put our name on it'. Wickes is 95% own brand so we are using 'It's Got Our Name On It' as a strap line to communicate this key message:

"Pride in our products = Quality + Value"

‘Serious’ DIY’ers and tradesmen share a desire for a job well done. In the case of the ‘serious’ DIY’er, it is a matter of personal pride and satisfaction; in the case of the tradesmen, it is a commercial imperative – winning positive word-of-mouth recommendation from their clients is the key to gaining new business and running a successful enterprise.

We are using customer reviews to assert this message with the campaign 'It's Got Your Name On It'.

The main aim is to let our customers feel that they have a fundamental connection with Wickes, no matter what their level of DIY expertise. They are free to share their thoughts on any product/project, and ‘put their name on it’, safe in the knowledge that we both take pride in a job well done.

How do you think reviews will help Wickes maintain a reputation for quality in 2009?

With the customer review system now firmly established on our website, our customers are playing a vital role in ensuring that Wickes continues to provide the best products and service possible.

We study each review, take into account what the customer is saying and use this information to identify opportunities to improve the customer shopping experience. For example, we have been able to:

• Create a ‘Top Rated Products’ section on our homepage, making it easier for customers to browse these popular items.
• Update and improve individual products’ ‘features and benefits’ listed on the website.
• Contact customers directly to deal with their issues and concerns.
• Add quotes from reviews onto marketing materials e.g. brochures, catalogues.

The overwhelmingly positive customer reviews that we receive each day are a testament to the Wickes brand values of market leading quality, unbeatable prices, and expert advice

And our customers are not only writing about how good they think we are, they are also proving it by making repeat purchases, and recommending Wickes to their friends.

All of which bodes well for the future, as we continue to search for ways and means of achieving excellence in every aspect of our customer shopping experience, both online and in-store.

As a Community Manager at Bazaarvoice, it really excites me to see my client making an extra effort to reap the full benefits of user generated content. Wickes (www.wickes.co.uk) are an excellent example of how best to use review content to offer a high level of customer care.

Click on each image to see it full-size.

Williams-Sonoma has quickly realized the value of UGC. This holiday season they used customer reviews in several emails to promote holiday foods and merchandise top-rated cookware.

Beauty products purveyor philosophy re-styled the look and feel of Ratings & Reviews for the holidays. They also used top-rated gifts as one way to merchandise products in their holiday shop and promoted this on their homepage.

 Throughout the holiday shopping season Best Buy featured three different homepage banner ads with pop-up URLs to direct the consumers to various shopping categories. One of their favored merchandising categories was top-rated products.

Levenger featured top-rated products as “Customer Favorites” in their holiday gift guide and highlighted this in an email.

Land of Nod gave away a $1,000 gift card in return for reviews…just in time for customers to do some holiday shopping and for the Land of Nod to collect some great content to help indecisive shoppers.

This holiday season saw a huge reflection of the customer voice in retail. We’ll keep you posted on other unique holiday promotions this year!

B2B Clients and Prospects, take note! Just because you don’t have direct access to the end user doesn’t mean you can’t influence, educate, and connect. You just have to think outside the inbox.

Treatment Abroad is a niche B2B site that offers access to hundreds of medical tourism sites and information across the globe. They launched reviews with the hope of introducing their users to a different way of shopping for medical services – one offers commentary and feedback from their fellow users.

Below are some of the ways Treatment Abroad are promoting Ratings & Reviews on and off the site:

Treatment Abroad Splash Page – This is one of the most comprehensive Ratings & Reviews informational pages  – clean, direct, and easy to navigate. Treatment Abroad is always educating their clients on the benefits of advocating Ratings & Reviews to their users, and having a solid splash page is the best place to start. As B2B, you have an extra role of passing along new technologies and information to your own customers. Educating them about the benefits of user-generated content as a clear advantage should start with a great splash page.

Treatment Abroad Blog Post – Keith Pollard is the company’s founder and an expert when it comes to the medical travel industry. Niche blogs, when well-written and informational, have a solid following, and as Keith is a speaker at many conferences and has close relationships with many of his clients, using his own blog to talk about the benefit of reviews has wide impact. Use your own corporate blog to mention reviews, or highlight some of your favorite Ratings & Reviews content. We all love good stories, so blog about yours!

Multichannel Marketing – Being B2B in a “late adoption” market can be difficult if you want to reach the end user, so you might need to take things off-line. Treatment Abroad created different leaflets and pamphlets that they sent to their clients, advertizing the Ratings & Reviews features. The ones that have passed these on to their customers are seeing 10x the review volume!

Because of the nature of this business, the medical industry reviews themselves are epic. Who doesn't want to get their users writing this kind story-like content? I love using this client as an example of a business that truly gives their users an avenue to talk about their experience.

In an industry that doesn’t stand up well to change and criticism (reviewing doctors gets tricky), Treatment Abroad has set themselves apart and have done it right. By partnering up with Bazaarvoice, their users have a peace of mind that they are reading honest feedback from customers just like them. It is especially important for a B2B client to work with a trusted partner since they are “selling” this to their own clients. As a B2B, there are very creative ways to promote reviews and generate content – reach out to your Community Manager for more ideas and best practices.

This blog post was guest written by Audrey Warren, Bazaarvoice Community Manager.

I recently sat down with Brian Witchel, Internet Marketing Manager for Mighty Leaf Tea, to learn more about their philosophy for incorporating UGC into email marketing campaigns

Bazaarvoice: You seem to have really embraced the idea of incorporating UGC into your email campaigns – so many of your regular emails contain review snippets and your “five leaf” ratings. What helped you make this decision?
Mighty Leaf: We’ve incorporated ratings and reviews into our emails for a couple of reasons. First, we wanted to raise the awareness that we have reviews on our site. We did some research on the subject and it all pointed to the fact that products with more reviews and higher ratings sell better, so we want to continue to gather more reviews on all of our products. Also, a lot of companies will call out a product or products as a “customer favorite,” but they don’t really have the numbers to back it up. Saying “over 1,000 units sold” sounds too TV-kitschy for us. We want to highlight how much our customers love our products, not just which products sell best. It’s much more compelling to say that 40 people have rated this product five stars, and pull out a review snippet to back that up.

Bazaarvoice: Have you increased your use of UGC in emails lately? Why?
Mighty Leaf: We really wanted to ramp up our number of reviews because we recently launched a brand new site design. It seems like the more reviews you have on your site, the more reviews you get. It snowballs. On our site, reviewers leave comments in response to other comments, almost like a dialog: “I agree with Josie in Chicago. This tea is perfect in the morning…” – things like that.

Bazaarvoice: When you’re talking internally at Mighty Leaf about using UGC in marketing campaigns what does that discussion sound like?
Mighty Leaf: Reviews are really helpful in supporting our email campaigns. With each new promotion we have to decide what we want to promote, what’s the angle of the promotion, and how can we fit in a user review. We look for reviews that support our marketing angle. If we want to spotlight the flavor of a spicy tea, we use the workbench to search reviews on that product that include the word “spice.” That’s tremendous! It saves a lot of time reading through reviews and we get really fantastic copy.

Bazaarvoice: What has been your most successful email with UGC and what do you think made it so successful?
Mighty Leaf: (laugh) I might have to go back and look through them all! I like the promotions where we can pull in full reviews or longer comments. I try to pick reviews that are written recently so that when the customers go to the product page, the review from the email campaign shows up on the first page of reviews.

Check out Mighty Leaf’s beautiful new website to see how they incorporate ratings and reviews throughout their online store.

Alex Miller, Director of Programming at QVC, talks about the company’s experience with Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews and specifically their use of “top-rated” products.

1. What has your experience been with Ratings & Reviews? What made you decide to feature customer favorites on the air?

QVC deployed Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews in April of 2007, and while I understood we had a passionate and engaged community of shoppers, I was still surprised by the customer response that we received. QVC had over 10x our expected daily review volume, providing – almost overnight – a new product information resource for our customers and a gold mine of great user input for our own teams. Like any good retailer, we looked for ways to use this information to help drive sales, and after testing some Customer Top Rated promotions online, we decided to highlight highly-rated products on air. This started at an item level and eventually led to a full one-hour show that debuted this past June.

In June 2008, QVC Featured “Customer Choice,” a show focused on top-rated products. Here’s how they promoted it…

Customer Choice: We asked, and you told us what you want to see on QVC®! You’ve already made some of our best products Customer Top Rated by giving them great reviews on QVC.com, and now you can find a special selection of these all stars in an exciting show called Customer Choice. As a QVC customer, you’ve proven yourself to be among the savviest shoppers around, and we’re thanking you by letting you pick the items that we sell in this show! You won’t want to miss this – tune in for great products, opportunities to interact with the show, and lots of fun during Customer Choice.

2. How has user-generated content amplified your community and their involvement with QVC?

We knew that featuring top-rated products would increase sales for those products, but were concerned that it would have a negative impact on the products that were not labeled “Top Rated.” We also knew we needed to make sure we had a process internally to deal with our low-rated products before we could leverage our top rated product.

Once we had that in place, we wanted to make sure the customer would understand an endorsement from a QVC Host or Guest versus their own endorsement. When we first used this on air we made sure the graphic read “Customer Top Rated” to reinforce the idea that this is a label that our customers have assigned to this product, not the merchants. Leveraging lessons learned from our live testimonial calls on air, we took excerpts from the reviews and displayed them on air, unedited, to reinforce the Customer Top Rated label.

Customer reviews have now become an important tool and resource in our programming and merchandising strategies. They reinforce the trust our customers have with QVC and help to take our customers one step closer to an experience of shopping with their friends.

Something that’s currently got the team excited is the information we’re gathering from some of the contextual questions we added to our product reviews. Recently, we started asking customers whether they would recommend the item as a gift and for whom when they complete a product review. We hope to see customers using this feature to help recommend gifts to each other and to be able to leverage this feedback to help us plan on-air and online promotions.

Assuming all goes as planned, keep your eye out for a “Customer Gift Picks” show on QVC in the future, just in time for the Holidays.

When it comes to multi-channel promotions, Helzberg truly shines. They have seen such success with ratings and reviews online that it was a no-brainer to incorporate them with in-store promotions as well. When I walked into a Helzberg store in Austin, the Associates couldn’t stop raving about reviews and showing me the great signage that helped them spark conversations with their customers. Helzberg is definitely leading the pack with their multi-channel initiatives, and we wanted to get the story on their vision and strategy.

We sat down with Maureen Hultgen, Interactive Marketing Coordinator, and Tracie Charvat, Creative Director, both with Helzberg, to get their insights.

Why is Helzberg interested in promoting product Ratings & Reviews offline?
We think it is important to communicate the brand and product experiences of our existing customers and brand advocates into conversations with new customers and prospects. In addition, we understand that our customers are making a big purchase decision and trusting us with that purchase so we wanted to ensure that trust with reinforcement from other customers. We want our new customers to be able to connect directly with our existing customers.

What types of multi-channel promotions do you currently utilize?
In-store signage, in-store (display cases), direct mail catalogs, in-store digital displays, website and email campaigns

What immediate effects have you seen?
We have seen an increase in product and brand engagement. Ratings & Reviews provides customers the opportunity to engage with the company outside the store. There is also an added dimension of personalization. Reviews help illustrate how purchasing a product can truly create a personal moment that sparkles for our customers. It reinforces market position. Reviews reinforce product selection by providing word-of-mouth proof of quality and value in their selection. Finally, it provides feedback. Our buyers now have an opportunity to see how consumers perceive our product.

How do the store employees respond to Ratings & Reviews?
It provides Associates talking points and product focus. It also exposes our Associates to online conversations about products. Ratings and Reviews could potentially act as a support to training – letting Associates know what specific benefits appeal to customers, so they can focus on those attributes when communicating to new customers.

How do customers in the store respond to different promotions?
We have not done any research to determine this, but we do know that a customer has brought the catalog into the store with the reviewed merchandise circled telling the sales associate, “I want this.” (while pointing to the merchandise).

Your ideas are very innovative. What's the inspiration?
We are sticklers for authenticity and this offers us an opportunity to communicate a REAL, modern version of the testimonial. Again, going back to the connection one customer can make with another – we want people to feel like they are buying from a company that other people just like them are buying from as well. We want them to know that we value what our customers think about our merchandise and that we carefully consider their opinions on our merchandise.

What can we expect to see next?
Further integration into offline media; we are trying to think of creative ways to get our ratings and reviews out to all of our customers.

Visit a Helzberg Diamonds location near you to check out ratings and reviews today!

Joan is Shop.org's VP of Content and Education.  I remember how excited I was on the day Joan told me she was joining Shop.org's executive team, and she has already had an enormous impact on the quality of the events, new hires (such as Larry Joseloff), and new initiatives (such as the recent blog launch).  Joan couldn't have brought a better background to the Shop.org team.  As I mentioned, she previously worked for REI as their VP of Multi-Channel Programs.  She managed two business units, encompassing over $100 million in annual revenue with a team of 200 people.  Joan was responsible for launching REI's "order online, pick up in store" option for customers, as well as many online services.  Prior to REI, Joan was Office Depot's Director of Web Publishing.  She has spent more than 12 years in the online industry, including working at O'Reilly & Associates and America Online.  In other words, Joan has more online experience than almost anyone I know.

Here is our interview:

1. Please tell us our readers about your success with the pick-up-in-store initiative at REI.  Did the light-bulb go off for the rest of the organization about how much cross-channel shopping was occurring?

The REI order-online/pick-up-in-store program was definitely a team effort, and literally every department in the company played a part in its success. I think that the organization had already had more than an inkling that cross-channel shopping was going on, but this helped underscore how much one channel influenced another in a big way.

[Note from Brett: Internet Retailer reported that in-store pick-up of online orders accounted for almost 30% of REI's web sales; that sounds like a huge success to me.]

2. Now we live in a world of the increasingly more connected customer, due to the Web.  Broadly speaking, what are the three biggest impacts you think the Internet will have on multichannel shopping over the next three years?

I think that Internet sales will continue to become a larger percentage of a multi-channel company’s sales; the Internet will become more prominent within a MC retailer’s marketing strategy; MC retailers will need to figure out Web 2.0 technologies and see what’s going to work best for them.

3. User-generated content and Web 2.0 are all the rage with the acquisition of del.icio.us, YouTube, MySpace, and many others.  Shop.org itself had a Web 2.0 Boot Camp at this year’s Annual Summit, which attracted an amazing 2,300 attendees.  Why do you think Bazaarvoice is experiencing such rapid adoption by established, multichannel retailers?

The summit had over 2000 attendees, but the attendees for the Web 2.0 boot camp numbered around 150. My personal opinion about Bazaarvoice’s success is that it is based on an idea whose time has finally come. That is, consumer reviews and consumer-generated content, in general, have become mainstream to the point where they can successfully influence browsers to become buyers.

4. What do you think will happen in stores when customers have their mobile Web browsing device with them?

I think that eventually customers will use some sort of handheld (probably a phone) to do pretty much everything in brick & mortar stores: scan product codes to get pricing/product/sourcing information; compare prices with other online and offline retailers; find other brick & mortar stores that have the product in stock and are selling it for less by using Google maps and such; and even use the device to buy the products in the stores either by scanning a credit card or using some other payment method through the phone. Maxwell Smart would be proud!

5. How will user-generated content be used on these devices?  Does your answer change if you consider 1 year from now versus 3 years from now?

In the scenario above, the user can call in customer reviews as part of the product information. Using social networking, s/he can ask advice in real-time on whether the people in his or her network think s/he should buy the product, etc.

6. Thinking back to your experience with the pick-up-in-store initiative at REI, how do you see multichannel retailers leveraging user-generated content in an increasing always-connected environment?

I don’t know if I can relate the work I did at REI to this new, always-connected scenario. But I can see that eventually people can use that handheld to reserve/buy a product that they then go in and pick up at a brick and mortar store.

7. Any predictions on how user-generated content will change in-store signage, circulars, or other forms of offline advertising?

I think that consumer reviews have a great deal of power to sway buying decisions. That’s gold for retailers, and they are likely to try to use them in any way they can. It’s just a matter of figuring out the best way to get that information across in more traditional online and offline formats.

I look forward to seeing Joan in a month at Shop.org's FirstLook conference, where I will be speaking with Sarah Fay, President of isobar, and Jacob Hawkins, SVP of Online Marketing at Overstock.com, on the future of marketing as it becomes impacted by user-generated content.  Joan has significantly changed the format and focus this year, and I think it will be a fantastic event.  I hope to see you there, too.

Happy New Year, and thanks for all of your support in 2006!