This blog post was guest written by Emilie Rose, Bazaarvoice CM for European clients. This is the English version of the blog post – look next for the same post in French!

Our French client roster has had some great additions and accomplishments in the past few weeks, and as the Community Manager for France, I am very proud to see us launch and sign so many of the top French brands.

One of the most recent accomplishments, and the one I am most proud off, is the success of Ratings & Reviews, and the launch of Ask & Answer, on our premier French site – Mistergooddeal.com. Mistergooddeal.com is one of the leading online sellers of home equipment and furniture, and was our very first retail client to launch in France with Ratings & Reviews. When Ask & Answer was launched, Mistergooddeal.com  took the opportunity to spread the word further on their pages, and created new social commerce features on their site.

For instance, Mistergooddeal.com revamped their informational splash page to include guidelines on both Ratings & Reviews and Ask & Answer, making it easier for their customers to contribute both types of content. In addition, the new splash page also promotes the current top rated products. This splash page receives visibility from some “customer reviews” links above the fold on the homepage and in the footer of all site pages.

Simultaneously, Mistergooddeal have also started promoting the top-rated products on their homepage with a banner that redirects to the splash page as well.

Showcasing products on the home page is a great way to call attention to your most successful items, usually driving additional sales. We always encourage retailers to highlight their Top Rated Products are research shows that customers buy more from Top Rated Categories than any other category, including Best Sellers.
Finally, and very successfully too, in the run-up to Christmas, Mistergooddeal.com sent regular email promotions to their users that included customer reviews alongside discounted products.

I am very proud of all these latest developments on Mistergooddeal.com’s side: the run up to Christmas has traditionally generated so much traffic on retailer’s sites, it was key to make as much use as possible of the UGC content to drive more sales and energize the community growth and voice.  With both Ratings and Reviews and Ask & Answer driving this sort of engagement, look to Mistergooddeal.com as the leader in the French market for innovative user generated ideas and experiences.