Rachel Hooper: Hi, and thanks
for joining our webinar today.
This is the last of our
eCommerce series. And we're
talking about emerging trends in
the retail sector. And what you
as a retail or eCommerce
business may want to be starting
to consider as to emerge from
this latest trend and curve of
downfall, to emerge as a much
stronger and more trusted
eCommerce business. This webinar
is very much focused around
building loyalty and trust. And
it's in response to the wide
ranging limitations and changes
that retailers across the nation
have yet to make, anything from
social distancing, limitation of
service, in some cases, moving
to digital delivery, adapting to
staff not being able to attend
the workplace, or in real
extreme cases, the decision to
pause trading or even close. So,
sometimes this is wrapped up
into the concepts of business
continuity, but in the retail
sector, this could be any from
the local florist converting to
delivery only, or moving your
shop online for the first time,
and all of what that entails. We
believe and we know that trust
is a huge element of this. And
today, we want to talk about the
techniques and strategies that
we know can work and how you can
apply them to your business.
Most importantly, where I was
wanting to give you the
opportunity to tap into the
experts who can give you a hand
with this. So today's webinar is
only going to be about half an
hour, because the businesses in
the retail shops that we've been
talking to lately are saying
that they actually do need the
time back. So we want to hand
this one across to our panel to
discuss what they know. And also
open it up for questions that
you may have of us. So that's
what we're going to be covering
off today. So let's get into it.
And I'll introduce you to our
panel. I'm Rachel and I'm a
marketing manager here at
MessageMedia and today with me
I've got Damian Brennan, who is
an eCommerce consultant. Damian,
I'll get you to jump on the on
the line and introduce yourself.
Damien Brennan: Hi all, I'm
Damian, one of the consultants
at MessageMedia and definitely
specializing in the eCommerce
space or and retail space, I
should say. MessageMedia has
been around for about 20 years
now. We are an SMS provider to a
number of different industries
and the biggest and most
reliable in Australia due to our
unified gateway. What we've done
really recently is heavily
invested strategically into
working through with retailers
in the eCommerce space to make
sure we can support them not
just for communications but also
on a wider term. And you know,
one thing I'm really excited
about today is talking through
reviews and customer loyalty
because I think it is super
important for brands moving
forward.
Rachel Hooper: Yep. And with us
today, we have Tom Goodwin. He's
the Chief Operating Officer of
Reviews.io. Tom, would you like
to join up with us?
Tom Goodwin: Yep. Hi there,
Rachel, thanks again for the
invite today. It's great to be
here. So, yeah, like Rachel
said, I'm the COO of Reviews.io.
I'm based in Australia and moved
here just over a year ago. Super
excited about the APAC region
and why, you know, we've decided
to base myself here as one of
the leadership team. We've been
around for just over 10 years as
a business. And we've got
roughly covered up to up to up
to 7000 clients globally. We've
got offices, like I said, in
Sydney, Australia, in Berlin, in
Germany. Our head office and
where we were founded in
Leicester, in the UK, and also
over in LA and our our team's
grown from around 10 people to
nearly 70 now in the last two
years, so it's a super exciting
time for Reviews.io. We're a
Google licensed product, reviews
provider. So we with our Google
seller ratings, we're able to
really help you leverage that
trust. And, you know, really
make sure that you're you're
really promoting your feedback
and loyalty across the, across
the web.
Rachel Hooper: Fantastic. And
with that it sort of talks about
a bit of a brief history of what
has happened in the retail
environment. If you talk about
it over the last 60 to 70 years,
and it has been this consistent
thing of bricks and mortar going
across to a eCommerce. But in
the last few months, there's no
doubt that eCommerce has taken
over and just because of a
little thing like this. So it's
going to be a significant thing
that's going to change the way
that all retail stores go into
the future. But what it really
means for us from the point of
view of loyalty and how you can
establish your brand trust and
your brand loyalty online, and
how we pay for these tools that
are available to you like what
Reviews.io have and how do you
actually engage with those
customers through the right
communication channels? So
that's what we're going to be
talking about today. And I'm
going to start the panel
conversation with you, Tom. So
what? So what have you been
seeing through this? What are
some of the things that
businesses are talking to you
about? Are they struggling,
booming pivoting? What is it?
Tom Goodwin: You know, we're
seeing across all you know,
we're, like I said, we've been
around for 10 years now. And,
you know, we've got a mixture of
clients across eComm and bricks
and mortar businesses are using
our solution. I think one of the
key things that we're seeing at
the moment is that people are
moving away from those larger
online brands and moving to
pivoting to using those more
local independent online eComm
brands. And I think a lot of
that a down is down to I
suppose, there's a new there's a
new buyer coming through, you
know, it's the the rise of the
new buyer coming through and I
think it's, they're concerned
about, you know, availability
and shipping and, or if they
don't like the product, are they
going to be able to send it
back? You know, so we're sort of
seeing and so you know,
certainly within our, with our
business we're seeing you know,
a lot of a lot of sort of
businesses pivoting on that
perspective. So I mean, in an
area that's really booming for
us and we if we look at our
customer base at the moment is
the new sort of buzzword of the
new essentials I suppose, is the
buzzword that everyone's using
at the moment and you know, this
whole stay at home lifestyle so
yeah, obviously we're seeing a
lot of you know, we're seeing
fantastic growth you know, crazy
growth from the brands they're
in this all that creative space,
that homewear space, that
fitness, toys, yeah, anything
that contributes to that stay at
home lifestyle. Obviously, we're
seeing still winners, they're
still seeing good growth within
areas like you know, high repeat
purchase goods, you know, FMCG
brands, fashion and all of those
sort of areas. We're seeing good
growth, but obviously, brands
that are struggling a little bit
more brands that, you know, are
finding it harder to pivot
online, or in the sort of travel
and hospitality space for the
obvious reasons. And I suppose
the most exciting pivot that
we're seeing really, is those
wholesale brands becoming a DC,
you know, direct to consumer
brands, you know, it's
certainly, you know, with, you
know, we're seeing, we're seeing
a lot of that. And so, yeah, you
know, from that perspective,
sorry, I've just realized I've
got something open on mine. But
yeah, I mean, basically, I think
that that's sort of an area that
I you know, is it is an
overview, that's where we are
with that.
Rachel Hooper: Fantastic.
Damien Brennan: Yeah, I mean,
really just echoing what Tom
says, you know. One, one boom
that we saw at MessageMedia,
which I didn't even think think
of, to be honest, was, was like
office supplies. So obviously
with everybody moving to a home
office, you know, setting up a
Home Office, you know, the the,
wherever they could get things
like stationery or like desks
and chairs and anything like
that or even headphones and you
know, kind of the equipment that
you're used to having in the
office, we saw that as a as a
real boom at the start of it
started kind of that. And then I
guess the thing that I think
will be quite interesting is
once we start to pivot back to
going back into the office,
what, uh, you know, what
industries and what kind of
specifically retail industries
we'll see see an increase there.
Rachel Hooper: Right. And, Tom,
can you tell me about a success
story that you've actually seen
out of this particular crisis?
And, if it relates to their
loyalty, you know, how you build
up loyalty and trust and that
sort of thing? And who's doing
things well?
Tom Goodwin: Yeah, I suppose I
you know, I've talked to my
customer success team and looked
at some of the data ourselves
and you know, particularly in
this market in Australia, you
know, the brands that we see are
doing really well at the moment
we've got a relatively new brand
that came on board at Reviews.io
called The Plant People. So you
know very much you know,
ordering fantastic plants and
getting those  delivered home in
a really sort of cool way and
the way they've engaged in, in
social proofing their brands,
you know, it's it's very sort of
creative the way they've done it
the way that the whole packaging
and everything. It's so
fantastic seeing new brands like
that. Other brands, you know,
we've got a brand over in New
Zealand called Dose & Co, again,
just seeing huge, huge growth on
that brand from a reviews
collection perspective, you
know. Massive engagement, great
use of leveraging that review
those reviews and social proof.
Even now, we've recently turned
on a new video review feature
within our collector pages. So
seeing really fun videos and
people uploading. Australian
Direct is a great Neato client
of ours in Australia, who are on
the Neato platform and again,
seeing fantastic use of
leveraging connecting social
channels, doing all of those
things. And then I saw a company
right here in Sydney that we
seeing great growth is Citizen
Wolf. So you know from that
fashion apparel perspective so
yeah, some great success
stories.
Rachel Hooper: Fantastic. It's
interesting you actually said
that video one, that video
reviews stuff. I've seen that on
LinkedIn a few times. So many
animals showing themselves being
movie. [unintelligible] Can you?
Damien, what's a success story
you've noticed?
Damien Brennan: Yeah, one that
I'd love to call out as a
customer of theirs is it's
actually Muscle Republic. We,
yeah, they they held a sale the
other week but their
communication and I think their
customer loyalty was fantastic
because they had a lot of
advertising presale through
Instagram and Facebook. And was
was really kind of targeted
towards, you know, obviously who
they who they wanted to attend.
Then the engagement post sale,
because the sale went so well
lines, sold out within 10-15
minutes, their engagement post
sale to say, 'Hey, this was you
know crazier than we expected.
We're taking pre orders now for
these as well and happy to kind
of match those those prices.'
[This] was fantastic because I
missed out on a jumper I was
able to purchase or pre order
that jumper for when it comes
back in stock. But I think that,
for me was a great way to build
like a brand loyalty or a
customer loyalty because I now
look at look at them as they've
done me a really solid favor in
allowing me to purchase what I
wanted. So yeah, I think that's
been really great.
Rachel Hooper: So given given
those sorts of experiences, what
are the best mechanisms to
engage with a customer to leave
a review? And I guess, Tom, if
you can expand on that, why is
it that you really want people
to be doing that for you?
Tom Goodwin: Yeah, I think, you
know, requesting review, yeah is
is obviously, with some of the
stats that are out there at the
moment a stat in Australia is
82% of Australians read a review
before they buy, so I think it's
that and you know, there's only
if you look, from a consumer
perspective, only 33% of
consumers trust the information
directly coming from a brand. So
sharing that customer's voice,
sharing that feedback, building
that into that whole journey. So
you know, including, you know,
feedback on abandoned cart
emails, including it on checkout
pages, you know, adding that
social proof to, to, to your
whole customer journey is
incredibly important. So, you
know, one of the things that we
sort of say, you know, it's
personalizing that journey, and
so it's looking at what's the
happiest point in that, in that
in that journey and really
requesting the review at that
happiest point, you know, and
that and that's different for
lots of brands, you know,
whether it's a service based
brand, whether it's a product
based brand. It's understanding
what the right point is, it
might be on on dispatch, it
might be on delivery, it might
be on various various things.
But no, I think nowadays with
the with the great tools that
are available out there things
like Klaviyo, obviously
MessageMedia from a messaging
perspective in the way that you
guys, your customers are using
it. It's really understanding
what that point is. And then
it's very easy for us to build
that into our solution.
Rachel Hooper: Yep. Damian?
Damien Brennan: Yeah, I think
further to Tom's point,
understanding where your
customers are shopping as well
so if that I spoke about in the
last one, but really getting
down into into your your data,
understanding are they shopping
on mobile? Are they shopping
through desktop or you know,
even are they shopping in store?
And then as Tom said, timing
that is the best time to, you
know, to ask somebody for a
review at purchase? Online,
probably not because they
haven't received their items
yet. Whereas if it's in store,
it possibly is, you know, time
it straight after. The other
part I think is getting some
urgency around getting the
reviews. I mean, we're we're
obviously in the space where we
know stats around SMS and email.
But just some stats around SMS
that I think it's quite
important definitely when you're
asking for reviews is 90% of SMS
are opened within the first two
minutes of sending, which, when
it comes to a review and trying
to get that information,
obviously, it's something that
the customer sees, opens and can
go through it straightaway. And
the average click through on an
SMS at the moment is around 19%.
With email you're looking at
about 3.2%. And I know Rachel
can attest to this, but we've
also seen click through rates
for some of our customers as
high as 60%. Obviously,
depending on what that message
content is.
Rachel Hooper: Yes, we hundred
percent have seen up to 60%
response rate. In fact, I think
one of our better ones was like
some something deeper was like
75% on a service based message.
Damien Brennan: Yeah.
Rachel Hooper: So that's
actually really really good to
know. So I guess going on from
that point, then that you raised
Damien, how do you ensure a
great customer experience
because a great customer
experience leads to a great
review? So Tom, how do you how
do you plan? How do you get
people to plan for a great
experience to lead to a great
review?
Tom Goodwin: I think nowadays,
you know, we're very lucky with
the, you know, the different
ecosystem and you know,
different platforms that people
have built their websites on,
whether it's Shopify, whether
it's WooCommerce, whether it's
WordPress, you know, all of
those different platforms. I
think, nowadays, it is so much
easier to make content dynamic,
and it's so much easier to make.
And, you know, to create
personalization, whether it's on
site personalization, or whether
it's within text messaging,
whether it's in emails going
out, I think it's so and I
think, you know, your customer
is your number one salesperson.
So the end of the day, if you
can build that personalized
journey and treat that customer,
you know, in a real bespoke way,
then then you know that that is
how you enable great experience
and obviously to then it then
leads on to the way that you
request that review and the way
that you know what point you
request that view and what what
channel you request that review
and how then you promote that
review dependent on on your on
your customers. But I think it
is so easy now to create that
sort of personalized journey and
to identify who your brand
ambassadors are. So you know, we
we have a great feature built
into our solution, an influence
feature that enables you to
connect your Instagram account
directly to the Reviews.io
dashboard. And we can identify
who you're out of your followers
who are your brand ambassadors
who are your influencers, have
they shopped with you before,
you know, how you know, have
they left you a review and
actually using those fantastic
ambassadors of your business to
you know, send them some free
gifts, get them you know, get
them to promote your business.
You know, they're they're your
number one salesperson!
Rachel Hooper: Wow. Damien?
Damien Brennan: Yeah, I'd say
the first thing is like, ask for
reviews, and then actually look
at them. You know, the, the
building a great customer
experience, you do have to
actually listen to your
customer. We can sit back, we
can try and, you know, come up
with ideas that we've got and go
 yeah, this is this is the bes
 way to do it. But until yo
 actually give it to you
 customers, and they start usin
 it, and you get that feedback
 you then have to be able t
 adjust off that. So one thing 
 you know, I guess like anythi
g is putting the customer at, 
t the center of all decisions y
u make, you know. I'm very guil
y of it. But you know, we live 
n a society now where consume
s just expect everything to 
e easy. You know, I want to 
e able to hit one button on my 
V and Netflix comes on. I want 
o be able to complete a purcha
e in two clicks basically, y
u know, one thing we say in o
r industry is when sending a li
k or sending a link to somebo
y via SMS, give it give them th
t link to the most direct page a
d the easiest thing for them 
o hit maybe one button after th
t and purchase the produc
. Because the second step you p
t in there, you're just increasi
g the likelihood of drop off. T
e one thing I'd also say, and
I think it's kind of been sped 
p over the last two months, b
t we've really seen brands for
e to communicate, communicate wi
h customers more so than just ki
d of sales or just kind 
f updates, but really talk 
bout things like shipping or 
elay updates, as I like to call 
hem, you know, store open times 
hether the stores are still, yo
 know, trading or not trading, o
 how you can continue to d
 business with brand. You know
 one great example of I've b
ought it up before but there
s a brewery down the road from 
e. They were typically a go
in sit down, type, type venue. O
viously with lock down they 
ad to close their doors, but w
at they did was actually send 
 message to their customers and
Rachel Hooper: Yep. And it also
provides that opportunity for,
everyone on their database 
o say, 'Hey, we're still ope
. You can now purchase onlin
, this is the link to our to
our store,' so people could s
ill still deal with them. And I 
hink from them doing that, a
d that kind of over communicati
n that started to build lik
 a really good relationship b
tween cust
particularly in a local world to
one, build a list but then also
continue to curate it so it
actually creates a stronger
local community, which is really
cool.
Damien Brennan: Yeah.
Rachel Hooper: So on the reverse
side of that, what techniques,
Tom, would you be recommending
to recover from a bad customer
experience or it probably more
in particular, what what should
you do when you see a bad
review?
Tom Goodwin: I think the most
important thing to do with a bad
review is to obviously reply to
it and you know, where we really
encourage our brands, our
customers to reply to bad
reviews publicly, because I
think there's I think quite
often, what, when people go on
and look at reviews and just see
all five star reviews, again,
it's the author's, you know,
it's the trust factor there,
where if within those five star
reviews there is, you know, the
odds, you know, two or three
star, but there's a, you see
that the brand is engaged and
reply to that review and shown,
you know, honesty and actually
provided a reason or, or why,
why that they failed, and why
that bad reviews being created.
I think it's I think it's
important, I think it provides
that, you know, there's
authenticity there to the way
that that brand is collecting
reviews, and to just empower the
team within their businesses to
to, you know, to really look at
you look at the feedback and
really shaped the business
around that feedback, rather
than you know, not just
displaying that review or just
ignoring it.
Damien Brennan: Yeah, and I
think I think it's really
important that just to bring up
we were speaking offline about
it earlier that dealing with bad
reviews is extremely tough, like
it is a very hard thing to get
right. But I think yeah, number
one is make sure you address it.
If they leave a bad review, try
to try to turn it into a
positive by addressing what the
problem was, you know, obviously
trying to come up with a
solution for them if there is
one but as Tom just mentioned
then, other other customers will
see the effort you've gone to,
to solve that problem. And you
know, that that almost turns it
into a positive because it goes,
'Hey, the brand is actually
listening.' One example I like
to, you know, I was thinking
about when we went on with
speaking then was actually
happened at MessageMedia, where
a customer of ours was actually
having issues accessing our
online portal from his Mac. Now,
we've done testing, obviously,
through every web browser,
through all different systems,
and it was working, but we
couldn't actually replicate the
problem he was having. So we
continued to dig deeper and
deeper into it. And we found
essentially, there was a small
set, you know, one setting on
his Mac, something, you know,
completely not related to us.
But if we swapped that over,
then yes, that was we couldn't
actually sorry, we couldn't
actually access the system. So
to be able to kind of dig deeper
and deeper into something and
go, you know, we're probably a
little bit lucky that it's a
tech business and we can do
these things, to dig deeper and
deeper and say, 'Okay, there's
this one setting on your Mac,
you've obviously adjusted it at
some point. If you switch it
back over, you'll be able to
access it.' He did that, it
worked. We were able to resolve
it for him. So it was it was
really good, but he's now a
customer of ours because of I
guess that that customer service
effort.
Rachel Hooper: Yeah. Customers
will always appreciate something
where even if something goes
wrong if you go over and above
to to actually resolve for it,
it can actually turn in a really
bad situation to an incredibly
positive customer outcome. And
they can sometimes be your best
advocates as a result. So I
guess then the next question is
particularly on the review side,
how would somebody get started
today, Tom, to actually start
collecting reviews and making
sure that they can start being
seen as more close to business,
particularly in eCommerce?
Tom Goodwin: Yeah, I mean, from
our side, we make it as easy as
possible for our customers, you
know, we we have integrations
across all the all the key
platforms as well as our API. So
you know, we, we really pride
ourselves on being a plug and
play solution. So it's, it's
about connecting, connecting
their solution, or you know,
depending on what platform
they're using, whether they're
going on to the Big Commerce app
store, or the Shopify app store
or, or using our API or any of
those elements. It's really,
it's connecting, connecting,
creating email templates,
building in that customer
journey. We can have people up
and running literally within a
few hours. And then once you've
got those reviews, it's about
then using some of our great
widgets that we have that
enables you then to publish
those reviews on site, which has
got all information, you know,
it's got things like rich
snippet data so that they're
getting organic, organic SEO
benefits from reviews, and
really taking up as much as
Google's real estate as you
possibly can, right through to
obviously, connecting your
Google Merchant Center and
actually making sure that you're
getting those stars in your
AdWords and reducing that CTR
costs and things like that. So
yeah, I mean, it's it's a pretty
easy way, you know, we're
working we work alongside lots
of integration partners,
particularly in Australia,
people like Neato, as well as
the loyalty programs as well,
which again, we're seeing a huge
increase of so Loyalty Lion,
Smile.io, and again, our
fantastic Partner Network,
including yourselves as well as
our agency partners within the
within the market as well. I
mean, we've got a great customer
success team based in Australia,
which is pretty unique. We bill
in Australian dollars, which
again is pretty unique against
our competitors. So yeah, we're
very proud to be in this market.
Rachel Hooper: Cool. Damien, how
would you recommend somebody
gets started today with engaging
their customers better?
Damien Brennan: Yeah, for me,
it's, you know, it's as simple
as asking the question, I think
so, you know, using somebody
like Reviews.io is super
important. I think it's
something that, as I said,
without it, you're kind of
flying blind in terms of what
your customers want, or what
they're looking for. So I think
if you can start actually
engaging with customers and
asking the question that that's
my number one tip.
Rachel Hooper: Great, so thanks
very much, Tom and Damian, we're
now opening up to questions. And
I'll start with the first
question that came up which is,
Tom, can you and should you ever
delete a review?
Tom Goodwin: No. We've got
obviously the obvious features
built into our solution like
profanity filters. So, you know,
if there's any profanity or or
complete false information, then
obviously our solution has a
moderation tool for dealing with
those situations. And I mean,
it's down to the customer in
terms of what they want to
publish on site. You know, there
is that there's that there's
that flexibility within the
widgets, but again, it's the
authenticity of the brands
really that you know, are you
gonna trust the brand that all
you see are five star reviews?
At the end of the day, you know,
no one's no one's perfect. So I
think it's, it's important that
you know, one of the points we
talked about earlier, it's
important that you reply to all
reviews good or bad. And and you
provide that connection to the
customer from, you know, from
real people. So, yeah.
Rachel Hooper: And then another
one that has come up is how many
times should you ask for a
review? Like, do you just keep
going until you do it? Or is
there a sort of a number that
you should just go, 'This
person's not going to respond,'?
Tom Goodwin: No, I mean, I our
systems, our systems got
particular features built into
it to avoid that, to stop people
reaching out, you know. Our
system won't go out to a
customer more than you know,
it's over every three months is
really when you request so I
think it's, it's about
establishing the the correct
point in the customer journey
that you ask them to review. And
we see fantastic conversion
rates, you know, whether using
SMS, you know, particularly SMS
obviously shows high conversion
rates, we've got a great in
email tool that allows you to
write a review directly within
the actual email rather than
having to go through to a
collector's page. So I think,
especially with tools like
Klaviyo and Active Campaign and
things like that, and building
that that element in, I think
you can design and manage how
how often you reach out to a
customer but certainly, if you
establish rather than just going
for a blanket rule, you know, AB
test different different
collection methods, maybe
different designs, building it
into different points in the
journey. I think you'll
understand the the best point to
collect and the highest
conversion rate.
Rachel Hooper: Fantastic.
Damian, anything to add to that?
Damien Brennan: No, I think I
think Tom, Tom went through it
pretty pretty well, to be
honest. He's definitely the
expert in the space.
Rachel Hooper: Totally. Look,
that's actually all the
questions that have come
through. So not too many
questions for us today. So look,
as a final note, I'll just let
you know that MessageMedia has
in fact put through put together
a COVID resource hub which is
available on our support site,
which is
support.messagemedia.com, and
while you're there you can see
the COVID category which
includes a checklist of what to
do if you needed to get started.
It is SMS specific but you can
use it for pretty much any type
of communication, as well as
some templates and some guidance
around what kind of
communications you might want to
do. Again, it's focused on SMS,
but you can actually apply this
to pretty much any communication
style that you may need to use,
particularly if you need a
little bit of an idea of what
style of messaging beyond just
the marketing and sales side
that you might be wanting to
consider at this point. So
that's actually all that we've
got to cover off today. Thank
you very much Tom and Damien.
And just as an update, we will
be sending out a recording of
this webinar in the next day or
so. So thank you very much!
