In a recent InternetRetailing webinar, National Tyres and Autocare SEO and social media manager Azzam Sheikh joined us to explain how customer reviews can increase sales and improve online reputation. Benjamin Hoskin, strategic account manager at Trustpilot, then joined the discussion to answer questions in a Q&A.
Below we summarise the subject areas covered.
Speaker: Azzam Sheikh, SEO and social media manager at National Tyres and Autocare
. Traditional word of mouth is now augmented through customer reviews
. “If the customer has an issue, a complaint or problem and it doesn’t get addressed they will be vocal about it.”
. “If they have an excellent experience and we’re able to facilitate that, we’ll be able to get more positive experience out there, people talking about us, rating us and we’ll be able to get more positive conversions via our site.”
. National Tyres runs two websites: Tyre-shopper.co.uk and National.co.uk
The National Tyres and Autocare approach
How it was:
. The National Tyres invoice wallet had a survey on the back. Comments were typed into a spreadsheet.
. Once-a-year boardroom meeting considered the results.
. Online survey after three months to ask about the tyres.
New approach (work started in June 2011):
. Began to integrate survey results into the website, with a view to creating fresh unique content, boosting search rankings.
. Used feedback within local branch pages.
. System built to automatically update reviews on those pages with high-starring reviews (marked 7-10). Other reviews are moderated, checked for factors including how constructive they are.
. Dealing with negative reviews: many people have negative view of garages from the outset. When bad reviews appear on third-party sites the SEO/social team felt they needed to go out and engage with them. Persuaded the board that most reviews are positive and engaging with the minority that were not would be useful.
. Decision was taken to encourage people to leave reviews on the site, funneling all the reviews through one particular service.
. When looking for providers struck by Trustpilot’s ability to enable the site owner respond to reviews immediately via email alert. Other features included ability to export feedback.
. Strategy with Trustpilot: trigger set so that company is notified and can respond to one star, two star and three star reviews only (not four and five star reviews). “We wanted to be able to map our reviews and notify the branch where they’ve had that experience.”
. Branch staff awareness of social media now heightened.
. How Trustpilot helped conversions. Eg integrating the Trustpilot badge to the checkout (40m). Tested by running the site with and without the badge for the same number of days. Boosted Tyre-shopper conversions by 8.7%.
. Integrating reviews to Google.
. Use of reviews and social media to instill confidence.
. Use of tyre reviews page and positive effect on conversions.
. Use of Google + also boosted conversions.
. Use of Social Xtrovert to tag and optimise material for social sharing.
Benjamin Hoskin, strategic account manager at Trustpilot, and Azzam Sheikh then tackled questions in a Q&A session that covered issues from how much resource tracking and responding to reviews requires, to whether the service is appropriate for start-ups, how long it takes to integrate Trustpilot.
The webinar was held in association with Trustpilot.
To hear the webinar for yourself, to view the accompanying slides and hear the question and answer session, visit the Trustpilot webinar page.
For details of our other webinars, visit our webinars page.
