What is brand trust?

Brand trust is the amount of loyalty and support customers have for your brand and how strongly they believe you can fulfil your brand promises. It’s based on customer experiences with your brand as well as company messaging and reputation.

Brands and retailers who can’t establish trust with consumers, or even worse, who lose established trust, will struggle to win business. We’re in an age when consumer opinions are shared on a massive scale and directly influence brand perception. 

In a Bazaarvoice study, 54% of consumers said that if a brand hasn’t broken trust, they’d still buy from them again — even after a negative experience. 

5 ways to build brand trust

It’s simple. When your customers trust you, they’ll be loyal to you almost no matter what. Here’s how to build consumer trust in your brand. 

1. Work with a trustworthy UGC provider 

One way to increase brand trust in e-commerce is by getting your consumers to advocate for your brand for you. Shoppers trust user-generated content (UGC) in the form of reviews more than they trust family and friend recommendations. Instead of trying to control what people are saying, brands and retailers should embrace this conversation and amplify it.

However, to maintain brand trust, reviews must be authentic. According to our survey of 10,000 global shoppers, if shoppers suspect a product has fake reviews:

• 81% will avoid using that brand again
• 48% leave a negative review
• 25% wouldn’t purchase from the website
• 16% will post negatively about the brand on social media

That’s why a good UGC program requires strong content moderation. A trustworthy UGC provider that values authenticity can help your brand sort through reviews and eliminate fake ones that hurt your credibility and destroy consumer trust.

For example, Bazaarvoice evaluates UGC through a process of machine learning and human moderation to ensure it isn’t fraudulent and that it represents a customer’s genuine opinion about their experience with the product(s).

27% of consumers think brands with fake content should be fined up to 30% of their revenue — and governments are taking note. The FTC recently fined one company over $4 million for suppressing authentic content, so not only will fake content harm your reputation but it will harm your wallet too.

2. Publicize company values

According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, consumers today grant brand trust based on two attributes: competence and ethical behavior. Like doing the right thing and working to improve society.

Consumers want to see what your brand believes in and how you follow through on those beliefs. And with the various significant events taking place across the globe, they especially want to know how your brand responds to your community in times of crisis. This is particularly true when it comes to Gen Z, who value brand trust, transparency, and authenticity above all else.

Creating content about your values for your website is a good start, but make sure this messaging is also visible on your social channels. About 35% of consumers look to a brand’s social media to seek out content about company response and values. 

You also need to be mindful of who your brand partners with. Any influencers or partners you collaborate with should share your brand values and have a solid reputation. They’ll connect with consumers in ways that are relevant and sensitive to their needs and help authentically communicate your brand’s values. 

3. Focus on great customer service 

90% of consumers say a brand’s level of customer service is an important factor in their choice to become a customer. A proactive customer service strategy should include responding to customer feedback and reviews, both negative and positive.

Around 60% of consumers say that negative reviews are just as important as positive reviews in their decision to purchase. And the way you respond to these negative reviews can speak volumes about your brand’s values and may even convert more browsers into buyers. A consumer’s willingness to purchase a product with a negative review doubles when seeing a brand’s response, as opposed to seeing the negative review by itself. And, up to 70% of dissatisfied customers will do business with a company again if their complaint is resolved.

When you see a negative review, take the time to craft a quick, but personal, response. Consumers want to talk to a real person, not a review response bot. Show them that you sympathize with their issue and that you’re learning from criticism. Mention that their feedback will be used for future improvements. This will only boost your brand trust.

In your online response, ask the customer to contact you offline. And be clear about why. Are you trying to understand the problem because your team is working on product improvements? Are you looking for details on the issue so you can prevent it from happening again? Was there a defect, and you need their contact information to send the new product?

Don’t forget to give the customer a way to contact your brand, whether that’s via a preferred phone number or email address. 

4. Create high-quality products

Reviews are excellent sources of information to analyze how consumers feel about your products’ quality. When you pay attention to common customer pain points, you have the opportunity to fix issues before your products earn a negative reputation and win back customers before you lose them entirely.

Look for key topics in your negative reviews. Do customers complain about particular product features? Long shipping times or damaged delivery? Is there something missing that they wanted from the product? Was the product description inaccurate?

Share this customer sentiment with your product quality or manufacturing team (or with vendors if you’re a retailer) to make improvements that keep your products competitive and meet consumer expectations. 

5. Price your products fairly 

According to Prisnyc, a competitor price tracking and monitoring company, about 60% of consumers consider pricing as the very first criteria of their buying decision, and 86% say it’s important to compare prices from different sellers when shopping. 

When’s the last time you compared your product price to the competition? If it’s been a while, it’s time to re-evaluate. How do your prices differ from competitors? 

Consumers value transparency. If your product is significantly more expensive than the competition and there’s a reason for it (like you use a higher quality material), don’t be afraid to call that out on your product pages. 

Build brand trust with the voice of the customer

To protect consumer trust, your brand must prioritize honesty and transparency in everything you do, from reviews to customer service to product pricing. One of the best ways to gain insights into how customers feel about your brand and communicate trust is through ratings and reviews. 

Leverage the authentic voice of your customers to build brand trust and sell your products. Taking the time to invest in your ratings and reviews program will help you build the foundation for long-lasting relationships and brand trust with your customers, leading to more sales — after all, customers who interact with UGC are 2x as likely to convert.

LEARN MORE

Masterclass: How to grow and protect consumer trust

Watch now

What is brand reputation management?

Brand reputation management refers to keeping tabs on how consumers perceive your brand and reacting in a strategic way to maintain, improve, and protect that image. Much of your brand reputation hinges on what consumers say about you on social media and in reviews, and how you communicate with these shoppers. 

Focusing on your brand reputation management is crucial for growth. A positive reputation fosters brand loyalty, inspires shopper confidence, boosts sales, and puts you above your competition. Whereas negative sentiments may cause sales to drop and scare off customers. But hey, it’s not all bad. 

Paying close attention to the chatter about your brand — both positive and negative — presents an opportunity to learn about your customers to help you better meet their needs in the future.

Brand reputation management strategies

Brand reputation management isn’t a one-time deal. It’s a continuous process of keeping up with consumer perception and taking time to resolve any issues that arise.

Here’s the 10 most effective brand management reputation strategies to guide your brand.

1. Encourage ratings and reviews

Shoppers love sharing their opinions of brands, and review spaces give them a forum to offer that feedback. Reviews are a valuable part of the shopping experience. According to our research, 88% of consumers always or mostly read reviews before buying anything and 78% say reviews have the biggest influence on their purchases.

Keeping a fresh crop of reviews flowing in is vital. Consumers tend to spend more on products and services when they encounter positive reviews, and 25% of shoppers think reviews remain relevant after 12 months but most prefer reviews written in in the past three months. After turning to ratings and reviews for their site, retail brand Brother, for example, saw customers spend 3x longer on its website, and they were 2x more likely to click a call-to-action when they engaged with reviews.

The tools can help brands collect reviews and other user-generated content (UGC) like photos and videos.  

If you don’t have many reviews for a certain product, first focus your attention on increasing your review volume. Just a handful of reviews can noticeably increase sales and customer sentiment. There’s several methods for getting more reviews, including sending review request emails and product sampling.

2. Respond to all reviews (even the negative ones)

When customers trust a brand, they’ll return time after time, Cydni Lauper style. Engaging directly with shoppers helps build trust, and one of the best ways to do that is to respond to their feedback — both negative and positive. 

Respond to positive reviews with a thank you and comment on a specific element from their review to personalize the response. Or take the opportunity to emphasize your brand pillars, like your brand’s commitment to customer service. Positive reviews are excellent content, too, so promote them on your product pages and social media channels.

Over 60% of shoppers say negative reviews are just as important as positive ones. (Many people get suspicious when there’s too many positive reviews.) So, you need to respond to this negative feedback as well.

Be understanding and authentic in your reply, and offer a solution, such as sending a product replacement or a genuine apology. This signals to customers that you’re listening and care about making them happy. 

Among unhappy shoppers, 70% will do business with a brand again if their complaint is resolved and 34% will delete a negative review if they’re satisfied with a brand’s response.

3. Answer customer questions 

If an in-store shopper asked you a question about a product or your customer service, would you answer them? Of course, you would. So you need to answer online questions, too. Answering customer questions is a critical part of brand reputation management — it builds loyalty and helps shoppers make confident, informed purchasing decisions.

Enabling a questions and answers platform on your product page(s) can also slash your return rates and the number of customer complaints you’ll receive, and boost conversion rate. 

For example, brands that use Bazaarvoice’s Questions & Answers platform to respond to shopper queries can see a 98% jump in conversions. You can also garner valuable insights from the customer questions to help improve your products or business.

Nestlé Canada enabled Bazaarvoice Q&A on its site and within three months had already responded to 700 questions. Noting consistent negative questions and comments about a particular product, the brand reacted by changing the recipe and the product’s average star rating jumped from 1.7 to 4 stars.

4. Share your mission 

Consumers increasingly want to shop with ethical brands that have a mission that aligns with their own values. Especially millennials and Gen Z. 71% of consumers think brands and retailers have the potential to positively impact society, and about 60% believe brands have a social responsibility to speak out and take action on important issues. 

Sharing your mission — whether it’s sustainability-focused, supporting specific social causes, or being a top-notch place to work — across social media sites and on your e-commerce site helps build trust and emotional connections with shoppers. 

When you share your mission and commitment to important causes, it makes your brand more relatable to the public. This will do wonders for your brand reputation. According to a Sprout Social report, 64% of consumers want to connect with brands, and 53% feel connected when a brand’s values align with their own. 

Communicating your mission also helps you control the narrative that surrounds your brand and lets you present your values in an authoritative and accurate way. 

5. Embrace visual and social content 

Authentic experiences are important to today’s shoppers. They like to see products in real-world settings — clothing modeled by real people and consumers demonstrating how something works. Actually, 40% of shoppers won’t purchase if a product page lacks UGC. Consumers seek out customer photos on product pages, search engines, social media, and other websites that sell the items.

Deploying the right visual and social content across every channel where your brand can be found engages shoppers and promotes a positive brand reputation. 

Displaying authentic imagery from real shoppers on your e-commerce site does more than just improve your brand reputation. When consumers interact with visual content on-site, shoppers spend more time on the website, buy more, and conversion rates soar.

For example, Le Col has seen average order value increase by 13%, revenue per visitor by 155%, and conversion rate by 125% when shoppers engage with UGC. 

6. Optimize creative product pages

Shoppers want to feel confident that anything they buy will meet their needs, and they rely on product descriptions to provide all the information they need. When product detail pages lack details, it’s so frustrating for consumers that they abandon their shopping cart. 

A whopping 98% of shoppers say they’ve been dissuaded from purchasing something because a product page didn’t have enough information. Not including detailed descriptions or including incorrect information can weaken your reputation and drive up your return rates. 

Highlight a product’s key features and use sensory wording that’s relatable to consumers. Include details about how an item works, how it’ll help in consumers’ daily lives, and the results that it will provide. Featuring visual UGC, reviews, and questions and answers helps shoppers make quick (but well-informed) decisions and inspires loyalty. 

7. Step up your SEO tactics 

A significant amount of shopping journeys start on search engines, like Google. So, it’s crucial to optimize your SEO strategy to ensure your brand gets noticed at this critical stage. Producing high-quality, SEO-centric content on your website will help you stand out. So, your brand reputation management process should factor in SEO, including how you’ll monitor negative online search results and what action you’ll take. 

You can gather insights into the wording that shoppers use to search for your products and describe how they meet their needs from syndicating reviews and other UGC. This information can then be used to create your SEO strategy around user sentiment and keep up with Google’s algorithm changes. 

8. Monitor your reviews on other websites

The more ratings and reviews that your products have, the more likely shoppers will be inspired to purchase. But, your website isn’t the only place where people can leave reviews. A key part of your brand reputation management strategy should be to keep an eye on what consumers are saying about you everywhere reviews can be posted. Channels like social media, Yelp, or your Google seller rating.

With thousands of reviews likely to pop up on multiple platforms, overseeing it all can be overwhelming. If you need help, a ratings and reviews platform can streamline everything. The right tools feature built-in insights and analytics to help you quickly identify themes and problems that could affect your brand reputation. As well as ways to take action to improve the sentiment around your brand.

9. Focus on top-notch customer service

Happy customers keep coming back. The best way to keep your most loyal shoppers happy is with proactive customer service and unique, personalized customer experiences. Customers are actually starting to expect these experiences from brands, with 25% of consumers saying they’re interested in personalization in shopping.

Getting it right — which involves actively listening to consumers and quickly resolving any problems that come up — offers endless benefits, including higher customer satisfaction and conversion rates, which translates to a stellar brand reputation. 

The most loyal customers tend to use words like “happy,” “love,” and “adore” when discussing their favorite brands. This kind of customer sentiment resonates with other shoppers and helps attract new ones. When happy customers share something positive about your brand on social media, for example, reward them with a special discount or other perk or highlight their stories on your website.

Showing appreciation for your best customers will amplify your brand and reinforce your reputation. 

10. Crack down on fake reviews

Nearly all shoppers (97%) say fake reviews make them lose trust in a brand, according to our research of 10,000 global consumers. That’s significant because 81% of shoppers also say they’d never use a brand again after losing trust in it. And they’re getting better at spotting fake reviews:

Cracking down on fake reviews associated with your brand is an essential part of your reputation management. Effective tactics include:

• Don’t allow fake reviews. Sounds obvious, but don’t be tempted to allow fake reviews just because they may be positive. Use an in-house our third-party content moderation service to screen them out
• Keep on top of legislation. Fake reviews are becoming so prevalent that new regulations are constantly being drawn up. For example, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently proposed new regulations to crack down on fake reviews
• Never incentivize positive reviews. You can ask customers for reviews (and you should!) but never offer financial reward for a positive review. If you do incentivize a review, through a coupon for example, then make sure to add a disclaimer to the review

Brand reputation management case studies

1. Retail giant River Island keeps on top of its brand reputation management through authentic visual content. The brand wanted to provide an authentic shopping experience for customers so they incorporated visual UGC onto their homepage, landing pages, and product pages. Visitors that engaged with this visual UGC on the brand’s site drove a 184% increase conversion rates
2. Hairhouse wanted to build a web presence that today’s shoppers expect by providing social proof through honest reviews. Not only did implementing reviews provide this, but the brand ensured only authentic, genuine reviews were featured. This real life social proof from shoppers inspired other shoppers to make purchases and led to a 35% increase in conversion rate.

Get a head start on your brand reputation management

These days, with consumers always-on, you can’t ignore your brand reputation. Taking the opportunity to listen and respond to customers, in both positive and negative situations, is crucial for growth. Follow these steps, repeat them and repeat them again and again — brand reputation management is an ongoing process. But a worthy one.

LEARN MORE

Masterclass: How to uphold your brand’s reputation in the digital age

Watch now

Unfortunately, once companies decide to build a customer advocacy program, they often jump straight to the tactics to build programs, like implementing a sampling program, launching a blogger outreach campaign, creating gamification, or starting a social media page on a new platform.

But there’s steps to take and questions to ask yourself before diving in. Before we get into that though, there’s one question that first needs answering.

What is customer advocacy?

Customer advocacy is the method of nurturing relationships with your existing, loyal customers so that they champion your brand, products, or services in return. A strong customer advocacy program will turn your loyal customers into vocal ambassadors for your brand. Why is this important?

Because according to Gartner research, over 75% of B2B buyers consult three or more sources of advocacy before they make a purchase decision.

So the more acts of advocacy you have, the higher your chances of making a sale. But it’s not just new sales that are impacted — the customer advocacy cycle impacts every stage of the buyer journey.

Customer advocates want to share their experiences with your business and help other customers get the most value out of your product or service, which includes upselling and cross-selling. Advocates are who shoppers want to hear from, which is why at Bazaarvoice we have a strong focus on customer advocacy.

Types of customer advocacy program

There’s multiple customer advocacy strategies you can use to enhance the voice of your customers, from simple case studies to guest speakers on webinars.

• Speaking engagements. What better way to advocate for someone than to hear it directly from the customer’s mouth? Inviting a customer to speak on a webinar or at an event is a powerful form of advocacy, which also provides your customer with a brand promotion opportunity.
• Reviews. 88% of shoppers turn to reviews when evaluating a product or service, so having customer reviews on your website and social pages inspires confidence in potential customers. Platforms like G2 are a great source of business reviews.
• Case studies. Probably the most common customer advocacy program, case studies tell the success stories of your existing customers. Prospects don’t need to hear your sales pitch, they want to see how other similar businesses have performed and the potential ROI they could see too. Case studies to just that
• Customer quotes. Often easy to source and even easier to display, quotes are a quick way for customers to share their experience with your brand. They can (and should) be shared across websites, social channels, and email

What to consider when building a customer advocacy program

When there’s more than one strategy on offer, it can be difficult knowing where to start or which is best for your brand. Taking a step back to consider the three points below can help you choose tactics that work best for your advocates and your company — and build a successful program from the start.

1. Why do customers buy your product or shop in your stores?

Often, the answer to this question will be based on research you have already done or insights gained through social media monitoring. As you build your advocacy program, you’ll start to clarify why customers shop with you. But it’s important to have an idea in the beginning to see how to best interact with your consumers.

For example, advocacy programs for a business that knows that people buy its products to belong to a group versus one that knows customers choose its products because of convenience will be completely different, with different messaging and tactics.

2. What motivates customers to be advocates?

This is key for your customer advocacy program. Step into your customers’ shoes and ask why they would want to interact with you. Understanding this will help you bring what’s valuable to your customer to your program.

For example, if you look at what Sharpie did to engage with its fans online, you can see that they know that its customers want to show off their creativity. So Sharpie provides a place for advocates to receive recognition for their creative powers.

Sister company Prismacolor engages its audience in a slightly different way: Prismacolor loyalists define themselves as artists who want to give advice and learn from other artists, so the Prismacolor studio provides an avenue for artists to collaborate.

The tactics are similar, but the messaging and interactions are different, based on differences in their advocates.

3. How do I make it easy for my customers to advocate?

The big question. The easier you make it for advocates to talk about your products or services, the more volume you’ll see. Consider how customers interact with you today and where you could easily add a new touchpoint to encourage them to advocate. Or, how are they already advocating? Are they using particular hashtags or sites more than others? These behaviors might be ones you can noninvasively participate in, too.

Often the easiest way to build customer advocacy is through a brand community. These communities provide a platform for customers to engage with your brand and encourage them to share stories about you.

Customer advocacy examples

Diving down into these three areas can help you get the most of your customer advocacy program and help you decide on your next steps. The answers to these questions can help you decide which tactics would be most effective — and which to avoid. So, what will your advocacy program look like?

Although brands understand influencer marketing’s importance, shoppers are no longer looking to their favorite celebrity for purchasing guidance. The tide has changed, and shoppers want to follow individuals they feel like they know and trust. 

Bazaarvoice research suggests shoppers prefer content from micro-influencers such as brand employees, because they are more relatable, genuine, and authentic. Micro-influencers could easily be their next-door neighbor or best friend who genuinely enjoys and uses this product or service. 

Employee influencers strategies

With this revelation, some brands’ influencer efforts are shifting to the people who know their products or services the best — employees. As the micro-influencer trend begins to ramp up, here’s the companies are leading the pack. 

Spotlighting behind-the-scenes initiatives

Walmart is no stranger to the impact of social media. Beginning with local Facebook groups for almost 5,000 locations, Walmart gave its stores the autonomy to post unique content about the goings-on in their location. To take social media a step further, Walmart’s launch of their Spotlight program has begun to transform 500 employees into pint-sized influencers.

Under this Spotlight intuitive, employees become the brand by sharing behind-the-scenes content on their personal social media accounts. From the #WalmartHolidayShuffle TikTok trend to the Thanksgiving-themed Instagram campaigns, not only does the Spotlight program give shoppers an insider look at the brand, it also rewards employees for their influencer efforts.

The program is still in its infancy, but Walmart hopes to grow the influencer program to roughly 1,500 employees soon.

Purely social engagement 

Dell has always been a social media pioneer. The company realized big dreams early on by launching response analysis and social media monitoring technology. Dell’s forward-thinking spirit inspires the brand advocacy of its employees. To capitalize on their employee’s brand passion, Dell created an employee-driven social sharing content strategy.

With over 10,000 employees participating in the program, Dell encourages advocates to use their platform to share inspirational content relevant to Dell customers. Only 20% of Dell’s content is about the brand itself, while the other 80% highlights the organization’s passions. Empowering the employees has exponentially grown brand advocacy and loyalty.

Strengthening company culture online 

Zappos’ free-spirited persona seemingly attracts a large audience. To give shoppers insights into the brand’s daily operations, Zappos encourages their Zappoians (aka employees) to share content about all things happening within the company walls. From simple meetings to costume extravaganzas, Zapponians can post freely on the EyeZapp – Zappos’ official Twitter page, using the hashtag #CompanyCulture.

As a result of Zappos’ employee influencers efforts, shoppers and employees alike flock to be a part of its culture. 

Coffee lovers unite

Early on, Starbucks understood the weight of empowering employees to share their voices. To amplify the impact of their brand’s message, they created the “partners” platform for their employees to share their daily activities with Starbucks enthusiasts worldwide.

Calling employees partners and encouraging them to share their love for all things coffee under the Starbucks brand increased its authenticity and allowed employees to have a sense of closeness and accountability. 

As part of the Starbucks mission to engage employee influencers and brand advocates, they also crafted a social media account specifically for its partners, which grows weekly.

Exercising social media opportunities 

In 2020, Peloton sought micro-influencers in the fitness community to broaden their reach, ramp up user participation, and increase their long-term bottom line. By combining social media, virtual events, and its digital power, Peloton enhanced the way instructors connected with riders while enriching their fitness experience. 

Peloton continues to rely on its instructors and fitness enthusiasts’ love for promoting and sharing content about products and experiences they love. 

Turn your employees into influencers

On average, research suggests that employee content sees 8x more engagement than content shared through a brands channel. Empowering employees to become micro-influencers and brand advocates not only builds trust and shopper confidence, but the employee feels valued and appreciated for their expertise – an overall win-win for any brand.

FEATURED RESOURCE

Masterclass: 3 ways to revamp your influencer strategy — and get more out of it

Watch here

Just like how user-generated content (UGC) helps you improve products, customer feedback tools help you better understand how people interact with your site and other online assets.

The most common types of customer feedback tools are surveys, chatbots, and heat maps. Surveys typically use multiple-choice or open-ended questions to gauge respondents’ opinions about different aspects of their experience. Chatbots make it easier for customers to submit instant feedback. Other tools like heat maps allow you to monitor user activity by tracking how people navigate your site. 

All of these provide an easy way for customers to share their thoughts, preferences, and experiences with you. 

Chapters:

1. Why customer feedback tools are essential to your business
2. 7 best customer feedback tools
3. Make the most of your customer feedback

Why customer feedback tools are essential to your business

Customer feedback tools are vital for anyone who wants to keep up with the ever-changing expectations of their customers. They help you create more personalized experiences, increase conversion rates, and improve retention. 

They can also help you uncover trends that lead to new product ideas as well as increased upsell and cross-sell opportunities. 

But perhaps the biggest reason brands and retailers should invest in this type of software is because it helps them maintain an edge over their competitors. The more you know about your customers, the better empowered you are to serve them. The better you serve them, the more likely they are to become repeat shoppers and brand advocates.

Take apparel brand Vertbaudet, for example. The clothing giant kept receiving customer feedback that the fit of a line of maternity clothing needed adjusting.

They took this feedback on board and fixed the cut, leading to a 12% increase in sales. Simply by leveraging customer feedback found in UGC.

7 best customer feedback tools

Do a Google search for “customer feedback tools” and you’ll find a ton of options. There’s tools that allow you to set up polls, monitor where users drop off your site, and watch people interact with your content in real time. 

Each service works differently. They may have different use cases or data-gathering methods. Some give you in-depth analyses. While others just report customer activity. Depending on your goals, you may find it helpful to work with multiple solutions at once. To help you navigate your options, here’s 7 of the best customer feedback tools available. 

1. Qualaroo

Qualaroo is a customer feedback tool that uses noninvasive pop-ups to survey your website visitors and app users. The short-and-sweet questionnaires, called Nudges, are designed to help you ask targeted questions about the customer’s experience, without interrupting their visit or session. You can personalize your survey questions or use Qualaroo’s built-in templates. 

The tool is powered by Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence computing system. It analyzes customer data like their location, the amount of time they’ve spent on each page, and how often they visit your site to create user profiles and deliver more personalized surveys. Qualaroo then quickly evaluates their response to understand each respondent’s mood, intent, and needs. You can also set triggers to escalate replies that need urgent attention. 

Qualaroo integrates with tools like Slack, Salesforce, and HubSpot, making it a flexible solution for most tech stacks. 

2. Intercom

Intercom helps you connect with your website visitors and collect valuable customer feedback through a real-time messaging platform. 

Like Qualaroo, Intercom’s chatbot analyzes user data and behavior to deliver customized survey questions. But what makes Intercom unique is the tools it gives brands and retailers to tweak their customer feedback collection efforts. You can run A/B tests on different questionnaires, target specific user segments, and even create entire campaigns across multiple channels. 

In addition to collecting customer data and feedback, Intercom can also be used as a customer support tool. It allows you to deliver fast FAQ answers, suggest helpful resources, and provide detailed product information. 

The tool’s advanced data processing is designed to help you get ahead of potential problems. But in the event of an issue, Intercom can fast-track specific conversations to a customer support agent or someone else on the team.           

Intercom is perhaps one of the more popular customer feedback tools, with customers ranging from Facebook to Amazon.

3. Userbrain

Userbrain is a video customer feedback tool that allows you to set up “tasks” for a panel of professional testers. These tasks could include adding an item to cart, testing an app prototype, or trying out a new navigation menu. 

The goal is to get feedback from real consumers before launching a new service, webpage, or feature. Every test includes a video recording, allowing you to uncover usability problems by watching and analyzing each session. The testers are also encouraged to talk openly about their experience as they navigate the site or app. This helps you collect valuable insights you can use to improve the layout and functionality of any solution — before going live.

Userbrain’s “pool” of 70,000-plus testers makes it easy to find users who match your target demographics. You can filter testers by location, gender, age, and device. Each tester has to pass a series of qualifications before working with Userbrain, ensuring you always get quality feedback and insights.

4. Typeform

Typeform is an intuitive customer feedback tool that empowers marketing and development teams to create seamless forms, surveys, and questionnaires. The tool’s customizable templates make it easy to get started and develop tests that follow the best practices of UX and design.

But what sets Typeform apart from other customer survey tools is logic jumps. Typeform allows you to develop multiple paths for each survey. For example, if a respondent says yes to a question, they’ll be shown different follow-up questions than someone who answers no. This functionality helps you create multiple surveys in one form. It also encourages better customer feedback by personalizing the test to each respondent’s unique situation.  

5. Hotjar

Hotjar is like Google Analytics on steroids. It allows you to collect real-time feedback on how customers are interacting with your site, where they get stuck, and other valuable insights that can help you reduce your bounce rates and improve conversions. 

It accomplishes all of this with heatmaps, a data visualization method that reflects which areas of the site users engage with and which areas they ignore. These heatmaps help you understand where people click and scroll. You can also watch recordings of real consumers using your site. 

Hotjar can be customized to run entirely behind the scenes. You can also create suggestion boxes and surveys that allow you to collect real-time feedback from customers. 

6. InMoment

InMoment is perhaps one of the more advanced customer feedback tools. It empowers you to aggregate various sources of customer feedback, including surveys, customer support transcripts, and social media comments. Built-in AI analysis tools help you uncover the most important insights and share them in easy-to-understand charts and reports. 

Setting up InMoment’s customer feedback surveys is relatively straightforward. You can build multiple-choice questionnaires, long-form answers, and even develop customized follow-up questions based on a consumer’s response. Smart role-based reporting dashboards help you prevent information overwhelm by delivering the right information to the right teams.

InMoment is also unique in that it provides recommended actions based on the quality of the customer feedback it collects.

7. Bazaarvoice

We couldn’t put ourselves in the top position — as much as we’d like to. But Bazaarvoice’s Question & Answers tool helps you utilize all of the awesome customer feedback you uncovered.

You can then use it to create robust FAQs section that provide customers with the exact information they need to feel more confident about completing their purchase. 

Make the most of your customer feedback with Bazaarvoice

Now that you have all of this powerful customer feedback, you’re able to improve your products and online shopping experiences. Also, you’re also able to get ahead of customers’ potential questions and hesitations. This allows you to build trust, reduce the burden on your customer support team, and improve your site’s conversion rates.

Delve even further with Bazaarvoice Insights & Reports tools, which allows you to leverage your existing customer feedback to uncover trends, track user sentiment, stack up against competitors, and update your page copy to help increase trust and conversions. As far as customer feedback tools go, it’s probably the best. But don’t just take our word for it.

FEATURED RESOURCE

How to respond to negative reviews and online feedback

Read here

In this Long Read, we’ll discuss what zero-party data is, why it’s essential in a privacy-first world, and how you can use it to create personalized customer experiences.

Chapters:

1. What is zero-party data?
2. Understanding the difference: zero-party data vs. first-party data
3. How to collect zero-party data
4. Know the weaknesses of zero-party data
5. Protect your zero-party data
6. Zero-party data examples
7. Make the most of your zero-party data

Data collection can be a tricky subject and at a time where data is increasingly-protected, it can be even trickier to source and collect. But it’s important because personalization is how you reach consumers. The fastest-growing companies drive 40% more of their revenue from personalization. That’s the beauty of zero-party data collection — it’s a personalization powerhouse for e-commerce.

Without zero-party data, you’re like a salesperson in a shop trying to guess someone’s needs just from their looks. With zero-party data, you’re talking to the person to form a complete picture of them and then offer the perfect solution.

What is zero-party data?

Zero-party data is information a customer willingly shares with a business. Examples include communication preferences, interests, and product feedback.

Zero-party data has a low legal risk and is generally more accurate than other types of information as it’s collected directly and with consent from the consumer. (Zero-party data does have some flaws, which we’ll get to later.)

Examples of zero-party data is information collected through:

Understanding the difference: Zero-party data vs. first-party data

Not so long ago, there was no distinction between zero- and first-party data. But shifting consumer expectations around personal data collection and privacy have created a need for a more granular classification of the types and methods of data collection by corporations.

Zero-party data is what someone tells you. First-party data is what you infer from someone’s actions and behavior. Understand the exact definitions of each term, their differences, and why these data types are becoming increasingly important.

First-party data

First-party data is information collected from customers’ interactions with a business, such as website visits, purchase history, and customer service conversations.

You collect first-party data with cookies on your own channels and platforms, so it’s as reliable as zero-party data since you’re the source. First-party data carries a slightly higher legal risk since customers may be unaware you’re collecting this information about them.

Head over to the section Start collecting first-party cookies in place of third-party cookies in our article “Privacy regulations: How to build a first-party data strategy” for more details on how to get started with first-party cookie collection.

Examples of first-party data is information collected through:

• Website visits
• Past purchases
• Product analytics
• Marketing campaign metrics
• Customer response time (on marketing outreach or customer service interactions)
• In-store data (like how much time a customer spends in a store)

The increasing importance of both data types

Accurate and extensive customer data is essential for creating personalized marketing and excellent shopping experiences. Stricter privacy regulations mean zero-party and first-party data are the only viable sources of information for such initiatives.

Regulations like the GDPR and CCPA, plus Google and Apple’s phasing out of third-party cookies, are forcing companies to turn to zero- and first-party data.

Gartner estimates that by 2023, 65% of the world’s consumers will have their data protected by regulations. They also found that 82% of marketers have access to zero-party data, but only 42% know how to put it to good use.

How to collect zero-party data

Planning is essential when collecting zero-party data. You must have the right tools and privacy policies. But it’s also necessary to understand the weaknesses of zero-party data and what information you need to achieve your business goals.

Collect data intentionally

First, know what information you want and why. Without this intention, you may not get the data you need. Or worse, hoard info you don’t use or aren’t allowed to store.

Create a plan to figure out what zero-party data you need and where to get it by following these steps:

1. Identify the points in your customer journey that can benefit from personalization. For instance, if conversions in your shop’s checkout are satisfactory but you lose many new customers during onboarding, then focus your personalization efforts there
2. Determine which data you need for such personalization. Which information would help create a better experience at the point you selected in the customer journey? In the onboarding example, this could include the types of products your customer is interested in or their familiarity with your company and services
3. Plan when and how you can ask for the required information. Look at the customer journey again and determine the best places to ask for data. Sometimes this is the same as the point of personalization. In other cases, asking for the data a step earlier may be more effective, for example, through a welcome email campaign, which then personalizes the subsequent onboarding experience
4. Ensure all stakeholders agree with your plan. Stakeholders from all areas of your business should review and approve your plan, such as Legal, Product, and Customer Support. They may identify potential issues you overlooked or need to authorize the use of properties they manage.
5. Avoid collecting and storing data you don’t need. Doing so reduces legal risks and makes finding, analyzing, and using the information you need more straightforward and cheaper

Pick a collection method that suits your goals and audience

Deciding how to collect your zero-party data depends on two factors: the type of information required and the format customers are most likely to respond to, like surveys, quizzes, or sweepstakes.

For example, surveys are well-suited for gathering detailed information, while quizzes are good for extracting general preferences quickly. But young people might prefer a fun quiz over a long survey. And someone on a laptop might have more time to complete a survey than a person doing a quick visit to your site on mobile.

You need to consider all these factors when deciding on the best collection method. Here’s a list of the most critical aspects to take into account, each with an example:

1. Where you’re asking for the information. Typing a lot of text can be cumbersome on mobile
2. The age and interests of your customers. Younger people may be more likely to play a game than older customers
3. Your brand’s style and tone of voice. A playful quiz isn’t suitable for a formal, corporate business
4. The type of information you need. Surveys are more effective than other methods for gathering detailed information
5. The available time. A happy customer may be more willing to spend time filling out a questionnaire than an unhappy one when providing feedback
6. Familiarity with your company. Loyal customers are more likely to trust your brand and share information
7. The need for incentives. New visitors or customers who have churned may need incentives, such as discount offers, to provide information
8. The ease of data analysis. Analyzing data from multiple-choice questions is easier than from open-ended ones

Have the right tools to collect zero-party data

Collecting zero-party data requires tools that are both capable and compliant. Capable means you can get the data you need in a way that customers are comfortable with. Compliant means the tools adhere to privacy regulations, creating an auditable trail of how information was collected and allowing customers to delete their data.

To make sure a tool is capable, check whether it has:

• The functionality to collect the data you need
• Integrations with the rest of your tech stack, like marketing automation and analytics platforms
• A straightforward and smooth user experience for your customers, and accessibility options for customers with disabilities
• The flexibility to customize its look and feel for your band and audience.
• An easy implementation process

To ensure a tool is compliant, audit its security and privacy features by asking:

• What data encryption and access control mechanisms does the system provide?
• Are there audit logs to track who accessed data, when, and how?
• Does the platform comply with applicable privacy regulations?
• Does it offer customers control over their data, including the ability to delete their information?

See the table in the previous section for specific tool suggestions, such as for running online surveys, sweepstakes, or quizzes. We also recommend Google Analytics 4 for collecting first-party data. To learn more about setting it up, read the “Update to the latest Google Analytics data model” section of our first-party data article.

Use your first-party data to start collecting zero-party data

Strange as it may sound, you often begin collecting zero-party data by using first-party data. For instance, you could send out a survey via email using contact info from their account. Or you launch a chat window with a question triggered by a product someone viewed on a webpage.

Analyze what first-party data you have to use for collecting zero-party data. Common sources include:

• User accounts to collect contact details, communication preferences, and interests 
• Email marketing opt-ins to send emails for promotions, discounts, gathering feedback, and other marketing initiatives
• Social media interactions to gain feedback and insights into what content (topics) customers engage with
• Customer service conversations and support tickets to ask questions and identify common issues customers are having
• Mobile app push notification opt-ins to send mobile promotions, polls, and other short requests
• In-person or phone interactions with customer service or sales representatives to collect feedback and preferences

Use data to follow up or personalize immediately

Don’t let data sit idle once you have it. When customers see the information they provided benefits them immediately, they’re more likely to share even more data in the future.

A popular approach is sending people a discount or reward straight away, like access to exclusive content. You can also personalize product recommendations or the shopping experience itself, say by hiding or highlighting specific sections of your website or app based on people’s answers to a poll or a question you ask during onboarding.

Other options are to personalize search results, emails, and even prices based on the zero-party data you collect from people.

Complement zero-party data with first-party insights

Zero-party data is what someone tells you, while first-party data comes from people’s actions. Action sometimes speaks louder than words, and words might occasionally speak louder than action. But mostly, actions and words together speak loudest.

Combining first-party data with zero-party data can provide more context about customers’ behavior and actions. Generally, zero-party data gives more insight into why people do things, and first-party data helps you understand how and what people do on your platforms.

Say you notice customers abandoning their shopping carts. In that case, you can use web analytics (first-party data) to see what pages they visited and how long they stayed on each before leaving. To understand why they left, you can use a survey (zero-party data) to ask what made them abandon their cart.

Know the weaknesses of zero-party data

We’re big fans of zero-party data because it’s usually more accurate than information collected in other ways. Still, recent research suggests zero-party data can be prone to various flaws you need to be aware of.

Zero-party data relies on people telling you about their own behavior or thoughts. Decades of social and cognitive studies have shown that the way you ask questions affects answers and that people often struggle to understand the true motivations behind their actions.

Typical causes for inaccurate zero-party data include:

• Careless responding. People often respond randomly toward the middle or end of a long survey. Even short questionnaires can lead to incorrect responses. Accepting privacy policies without reading them can also fall into this category
• Vague questions. Ambiguous wording may cause people to give different answers because everyone understands the prompts differently; vague questions generate vague answers
• Uncommon words. Brands should use widely known words when collecting data, and non-native English speakers have an even higher chance of being unfamiliar with unusual words
• Faulty scales. Multiple-choice questions with not enough answer options can lead to inaccurate data. For example, not having a “Don’t know” option can force people with no opinion to make a choice that doesn’t reflect how they feel. ( For a comprehensive overview of answering options for different types of questions, use article on survey answering scales)
• Desirability biases. People may give answers they think are desirable rather than their true preferences. This phenomenon is known as social desirability bias
• Affective forecasting. Studies on “affective forecasting” show people are poor at predicting their future choices and emotions. This finding is significant for brands and retailers collecting zero-party data. Answers about future desires and behaviors give limited insight into what consumers will want, like, and do in the future

Protect your zero-party data

You must protect your customer information from cyber attacks, data breaches, and other external threats. But don’t forget to pay attention to what happens inside your company. Rules for your employees on accessing and storing data are also critical.

E-commerce companies can start to protect themselves from these threats by taking these three steps:

1. Implement a security program with strong authentication, encryption, and access control for all customer data
2. Monitor networks and systems for suspicious activity, like abnormal login attempts or data leakage
3. Educate employees on the importance of data security and the steps they can take to keep customer information safe. Such precautions include using strong passwords, being aware of phishing emails and unsecured Wi-Fi networks, and not sharing customer data via email or instant messengers (even internally)
4. Establish operational procedures for when an attack or breach does happen

Finally, explain how you use people’s data and your procedure for deletion requests, a right many consumers have under privacy regulations like the GDPR and CCPA. Doing so can help you avoid potential legal issues with customers.

Zero-party data examples

Many businesses use zero-party data to improve the outcomes of their marketing and sales efforts. Here are two e-commerce brands that do it well.

Quotatis uses zero-party reviews to enhance its services and customer satisfaction

Quotatis connects homeowners with construction professionals, so its customers can easily find the ideal tradesperson for small to medium-scale home improvement projects.

At the end of each assignment, Quotatis sends customers an email asking them to share their opinion of the construction professional through Bazaarvoice’s Ratings & Reviews solution. To get more zero-party data (i.e., the number of collected reviews), Quotatis has added SMS as an additional channel for collecting feedback.

A team at Bazaarvoice moderates all submissions to ensure that only customers who have purchased an installation package can leave a review. Once collected, Quotatis publishes the reviews on their platform and on the affiliate website where tradespeople offer product installation services.

When a service gets a score lower than four out of five, Quotatis customer service contacts the customer and tradesperson to investigate the problem.

The Quotatis algorithm uses customer ratings to identify the ideal professional for a particular assignment. The company also chooses their “Tradesperson of the Month” based on these zero-party customer reviews.

Read the entire case study here

Oak Furnitureland collects zero-party product photos to boost sales and engagement

Oak Furnitureland is a furniture retail chain with 75 locations in the UK. In these stores, customers can inspect the product quality by trying items like sofas and dining chairs. However, creating the same experience online was a challenge for the retailer.

So the brand partnered with Bazaarvoice to find a solution. They began collecting zero-party data in the form of pictures taken by customers of the furniture in their own homes, which they sent to Oak Furnitureland. The company used these images on its Instagram page to create social proof for potential customers by giving them an idea of how the furniture would look in their homes.

“We find that UGC is just a lot more relatable for our audiences,” said Laura Quigley, head of PR and communications for Oak Furnitureland. “It provides inspirational content that they can see and they can engage with. Real pictures in real settings show how our furniture blends seamlessly into customers’ everyday lives, where you’ve got dogs jumping on the sofa and children chucking their school bags in the hallway at the end of the school day.”

Bazaarvoice’s Galleries makes it easy for Oak Furnitureland to curate pictures customers share quickly. Instead of spending hours selecting photos manually, they can now have an attractive gallery with the best images online in minutes.

The conversion rate from Oak Furnitureland’s social program has doubled since they started using zero-party pictures in this way. Customers who interact with their website galleries also have a 21% higher average order value than others.

Read the entire case study here

Make the most of your zero-party data with Bazaarvoice

Stop relying on first-party data — or worse, third-party sources! — to personalize your e-commerce experience and marketing. With Bazaarvoice’s suite of products, you can collect, analyze, and use zero-party data confidently while keeping your customers’ data secure and compliant with privacy regulations.

• Through Product Sampling, our community of engaged shoppers can try out your offerings, give feedback, write reviews, and make recommendations to others
• Ratings & Reviews helps you collect authentic ratings, reviews, and product photos. Displaying these on your product pages can help convince other shoppers to purchase
• With Questions & Answers, you can quickly answer customer inquiries with automated alerts, question routing, and Salesforce plugins. The tool also makes it easy to uncover seasonal trends, track sentiment, and monitor mobile traffic. This data allows you to adjust product page messaging and boost sales

Click each link to learn more. Or get in touch with us directly below to get started.

Brands and retailers have realized the importance of user-generated content (UGC) on product pages, on social channels, and even in-stores — featuring UGC can increase revenue per visitor by 162%. That’s why many have built out a UGC strategy that includes partnering with a trusted user-generated content provider.

But how do you know your potential user-generated content provider is to be trusted? Understanding how a provider handles authenticity and content moderation, respects privacy, and behaves ethically can help you feel confident that you’re working with a trustworthy business.

What to ask your user-generated content provider

The Bazaarvoice moderation team works tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure all UGC across the Bazaarvoice Network is authentic and trustworthy. Based on what we see on a day-to-day basis, these are the questions we recommend you ask before signing that contract with your new content provider.

1. “What protections do you have in place for client and consumer privacy?”

Whether you’re asking for star ratings on your products from customers or are collecting written and visual reviews, you necessarily will obtain personal information from your customers. And as a business, you’ll have your own confidential information that you won’t want being publicly shared.

Understanding the security processes a content provider has in place can give you confidence in how they’ll approach data protection.

2. “How do you moderate content?”

Content moderation is a fine art – as a business, you want as much content as possible on your pages, but you also want it to be inoffensive, factually accurate, and authentic. Your content provider’s moderation practices can not only impact your content quantity and quality, but also your brand’s reputation.

Selecting a provider with thorough moderation processes is key to protecting your brand and getting your customers the information they’re looking for. Whether they’re fully manual, automated, or a combination of both.

3. “What are your authenticity practices?”

Similar to moderation practices, authenticity helps your customers attain the information they need to make their purchasing decisions. While moderation is often focused on things like reviews matching the product the review is for or that the review is topical, authenticity looks at whether the review is fraudulent or not.

Fake reviews are incredibly harmful for your business. But a content provider with top-notch authenticity practices will have methods of detecting fake reviews and patterns of fraudulent behavior.

4. “What are your standards for rejecting or accepting content?”

Not only do you want to know that your content provider has the highest standards for authenticity and moderation, but you need to understand what goes into those standards and what type of input you can have on behalf of your business.

Your provider should be able to share some of the rules in place for accepting and rejecting content. For more sensitive industries, work with your regulatory team to tailor some of those standards to better serve you.

5. “Do you badge or otherwise disclose incentivized reviews?”

While sampling, discounting, and cashback are all ethical, honest business practices, consumers prefer to know when a review has been incentivized. Or when there’s material connections to the review. That way, they’re able to consume content with that caveat in mind. Good follow up questions here would be asking what automatic badging processes they employ and what guidance they give to consumers for self-disclosure and to inform their content. 

Badging and disclosures create trust with consumers when review origins are displayed, too.

6. “What kind of support can my team expect after our service starts?”

A good company supports you through the sales process, implementation, and checks in regularly throughout your contract. A great company supports you through all of that and becomes a trusted strategic partner that helps you take your UGC program to the next level.

Look for a content provider who will give you a dedicated point of contact, analyze the success of your UGC program, and provide insights to help you understand how your business compares to others in your industry. 

7. “Are your policies up to date with current global privacy laws?”

Whether your brand predominantly does business in one country or multiple, your provider should be well-versed in global privacy laws to keep your business in good standing, no matter where your customers are located. 

The same goes for consumer protection legislation and product health and safety legislation.

8. “What does your company stand for?”

Last but certainly not least. The content provider you hire is an extension of your brand. Understanding a provider’s mission, values, code of ethics, and best practices can give you better color as to how they do business. Not just how they say they do business. Every business has a level of corporate social responsibility — guarantee your provider is matching yours. 

For example, Bazaarvoice proudly shares its code of business conduct and ethics on our site. You can view it here.

Work with the right content provider

The right user-generated content provider can take the worry and hassle out of your content strategy for you. You can sit back knowing that your partner is working hard behind the scenes for you to ensure your UGC (and branded content) is authentic and trustworthy. And particularly relevant to current times, they also drive your business growth during an economic downturn.

And if you are going to choose a content provider to work with, why not work with G2’s #1 user-generated content platform on the marketplace.

Did you know, 82% of shoppers said they would avoid using a brand again if they lost trust? Learn what threatens trust and how you can deploy strategies to protect it in our webinar below.

FEATURED RESOURCE

How to grow and protect consumer trust

Learn more here

In short: yes. Brand loyalty is essential if you want your brand to succeed today. Or any day. Using the latest research and Bazaarvoice data, we’ll detail how brands can grow loyalty, highlight brands with high levels of loyalty, and explain how they achieved it.

Spoiler alert: It’s because customer retention is much more valuable than finding new customers.

Chapters:

1. What is brand loyalty?
2. Types of brand loyalty
3. The importance of of brand loyalty
4. How to build brand loyalty
5. Brand loyalty examples
6. How to measure brand loyalty
7. Brand loyalty is key to long term growth

It’ll come as absolutely no surprise that e-commerce is a saturated industry. For any shopping-related search, there’s pages and pages (and pages) of search engine or social media results that follow. With all the options consumers have at their disposal, how can brands earn their loyalty?

As McKinsey & Company partner Jess Huang stated in a McKinsey interview:

“It’s not that consumers are necessarily becoming less loyal. Now it’s just so much easier to access them and so much easier for them to try something new. So brands are really trying to figure out a way to develop and maintain that relationship with the consumer.”

In a crowded playing field where shoppers are fickle — especially Gen Z — how can brands win loyalty from their customers? And why should they? In a rapidly expanding market, companies have to keep up with what drives consumers’ brand loyalty. And, in particular, the tactics that will consistently win them over.

What is brand loyalty?

Brand loyalty is when shoppers continue to make repeat purchases from a specific brand, in spite of there being similar (or cheaper) offerings on the market. It’s important for businesses because brand loyalty means higher retention rates and higher growth rates, leading to a recurring revenue stream.

Types of brand loyalty

Brand loyalty can take multiple forms. There’s customers who are loyal because of how they perceive and relate to a brand. And there’s those in it for the rewards. Both are valid and contribute to the growth of your brand.

• Community building. This is when the customer derives meaning and alignment with a brand because of a shared purpose or values. It’s how customers become psychologically attached to a brand
• Rewards programs. The more traditional brand loyalty definition associated with loyalty programs. It includes rewards in the form of customer points, perks, and discounts

The importance of brand loyalty

What’s the benefit of having loyal customers? On a personal level, it creates a sense of community. From an ROI standpoint, it increases customer retention and creates natural brand ambassadors. As a result, it ultimately boosts your bottom line.

After all, it’s easier — and much more lucrative — to sell to existing customers than new customers. According to a Semrush report, there’s a 60-70% probability of selling to a previous customer and only a 5-20% probability with a new customer. Furthermore, previous customers are 31% more likely to have higher average order values (AOV).

Another valuable outcome of loyal customers is that some become brand ambassadors — at no extra cost. Unlike influencers who require a fee or freebie, brand ambassadors do it out of sheer love for your products/brand.

So, these customers-turned-brand-ambassadors promote your brand through word of mouth and user-generated content (UGC).

How to build brand loyalty

Now that you know what drives brand loyalty, implement a strategy to strengthen your own. These are the actionable steps and qualities needed to grow brand loyalty.

Define your goals and target customers

First, decide what your end goal is for your brand loyalty strategy. What do you want to gain: loyalty program members, higher AOVs, subscribers, better product launches? All of the above? Identifying your desired outcomes will help you focus and plan your efforts.

Next, know who your target customers are so you can better serve and reach them. Your current customers are your best resource. Because not only are they your target customers, but they’ll also help inform what will attract the loyalty of new customers. As Huang points out:

“Look at your customers’ transaction-and-engagement data and understand how they’re interacting with you. Do your consumer research to learn what they want and what you can offer them before you even start thinking, ‘Well, I want my loyalty program to look like X.’”

Analyze what they like and don’t like about your brand. Review the questions they ask. Survey what needs or requests they have from your brand to illuminate opportunities for improving brand loyalty.

Align with the values of your target customers

Increasingly, consumers are looking to do business with brands they identify with. An Accenture survey of over 25,000 customers found that modern consumers, “are purposefully seeking to influence their communities and the environment” through their shopping behavior. As a result, they’re willing to switch brands and pay extra for those that take visible action for a positive societal impact. This is especially prevalent since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brands must grow with this shift if they want to compete. This means re-evaluating their approach and standards and, subsequently, their communication and operations.

According to a McKinsey study, “As many as 30 to 40 percent of consumers continue to switch brands or retailers, driven primarily by younger consumers seeking value, combined with greater emphasis on purpose-driven alignment and quality.”

Offer Membership and loyalty programs

One of the primary and most common ways to build brand loyalty is through a member-based program. These types of brand loyalty programs provide members with deals but also deeper access to your brand, a certain level of status, and exclusivity. Consumers enjoy being part of a club, and for some, the prospect of not being a member can result in fear of missing out (FOMO).

VIP tiers, loyalty programs, and clubs are all ways brands can offer membership to their customers. Credit card companies and airlines are examples of brands that have mastered VIP tiers. With each membership level, customers achieve more perks, like bypassing lines, fee waivers, and upgrades.

• Clubs are ways for companies to offer customers who are interested in particular products more of what they love. And they can do so on a consistent basis. For example, wine shops that offer a monthly wine club. Or, perhaps the biggest club in the game — Amazon Prime. Club membership can include perks like free shipping, discounts on future purchases, exclusive access to sales and additional features, etc

• Loyalty programs are rewards-based, where customers earn points with every purchase, like a digital punch card. Think Sephora’s Beauty Insider program. This is a popular choice because it’s easy to execute for brands. Also there’s no additional financial investment or risk for the customer

For more revenue and customer loyalty opportunities, brands should consider adding tiers to their loyalty program.

Provide a high-quality shopping experience

The high expectations that consumers have for the physical shopping experience are just as important for e-commerce brands. The speed, usability, and presentation that shoppers are met with on an e-commerce site all matter. Especially for first-time and repeat buyers.

Exceptional customer service is also one of the leading drivers of brand loyalty. Quick response times, empathy, and a solutions-oriented approach are among the customer service elements shoppers expect. Bazaarvoice’s Questions & Answers tools provide a streamlined portal for easily and efficiently answering customer queries. As well as increasing conversions by as much as 98%.

We’re living in an age of digital immediacy. These days, 47% of customers expect websites to load in two seconds or less. Website speed directly affects the shopping experience, from the home page to product and checkout pages. As for Gen Z, this particular customer segment has a low tolerance for slow or poorly functioning websites. 

Promote affordability with discounts and deals

Savings continue to be a top motivator of brand loyalty for consumers. According to a GWI research report, almost four in 10 shoppers actively seek discounts and offers, and about three in 10 buy lower-priced products more frequently.

Promo codes, email subscriber-exclusive offers, loyalty and membership program discounts, flash sales, a diverse product portfolio. Just some of the tactics for offering discounts and value items to customers.

Be strategic about offering discounts so that it doesn’t compromise your bottom line. Offer discounts on slow-moving items, during downtimes, for an exchange like a newsletter sign-up. Or increase conversions with free shipping, for example.

Leverage user-generated content (UGC)

In a competitive, fast-paced online marketplace, the focus should be on the customer. You need to provide the best service, value, and experience for them. UGC puts the customer at the forefront with marketing that shoppers trust, as opposed to only promotional content from the brand.

Reviews and visual UGC are very influential for shoppers. Product reviews can increase conversions by 74%, making product pages the prime location to showcase UGC. As demonstrated below:

Bazaarvoice’s reviews and gallery tools help brands acquire and display UGC across their product pages and websites. This way, shoppers can see the social proof and realistic representation of products that UGC offers.

But it doesn’t stop at product pages. Social media is another extremely effective platform for sharing UGC. In fact, UGC from social media highly impacts the purchasing decisions of nearly 80% of shoppers. Social media enables brands to engage directly with their audience. UGC makes that connection even stronger, fostering brand loyalty in the process. When customers post authentic UGC of your products, that presents the perfect opportunity to engage with, and repost, their content.

Bazaarvoice customer Parachute perfectly demonstrates how to showcase visual UGC on product pages. Simply with a link to see more on their Instagram Shop.

Consider an Augmented Reality feature

If it makes sense for your brand, augmented reality (AR) is the one. It’s e-commerce’s new solution to shopping for products you can’t physically test or try on. According to GWI, online shoppers’ interest in AR is high. Especially so in the automotive, fashion, home decor, and electronics categories. Particular interest in these categories stems from consumers’ preference for experiencing high-priced and aesthetic products before making an investment.

AR takes the interactive experience to the next level. The beauty industry has already made good use of this trend. MAC’s YouCam makeup simulator resulted in a triple increase in engagement for the brand over a two-month period. And similarly, consumer engagement from the introduction of Estee Lauder’s virtual lipstick try-on feature increased by 133%. AR is nearing mainstream adoption if Shopify’s YouCam Makeup app is any indication. Brands that implement this innovative tech early will be leaders of this growing trend.

Brands that offer an AR feature present another opportunity for their customers to interact with them. At the same time, they create an enhanced and elevated shopping experience that adds value by solving a specific need.

Conduct predictive analysis

Predictive analysis is particularly helpful for designing your loyalty program. It’s the practice of analyzing consumer behavior to project future interests and purchasing decisions. This strategy can help guide consumers to products of potential interest based on their purchase history. In turn ensuring the loyalty program is mutually beneficial. As Huang goes on to say:

More companies are trying to identify specific things that they want to do through their loyalty program by understanding the analytics. Which is really important, so that they don’t give too much away to the consumer.

Predictive analysis can also determine the best timing for certain promotions. How? By looking at time periods with high engagement and sales spikes.

Encourage subscriptions

Subscriptions inherently guarantee brand loyalty, as long as they’re executed well. By signing up for a subscription, the subscriber is willingly agreeing to make repeat purchases on a regular basis. To make this kind of commitment, the subscription must be something they already enjoy, or it solves a pain point. Some brands offer subscriptions as an additional service line. For others, like HelloFresh and BarkBox, it’s their entire business model.

The subscription model is booming. From 2012 to 2018, subscription businesses grew more than 300%, approximately five times faster than S&P 500 companies’ revenues. Since then, the pandemic accelerated the subscription economy, and its revenue is projected to more than double by 2025.

The key to a successful subscription strategy is to deliver an unmet need. That can be having products consumers love delivered to their doorstep every month. Or it’s full access to publications like The New York Times. Best practices for a sustainable, successful subscription program include excellent customer service and providing value, convenience, variety, and flexible pricing.

Use a sampling strategy

One sure-fire way to get the attention of customers is to send samples to them directly. This can apply to product launches or hero products that might need a market refresh. People love free products and delight in receiving a delivery. 

On this note, we recently surveyed 6,000 Influenster members who had recently participated in a sampling campaign. Of those we asked:

• 53% said the product became a staple for them
• 49% followed the brand on social
• 95% wrote a review about the sampled product
• 88% recommended it to family and friends 

For each target customer, sampling led to several successful key brand loyalty metrics.

Brand loyalty examples

Learn from the pros. These top brands show how to expertly generate high brand loyalty from their customers.

Adidas Creators Club

The Adidas Creators Club is a membership-based rewards program. It’s a genius model that rewards customers for engaging with their brand. Members earn points by creating an account, completing their profile, reviewing products, and participating in Adidas training sessions and events. As members earn more points, they are eligible to advance to the next club tier.

The four Creator Club tiers come with their own collection of perks. They include exclusive rewards and the chance to partner with Adidas to give back to causes. Aka, combining multiple brand loyalty motivations into one program.

Microsoft Rewards

Microsoft Rewards is cleverly crafted to drive engagement and purchases toward focus products. For example, members earn points by using Bing, Edge, and Windows 10 for their online searches and activity. Like Adidas, their rewards program includes automatic donations to selected causes with acquired points. And, as with credit cards, members can earn one point for each dollar spent on Microsoft products.

Microsoft Rewards also features daily gamified challenges for extra chances to earn points. Points can be redeemed for gift cards, sweepstakes entries, nonprofit donations, and more.

Home Depot Canada’s Seed Sampling

Bazaarvoice customer Home Depot Canada gets it. The brand is a prime example of how to strategically make a sampling program that hits the trifecta:

Partnering with Bazaarvoice, Home Depot Canada launched a Managed Sampling campaign for their most loyal customers to generate buzz around their high-priority items.

This tactic produced enthusiastic reviews from the target customers. But more importantly, it doubled conversions for products in the seed campaign. This resulted in successful product launches for Home Depot Canada vendors.

BEKO

Beko is an appliance and consumer electronics brand that relied on UGC for a successful expansion into the Australian market. Working with Bazaarvoice, Beko accumulated over 8,000 customer reviews and syndicated them on their retail partners’ websites, which increased their exposure to their target market, strengthened their retail partnerships, and converted new brand advocates.

Petco

Petco focuses on building trust with its customers to increase brand loyalty. With its partnership with Bazaarvoice, Petco accrued 80% of their 1.5 million reviews through syndication. This large volume of UGC inspires confident purchases in other shoppers. Beyond reviews, Petco recognizes its responsibility as a supplier to pet parents who care deeply about their pets’ health and happiness. In addition to selling quality products to pet owners, they’ve become a trusted resource through Bazaarvoice’s Questions & Answers tool.

With Bazaarvoice Connections, Petco can team up with their vendors to efficiently and effectively answer any customer questions or concerns. This allows them to connect with customers and gain valuable product feedback.

For further reading, a few more brand loyalty success stories can be found here!

How to measure brand loyalty

With the many tactics to build brand loyalty comes multiple ways to track it:

Customer satisfaction surveys. Want to know the level of loyalty your customers have for your brand? Ask them. Luckily for you, we just produced a guide on how to do exactly that!

Engagement. Website visits, customer reviews, social media followers, social media interactions. All are indicators of how invested your customers are in your brand.

Track repurchasing behavior. Use your customer and inventory management insights to track repeat purchases. The number of customers who continue to buy from your brand will tell you how high your brand loyalty is.

Number of loyalty and rewards program members. Track how many people are enrolled in your membership, club, or loyalty program and the trends over time. Determine what could be attributed to the rise or fall in members to identify areas of opportunity and improvement.

Number of subscribers. If your brand offers a subscription, or is subscription-based, how many subscribers you have is a key indicator of brand loyalty. If you’re not consistently gaining subscribers, you should reevaluate your subscription’s price point, variety, and value to the consumer.

Brand loyalty is the key to long-term growth

Clearly, building brand loyalty requires a multi-faceted, holistic approach. It’s not one simple step but many to achieve a high level of brand loyalty. But once you get it, you’ll have returning customers who make repeat, and often larger, purchases.

According to Accenture’s study, the majority of consumers are willing to pay more to brands that meet all their needs. And according to a McKinsey survey on loyalty, 62% of members in a paid loyalty program are likely to spend more with that brand. That amounts to increased revenue over an extended period of time. Something every brand wants!

LEARN MORE

Masterclass: How to maintain brand loyalty in a tough economy

Watch here

Follow along and you’ll be able to create a sustainable path to long-term loyalty and e-commerce growth.

Chapters:

1. What are brand pillars?
2. Why should you establish brand pillars?
3. How to define your brand pillars
4. How to optimize your brand pillars for maximum impact
5. Brand pillars examples
6. Brand pillars require big picture thinking

Brand pillars are like first impressions — good ones are memorable and make you want to know more. Lackluster ones are forgettable. Bad ones are a red flag. Like when you’re on a first date and he tells you he’s a magician. 

They give meaning to brands and convey their identity. That’s why it’s crucial for brands to have strong pillars in place so they will click — and stick — with customers.

Take TOMS, for example. The apparel and accessory brand known for its comfortable slip-on shoes is synonymous with social impact. Their mission to support grassroots efforts is embedded in their business model and pervasive throughout their marketing. They’re a company with rock-solid brand pillars that literally hold up their business.

Brands pillars that resonate strongly with customers fuel brand loyalty and help build your community — if they’re executed effectively. Discover how to wield the power of brand pillars to attract, retain, and increase your customer base.

What are brand pillars?

Brand pillars are the key traits you want people to remember about your brand. They are, as the term implies, what your brand stands on and what your brand stands for.

They communicate what’s most important to know about your brand. Some examples include:

• What pain point your brand solves: convenience, efficiency, affordability, special expertise, etc.
• Values: empathy, inclusion, accessibility, sustainability, etc.
• Mission: the actionable and tangible goals your brand seeks to accomplish

Though related, brand pillars are a separate entity from core values and mission statements. Brand pillars can incorporate aspects of both, but are more expansive and elaborate. They’re the connective thread woven throughout your team’s communications, strategy, and actions.

For example at Bazaarvoice, ours are as follows:

1. Customer. We see our own success through our customers’ outcomes. We approach every situation with a customer-first mindset.
2. Passion. Our energy is contagious, because we hire for passion, drive, and curiosity. We love what we do, which makes us laser-focused on our mission.
3. Transparency. We believe in the power of authentic feedback. It’s in our DNA. We do the right thing when faced with hard choices. Transparency and trust accelerate our collective performance.
4. Innovation. We seek to innovate as we are not content with the status quo. We embrace agility and experimentation as an advantage.
5. Strength. We bring our whole selves to the mission and find value in diverse perspectives. We champion what’s best for Bazaarvoice before individuals or teams. As a stronger company, we build a stronger community.

These pillars act as the Bazaarvoice moral compass. They guide how we interact with each other, our customers, our partners, and the world.

Why should you establish brand pillars?

Brand pillars distinguish your brand from competitors. But more than that, they’re also a tool for catching and keeping the attention of your customers.

Increase brand loyalty

Influential brand pillars frame customers’ perceptions of your brand in a positive way. Brand pillars register with customers because they speak to them on some level. Emotionally, intellectually, financially, motivationally, etc. This draws customers to the brand, and the delivery of those promises is what keeps them. And there, you have brand loyalty.

Brand loyalty has a wide range of benefits, including lowering customer acquisition cost (CAC) and creating customers that spend more and make up the majority of your overall customers.

Provide long-term success

Brand pillars that outline the brand’s impact on customers, community, and society are what support long-term value. According to Harvard Business Review, focusing more on stakeholder interests rather than shareholders alone will secure longevity for brands. “Accordingly, companies are rethinking how to grow their businesses while communicating both purpose and strategy.”

This approach aligns with consumer expectations. After all, the majority want to know how the brands they support are focusing and taking action on social and environmental issues.

Make your brand relatable to customers

Strong brand pillars allow potential customers to get a sense of your brand at a glance and find something that they relate to. This could be one or multiple components, like your brand’s values or solutions that appeal to them. A Sprout Social study found that 64% of consumers want brands to connect with them. Another 53% reported feeling connected when a brand’s values match their own.

Brand relatability is especially important to millennials and Generation Z. They want to see what issues brands support and what their behaviors are before they make a financial decision. The brands that conflict with consumer values tend to suffer for. Look at Chick-fil-A and CrossFit, for example. Both companies faced boycotts as a result of their individual CEO’s social stance and controversial comments, respectively.

Control your narrative

Determining and communicating brand pillars allows brands to present themselves to the public authoritatively and accurately. Achieve this by documenting what your brand does, what impact it has, and the beliefs and point of view it abides by. It also creates a guideline for brands to hold themselves accountable in their daily and overall operations. Aka, practicing what they preach. An essential way to win over today’s consumers.

If brand pillars are successfully developed and followed, they serve as a reference point to anyone who might misunderstand or question your brand’s intentions.

Align team members on shared vision and goals

Brand pillars not only represent your brand to your external audience but to your internal team as well. This way, staff can be on the same page and integrate the brand pillars in their own work and professional communications. A little company-wide education can go a long way. The peace of mind from not having to worry about the content your staff post is invaluable.

Pro tip: Brand pillars can also be a handy tool for attracting prospective talent. How? By appealing to their own values and goals. Fill your careers page(s) with values-led content so prospects understand what kind of company they’d be signing up for.

How to define your brand pillars

To develop and determine your brand pillars, answer these questions with the key decision-makers in your company. For example, let’s say Company X is an apparel company. Here’s an example of how they might answer these questions to decide what their brand pillars should be:

• What’s your brand’s vision? To offer sustainable clothing that is stylish and affordable
• What do you want your customers to know? How do you want your customers to remember your brand? What will resonate with your customers? Company X is a family-owned business. It was started by two sisters with a clothing design background and a passion for supporting under-served communities
• What matters to your brand? Supporting and featuring independent designers. Reducing our carbon footprint. Inclusivity. Making high-quality, fashionable clothing available to a wide consumer base
• What problems do you solve? Selling clothing for all body types, attentive and helpful customer service, fast delivery, affordability
• What makes you better or different from your direct competitors? We source all our products and materials from independent artisans and designers in low-income locations. We also offer free shipping on all orders, and invest profits on select items into at-risk communities

Based on this assessment, Company X might define their brand pillars as: inclusivity, affordability, sustainability, community, and convenience. Company X would then expand on what each pillar means to them and how they operate accordingly.

How to optimize your brand pillars for maximum impact

Defining your brand pillars is just the first step. To see results, you have to implement them into your:

1. Business strategy
2. Team management
3. Coaching
4. Marketing team
5. Sales team
6. Branding

Make brand pillars part of your company language

This is brand stewardship in action. Don’t just let your brand pillars sit on an “About Us” page on your website to be forgotten. Regularly including them as part of your company culture will help your team get familiar with them, understand them, and feel comfortable speaking to them.

When developing a brand strategy, use your brand pillars to help inform and describe the main points, tactics, and goals. Using the previous Company X example, what would they ask themselves? Probably, “How does this strategy convey and accomplish inclusivity, affordability, sustainability, community, and convenience?”

Likewise, when evaluating your own performance or a coworker’s, use the pillars to help describe achievements. As well as that, look for areas of opportunity and space for improvement. For example, a team member might excel in one pillar, like supporting diversity and inclusion efforts. However, they may need to grow in another, like their customer service skills. Expose new hires to brand pillars early, explaining and using them in training documents and presentations.

Instill them in your team

Foster an environment that inspires your team to embrace and project your brand pillars. On a systematic level, build a staff team that reflects your brand pillars:

Thinking strategically about your team structure and roles can be the catalyst for change. This will pivot how your company operates in accordance with your brand pillars. Be transparent in sharing your thought process and planning with the company to encourage brand pillar stewards and enthusiastic supporters on your team. If you’re in the brand pillar development stage, loop in the rest of the team to get their input.

That way it’s a collaborative process that will boost sentiment and support of your brand pillars.

Increase online visibility and awareness

Make your brand pillars easily accessible and prominent. Consider a hashtag campaign to encourage social sharing to spread them wider in online communities. Some primary platforms to share your brand pillars include:

• Your website: Post brand pillars on your About Us page or a dedicated brand pillars page
• Social media: Create social media posts on your main channels with links to where your brand pillars are on your website. Indicate relevant brand pillars in messaging and captions. 91% of survey respondents believe in social media as a connection tool for brands, so social platforms are the perfect space to reach customers
• Email campaigns: Include emails specifically about your brand pillars or that include a section detailing your brand pillars in your brand’s email newsletter

Leverage user-generated content

Brand ambassadors that represent your brand pillars through their own content can be a great source to extend reach and impact. Start by organically acquiring brand ambassadors through online engagement:

• Like, share, and comment on posts from your followers mentioning or tagging your brand
• Respond to followers’ comments and DMs
• Include content and tags from followers in Story highlights
• When customers ask questions or leave reviews online, respond to them — whether they’re positive or negative

Once you have followers-turned-brand ambassadors and glowing reviews from happy customers, promote their pictures, videos, and testimonials — a.k.a. user-generated content (UGC). Sharing visual UGC of your brand represented by other customers shows your audience your brand in a relatable and appealing way.

Seek out UGC that’s specifically relevant to you. There should be a large selection if you’ve successfully promoted and disseminated them. For example, Bazaarvoice’s Social Media Management tools offer a storage hub of permissions-granted UGC to use for sharing on social, or posting to website galleries.

While visual UGC promotes your brand pillars, it can also increase conversions by 150%, average order value by 15%, and time on site by 150%.

Reviews are an extra effective form of UGC. In fact, reviews influence purchasing decisions for 97% of shoppers, and the chance of conversion doubles for those who interact with reviews. Brand websites, social media, and emails are great places to highlight helpful reviews. Show social proof of your brand pillars and bolster their influence with reviews that mention or reflect them.

Brand pillars examples

Brand pillars are applicable to all companies and brands, regardless of size or industry. Use these examples that go above and beyond to inspire your own brand pillar strategy.

Home improvement

The home improvement retailer’s corporate responsibility page clearly lays out their brand pillars, which it names as their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy. It’s defined as, “Values-based and centered on three key pillars: focusing on people, operating sustainably, and strengthening our communities.” To encourage sharing among their online community, they include a corresponding #doingourpart hashtag.

Each pillar has its own supporting content and metrics of how Home Depot reflects them. Their brand pillars are the launching pad for community programs, like the Homer Fund grants and scholarships and the Home Depot Foundation for skilled trade training and education.

Home Depot even created a highlight video to show the impact of its ESG brand pillars, which is an example of supporting content to extend their reach.

Consumer electronics

The foundation for Samsung’s branding philosophy includes five main pillars: “Innovation, cutting-edge technology, world-class designs, recruiting the world’s best talents, and internal branding.”

As a way to distinguish them from their commercial rivals, Samsung went all-in on their brand pillars. This included investing in an R&D department committed to identifying areas for innovation and new technologies, and differentiating from giants like Apple with intentional mobile design. 

Samsung leaned heavily on pushing their brand pillars in advertising and marketing campaigns, and ensuring separate departments within the company collaborated with each other to help support brand pillar implementation.

Food & beverage

With a new strategic approach, dubbed Performance with Purpose (PwP) by CEO Indra Nooyi, the established global company focused on a long-term strategy with an emphasis on societal contribution and impact. This new direction was based on four sustainability pillars: financial sustainability, human sustainability, environmental sustainability, and talent sustainability.

These pillars led to significant progress. The brand saw a healthier product portfolio, water conservation, a 39% increase in women working in senior management roles, and an 80% growth in net revenue. PepsiCo’s PwP model laid the framework for other large-scale global companies to reform their brand strategy.

Land O’Lakes, a Bazaarvoice customer, also has distinct brand pillars that are authentic and specific to their brand and background. Its website outlines their pillars, including tech innovation, sustainability, and prioritizing its farmers and community. The brand’s social media and blog posts support and express the motivations and main ideas behind their brand pillars.

Beauty

Feelunique, a European beauty retailer and also a Bazaarvoice customer, outlines their brand pillars on their About Us page. The company specifically references their inclusive philosophy that, “beauty is more than skin deep,” its charitable partnerships, its focus on excellent customer service, and its commitment to natural and vegan ingredients.

Environmental sustainability is becoming increasingly more important to consumers. It’s a top brand pillar that many major beauty brands have in common. A Bazaarvoice study of over 8,000 consumers revealed that the majority seek out green or sustainable labels when shopping, and are willing to pay more for eco-friendly products.

LUSH Cosmetics has a dedicated page for their brand pillars in the form of declarative statements. For example, “we believe in making effective products from fresh, organic fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils, and safe synthetics,” and “we invent our own products and fragrances.”

LUSH implements its brand pillars consistently and cohesively across its marketing channels. Their Instagram Story highlights pinned to the top of their profile represent their brand pillars organized by category. Including Community, Values, Take Action, and their range of clean products.

Technology

Our brand pillars are the soul of what we do here at Bazaarvoice. They’re highlighted on our About us page and clearly outline our mission and values for everyone to see. After all, transparency — our third pillar — is key.

Heeding our own advice, though, we don’t just let our pillars sit idly on our website. They’re an integral part of our DNA. Taking innovation for example, our fourth pillar. We actively encourage experimentation and embrace change to stand out from the rest. And our passionate pursuit of performance — through hiring teams who match our pillars — makes every employee hyper-focused on our brand mission. Everyone from the CEO right down to yours truly.

Brand pillars require big picture thinking

Developing and practicing brand pillars is part of the long game, which means creating a sustainable path to long-term brand loyalty and growth.

To achieve this, think about what you want to evolve over the next five, 10, or 20 years. What will still be important and valuable to your customers? What sparks meaning and pride when communicating with your internal team and your external audience?

Big picture planning means long-term security for your brand. It means thinking beyond short-term profits to how your brand will make a difference for your customers and communities.

LEARN MORE

The brand manager’s guide to user-generated content best practices

Read here

Chapters:

1. What is a brand community?
2. Benefits of a brand community
3. How to build a thriving brand community
4. Brand community examples
5. Build your business-driving engine

If you’re a millennial or older, you know what a fan club is. Maybe you were even a member of your favorite band’s fan club at some point. Maybe you still are. If so, you know the thrill of getting access to early releases, pre-sale tickets, exclusive material, stickers, and other free swag. And who could forget the chance to geek out with other like-minded individuals who shared a common passion?

Brand communities are like modern-day fan clubs for consumers. A strong brand community is a very good indicator of how loyal and engaged an audience is, which is a big factor in the overall success of your brand. But just like fan clubs, brand communities need dedicated nurturing and maintenance for long-term success.

Discover the many ways brand communities can help your brand and how to launch and manage one for the best results. 

What is a brand community?

A brand community is an online meeting space for customers (fans) of a brand to interact with each other and the brand, while gaining access to exclusive content and offers. Members of a brand community are dedicated customers who want more of what your brand has to offer. They’re galvanized by the lifestyle, values, benefits, and impact the brand represents. 

Benefits of a brand community

Brand communities are great for boosting qualitative feel-good KPIs like brand loyalty and emotional connection, but they also have very real, practical functions. There’s multiple positive outcomes of a brand community, each with its own specific ROI.

1. Foster an emotional connection with customers

Customers involved in brand communities feel strongly enough about a brand to be a member. In other words, they’re your brand’s most loyal customers. Like old-school, die-hard fan club members, these customers have an emotional connection with the brand and are usually the biggest advocates. This is a special quality in a customer base and not always easy for brands to cultivate. So you should hold onto it tightly once you have it. 

Emotional connection has a direct impact on consumer behavior. A Motista study of over 100,000 consumers conducted over two years found there were significant benefits in emotionally connected customers. These customers:

• Spend double or more with their preferred retailers over other retailers
• Have over 300% higher lifetime value
• Are loyal to brands longer, and recommend brands at a much higher rate

The community aspect is another important factor. Forrester reports that, “the desire to form a bond with fellow shoppers around a certain brand is one of the strongest drivers of consumer interest in DTC brands.”

2. Provide an outlet for product, marketing, and concept testing

Brand communities also create a venue for testing ideas and products with a captive audience. This can lead to product development and improvement and drive innovation. If you’re wondering how your target audience will respond to a product, service, marketing campaign, or anything new and different from your brand, ask members of your community directly.

You can also gauge their current sentiment and satisfaction with your existing offerings. According to a GRIT Report, online communities are the top method of market research, accounting for 59% of responses.   

A very useful function of establishing a brand community is having a group of target customers you can send product samples to. A product sampling campaign is an extremely effective way to get customer feedback about newly released products, updated products, and older products that need to be reintroduced to shoppers. By providing product samples to your community members, you can get back honest feedback from the people who know your brand the most. 

This can lead to changes and updates to improve the product and help make official product launches more successful.

3. Generate user-generated content

Brand communities also serve as another source of user-generated content (UGC). They offer a space for community members to share reviews, feedback, and visual UGC, like photos and videos of your brand’s products. UGC has the power to influence other customers within the community. And, with permission, you can share that content on your e-commerce website and social media channels and reach a larger audience.

Showcasing visual UGC on product pages can significantly increase conversion rates, and customer reviews influence purchase decisions for 97% of shoppers. 

4. Create an efficient and effective customer support channel

The thing about customer service issues is that if one customer has a question, chances are many others do, too. That’s why forums like Quora and Reddit and Yahoo! Answers (RIP) are popular sites for people to ask questions and troubleshoot problems with other consumers. Brand communities can provide the same resource but on the brand’s own platform. 

There’s no question that brand communities require money, time, and maintenance. But a Harvard Business Review contributor wanted to know if the investment was worth it from a customer support standpoint, so he conducted an experiment to find out. After hiding a client’s brand community for four months, he realized that using the community to communicate with customers and resolve issues was 72% cheaper for the client compared to its other customer support channels. Furthermore, customer satisfaction scores “plummeted to one of the lowest levels on record” when the community was inactive. 

5. Improve SEO value

That same experiment also revealed that 93% of traffic to the client’s brand community came from search engines. This shows that consumers, whether they’re already part of a community or not, are finding answers to their questions in the brand community via Google search (or using a different search engine). So, the keywords they are using in their searches lead them to discussions in the brand communities containing similar keywords. 

By appearing in search results, brand communities are organically attracting more visitors to the communities. As well as the brand’s website (or platform) that hosts the community. In the experiment, hiding the client’s community decreased its organic traffic by 83%. It also resulted in a 58% increase in customer support tickets and calls, which consequently overwhelmed the customer service department. 

How to build a thriving brand community

You need to put thought and effort into planning your brand community to do it right. Make your decisions with your business goals and customer satisfaction criteria in mind. Your brand community can be a part of your marketing department, or you may want to allocate dedicated staff to run and maintain it.

Choose your brand community platform

When planning your brand community launch, consider what platform makes the most sense for it to live on. This can include a section of your website, a social media group or separate account, or your brand’s mobile app. 

Forrester predicts that communities on brand and retailer websites will, “become more prominent.” Website-operated communities have their advantages, including access to more customer data and more administrative control, and encourage further exploration of the website. You can also add a questions and answers feature to provide your brand’s responses to customer inquiries within the community in addition to product pages.

Alternatively, your brand might already have an active audience on Facebook or Reddit. In that case, it might make more sense to use one of those channels as the community hub. Whichever platform you choose, other channels can promote and support your brand community, adding to the omnichannel experience. If your community is on your website, you can tease tips, feedback, and content on social media and vice-versa. 

Make it customer-centric

This might seem obvious, but communities made up of customers should serve the customers. They should provide a space for interaction, conversation, customer service support, and offer exclusive benefits. By engaging with customers, you can learn more about them and how they feel about your products. Then you can use that feedback to improve your products, services, customer experience, and create loyal advocates.

A thriving and self-sustaining brand community also needs to empower your customers to get involved with the brand and each other. LEGO Ideas is an example whose primary purpose is for customers to actively participate with the products and new product development and encourage each other in their own LEGO-related endeavors. With its brand community, LEGO gives its customers a chance to be collaborators. The LEGO Ideas community hub also includes its own dedicated blog, FAQ page, and links to customer service resources.

Part of having a customer-centric brand community is finding your audience’s niche and tailoring the experience for them. LEGO’s target customers are made up of creators and hobbyists of all ages who are motivated to make their ideas come to life. They then share them with others, contributing directly to the brand.

Apparel brand Uniqlo’s community craves the latest fashion trends, so the brand keeps them interested and engaged by partnering with new and cutting-edge designers and artists. 

Engage with your community

Brands should regularly engage with their community to boost customer retention, loyalty, and involvement. The chance to venture beyond a transactional relationship with a brand is a top motivation for customers who want to be a part of a community. 

That can mean offering membership perks like discounts and early releases. Also exclusive access to product and brand experts, stylists, personal shoppers, or other professionals your customers can chat with. Making sure you answer any questions brought up in discussions and providing quality customer support are some of the best ways to maintain engagement.

Engagement can reach beyond the community’s digital space to other virtual or in-person experiences. Other ways to connect members with each other and your brand can include live shopping events for community members, group exercise classes, and other organized in-person events.   

Make your community accessible

Just as you’d market any of your products, you should prominently position and promote your brand community to attract more customers to it. If your community is located on your website, make sure it’s easy to find from the home page or menu. 

Other website category pages can point to the brand community for relevant searches and content. For example, if a customer types a question on a customer service page that’s already been answered in a community forum, they can be prompted to go to the corresponding community page. 

Brands can also attach a branded hashtag to their community (#LiveBV anyone?) so customers can share questions and content related to that community on social media channels. Not only can brands continue community conversations on multiple channels, but they’re also able to expose a larger audience to their community and attract more customers.

Brand community examples

If you’re new to setting up a brand community, there’s a variety of different brands that have already done it successfully. Take notes on these active communities, all with their own approaches and niche audiences.

Nike Training Club

Nike Training Club is an example of a brand community with long-term success. It was Nike’s very first iPhone app that launched over a decade ago, and to this day, it’s one of its most popular digital channels. NTC owes its popularity and longevity to the fact that it puts the customer at the center of its mission. Originally created to solve two specific customer needs – motivation and training guidance – the app presents both its products and the surrounding community as solutions.

The community includes workouts by renowned athletes and a social aspect that allows users to interact with and support each other.

Sephora Beauty Insider Community 

Sephora has one of the best loyalty programs, Beauty Insider, that offers customers rewards based on points earned from purchases. The Sephora Beauty Insider Community is an extension of that brand, where beauty consumers can post questions and tips and share styles with the community. Anyone can access the community hub, but only members can post content and respond to other members’ posts. 

Sephora’s community is teeming with UGC, from photos of members’ makeup looks and product reviews to tons of tips and questions and answers about products and how to use them. The following video shows how members can successfully sign up and participate in the community.

Influenster

Influenster is Bazaarvoice’s very own consumer community with over 7 million members. It’s a destination for finding customer reviews on a massive amount of products from a wide range of consumer brands. The brand community is housed on its own Influenster website, and it just launched the Influenster mobile app.

Participating brands can send members product samples in exchange for reviews and visual UGC, which they can use to elevate their e-commerce product pages. This is an example of a focused and intentional way to manage a brand community for a large group of brands, although the same principles and strategy can be applied to a single brand community as well. 

Dole, a major fruit brand, leveraged Influenster to increase awareness of its full range of products by sourcing over 2,000 reviews from Influenster members in just a few months. This generated customer reviews for 74% of Dole’s product pages and a 64% increase in conversion rate among shoppers who saw the reviews.

Portland Leather Goods

Portland Leather Goods is an accessories brand that hosts its Portland Leather Insiders brand community on a private Facebook Group. The official PLI group is for customers and fans to get sneak peeks, early access, special giveaways, VIP discounts and exclusive content from the PLG team you won’t find elsewhere. It also encourages members to share their photos, reviews, tips, and other content with each other.

Intuit TurboTax + Mint Community

Taxes aren’t the most intriguing topic, but it’s one that all adult citizens (sadly) have to contend with. Especially around the annual filing deadline. There’s a lot of intricacies and details to keep up with, which is why accountants, tax agents, and tax attorneys exist. That’s also why TurboTax was created: to give individuals the option to file their own tax returns with support and guidance from the platform.

The TurboTax + Mint Community emerged as an additional service for TurboTax and Mint users to ask any and all of their tax and personal finance questions, and do their own research year-round. The community empowers its members to educate themselves and help others with any problems they might encounter. It features different discussion forums related to taxes, debt, investing, self-employment, and more. It highlights handy resources on the main community page and has links for access to customer support representatives and tools.

The community also features a leaderboard that showcases the top contributors who actively engage on the site. They receive “cheers” for answering questions, offering solutions, and posting their own thoughts and questions.

Turn your brand community into a business-driving engine

Other than attracting avid, loyal customers, your brand community should meet business goals. First, identify what those particular goals for your brand community are. Common goals include:

• Driving leads and conversions
• Increasing your customer advocacy
• Generating UGC as part of your marketing strategy
• Providing more cost-effective and efficient customer service 

Your goals will guide how you’ll structure the community and how you’ll measure the progress toward those goals. And the results of your brand community efforts will also reveal how it can support and collaborate with other departments, like demand generation and customer service.

As with all of your marketing initiatives, make sure you’re analyzing the performance of your brand community on a regular basis. Pay attention to metrics like member growth, conversions, UGC collected, website traffic, and anything else that’s relevant to your business goals. 

Want to see how one leading, global brand does it? Join Taylor Alston of J.P. Morgan, below, for a conversation on innovative community-building strategies.

FEATURED MASTERCLASS

Building communities that people love with J.P. Morgan

Learn more here