In 2023, AI assistants are everywhere — they’re completing your sentences, managing your projects, scheduling your meetings, and making your playlists. But what if we told you an AI assistant could do your makeup for you?

In January, Estée Lauder launched VMA, or voice-enabled makeup assistant, that does just that. VMA uses both face scanning and voice commands to help visually impaired customers apply the right shades of foundation, mascara, and blush to their faces. It’s just one of the many ways voice-enabled AI will shape the future of the customer experience, improving not only business outcomes but also painting a bright picture of inclusivity and accessibility.

Voice commerce, or v-commerce, will become an increasingly important element of e-commerce in the years to come. As people become accustomed to conversational commerce from the comfort of their own homes and mobile phones, voice assistants will play a bigger role in how they interact with brands. 

Brands will benefit from learning how to harness the power of v-commerce. Here’s how AI-powered voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa can go above and beyond for you.

What is voice commerce? 

Voice commerce is a type of e-commerce experience that allows customers to buy products and services using voice commands. Designed by online retailers to work with voice assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft’s Cortana, voice commerce reduces friction in the customer journey and tailors the buying experience to each person who uses it. 

Voice-enabled commerce is a relatively new technology, but thanks to recent leaps in artificial intelligence development, it’s quickly advancing in functionality and popularity. 

In terms of practical use, voice commerce is especially well-suited for industries such as beauty, apparel, packaged goods, consumer electronics, and home improvement because of the huge number of content and products available. With voice commerce, you can discover products, look at pricing, and make purchases without manually typing in requests via search engines.  

Hey Alexa, how does voice commerce work?

Voice commerce works at various stages of the customer journey in online shopping — from product discovery and checkout to customer service and support. 

The tech used in voice commerce deploys voice recognition and natural language processing (NLP) software to interpret voice commands and respond accordingly. Newer voice commerce models implement advanced AI and machine learning to adjust responses based on the user’s preferences, sizing, previous purchases, and location.

Whether the customer wants to compare prices for certain products, learn about different models, or add an item to a cart, voice-activated digital assistants can carry out the request in real time. 

For instance, say you’re in the market for a new coffee maker. Whether you’re at home or on the go, you can ask your smart device questions or issue commands such as: 

Hey Google, what’s the difference between a Chemex and an Aeropress?

Hey Siri, how much does a Chemex cost?

Alexa, I’d like to order a Chemex on Amazon. 

Alexa, what’s my order status for the Chemex? 

As a consumer, it’s easy to see why online shopping with voice commands is convenient. It’s as easy as asking a friend to pick something up at the store. 

For online stores, implementing voice commerce is one step closer to a complete omnichannel customer experience. You can reach your ideal customer where they are, when they need you. You’ll also reduce steps in the buying process — no need to attract customers to your site, direct them through multiple landing pages, and have them manually enter payment info. 

Benefits of voice commerce for customers and sellers

Voice commerce is an emerging channel that will develop as new technologies advance. Some of the current and future benefits of voice commerce for consumers are:

• Hands-free convenience. No need to log into accounts, type in search queries, or sift through endless ads
• Frictionless online payments. With payment info stored in smart devices, customers don’t have to manually enter credit card info
• Personalized shopping experiences. Voice assistants collect and process data from previous purchases so that every interaction is personalized for repeat customers
• Knowledgeable voice assistants. Generative AI assistants are getting smarter by the day, harnessing the world’s knowledge and sharing it with users 

Business owners will see impactful benefits as well, such as: 

• Increased customer satisfaction. With voice assistants that “know” their wants and needs, deployed by brands they trust, voice commerce will make the customer experience more empathetic and human (plus, voice assistants can easily collect feedback about how to improve customer service) 
• Reduced support costs. Much like Questions & Answers, voice assistants can also deliver operational cost savings by reducing the volume of requests to your support team. Customers communicate in their preferred way, and get the answers they need without needing to call your support line

With the assistance of generative AI models such as ChatGPT, voice assistants will only become more valuable as functionality increases. Voice commerce models will not only be able to respond more accurately to user questions and commands, but they will also be able to predict user needs and prompt them to take specific actions. 

Ok Google: What does voice commerce sound like in 2023?

There’s never been a better time to get started with voice commerce. Here’s a few facts and figures about the current state of voice commerce within the overall e-commerce landscape:

• 20% of Google searches are voice searches
• 62% of smart speaker users say they’ll probably use their speakers to make a purchase in the upcoming month 
• The smart speaker market is expected to exceed $30 billion by 2024
• As of May 2022, 54% of U.S. consumers are using voice-activated search for retail
• Voice assistants on the market will increase to 8 billion by 2023 (up from 2.5 billion in 2018)
• The estimated value of voice commerce transactions in 2023 is $19.4 billion (up from just $4.6 billion in 2021) 

With online shopping reaching new peaks every year and the use of generative AI becoming widespread, businesses can take advantage of these new technological advances to reach new audiences.

V commerce best practices

The tech behind voice commerce may be advanced, but getting started with it isn’t as complex as it sounds. 

• Do SEO for voice search. Yes, many voice commerce systems are directly linked to search engines like Google. Items you sell via voice commerce should be linked to relevant keywords and phrases that people are likely to use when searching for products or services on voice assistants — think long-tail, full sentence keywords
• Create voice-friendly content. Write content that’s easy for voice assistants to understand and that provides the information that people are looking for. Often people engage with voice assistants conversationally, so include colloquialisms and phrases common to the spoken language 
• Offer voice-activated shopping. Aka, allowing people to purchase products or services using their voice. Bonus points if you can optimize the checkout process to occur in as few steps as possible
• Provide customer support through voice assistants and/or voice-assisted chatbots. Make it possible for people to get help with their orders or questions using their voice
• Track voice commerce results. Set measurable performance indicators such as the number of voice searches, voice-activated purchases, and voice support requests that you receive. Voice commerce is only one sales channel, and the benchmarks you set for it should be aligned with your overall company goals 
• Implement key findings from customer insights. Use tools such as Bazaarvoice’s Insights and Reports tool to transform user-generated reviews and answers into actionable insights for your e-commerce strategy 

AI and the future of commerce

It may seem too early to depend on Google Home or Amazon Echo to bring in impactful revenue — but it’s the perfect time to experiment with the effects it can have on your customers and your business. 

Consider voice commerce as a sandbox and see in what novel and interesting ways your customers will interact with your products. You might discover conversations you never thought you’d have or opportunities to improve acquisition that were sitting right under your nose. After all, robots aren’t the only ones that can listen. You can listen to them, too. 

Voice commerce is just the latest trend in the AI evolution. Next learn how to leverage the innovative tech for e-commerce in our guide to AI marketing.

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Over the past 60 years, we’ve seen advertising evolve to include new channels and capabilities ranging from direct mail to social media to hyper-targeted smart TV promotions. Today though, there’s a new way of connecting with your customers: conversational commerce.

Chapters:

1. What is conversational commerce?
2. Conversational commerce use cases
3. Conversational commerce examples
4. How to win at conversational commerce

What is conversational commerce?

Conversational commerce harnesses the power of messaging apps and voice-activated technology to sell products and services. While we may be used to interacting with chatbots for customer support, these new apps and services are using generative artificial intelligence to build trust throughout the buying cycle.

The phrase “conversational commerce” was popularized by Silicon Valley product designer Chris Messina in a 2015 Medium post. (Fun fact: Messina also invented the word “hashtag.”)

In his post, which came out a few months after the launch of the Amazon Echo smart speaker, Messina said the rise of voice assistants and messaging services would change the game for how brands interact with their customers. He predicted that more brands would use specialized apps to deliver, “convenience, personalization, and decision support while people are on the go.“

He was right. 

Today, e-commerce brands big and small are using interactive tools to help engage and influence customers. And customers are loving it.

In one Facebook survey, almost 70% of respondents said being able to message a brand makes them feel more confident about the company. In another survey, 75% say they’re likely to spend more with a brand if they can message rather than call them. 

The conversational commerce market was valued at almost $6 billion in 2019. By 2027, it’s predicted to grow to $30.45 billion.

Conversational commerce use cases

Part of the success of conversational commerce is its ability to meet customers where they are, rather than forcing them to visit a website or their inbox.

But it’s not just the convenience of conversational commerce that makes it such a successful strategy. Like the name implies, these tools turn the shopping and buying experience into a two-way conversation.

Instead of blasting your target market with ads, emails, and promotions, conversational commerce platforms encourage dialogue and interaction. Just like a helpful store assistant checking in on an in-store shopper, they allow brands to use technology to foster a friendlier experience, make online shopping more personal, and give shoppers the advice and insight they need to make the best purchase.

Here’s several examples of how your brand could use conversational commerce throughout the customer journey.

Awareness 

The average business person sends and receives a whopping 126 emails per day. When trying to drive more awareness about your campaigns and special promotions, conversational commerce tools can be an excellent alternative to email marketing. They allow for better engagement, as users can set the alerts to come in at a schedule that works for them.

Giving your customers more control can reap major benefits for your brand. In one study, the open rates for in-app messaging were close to 75% — that’s more than 45 times higher than the average email open rate. 

In addition to in-app messaging, you can also use chatbots and live chat to drive interaction on your site. For example, look at what we do at Bazaarvoice.com to increase awareness about the benefits of working with us. You may have seen it pop up in the bottom right of your screen.

If the user clicks “Sure!”, the bot asks a series of questions about their needs and then directs them to the appropriate landing page. This helps us better engage potential customers while increasing awareness about our programs and services. 

Research and consideration

When shopping online, it can be hard to sort through all of the options to find just the right product for your needs and preferences. And while advanced filtering tools can do a lot, conversational commerce platforms can make the research and consideration stage more interactive, fun, and human-like for shoppers.

For example, H&M positions its chatbot as a personal stylist. The bot uses a series of questions to get a sense of the shopper’s tastes and style. It then presents different options and lets the user pick the item they prefer. Based on the user’s feedback, the bot continues to help the shopper find what they need and then offers products for them to save, share, or buy. 

The tool also allows customers to preview the latest fashion trends, see outfits that have been created for other users, and browse items based on their tastes. 

Purchase

Dominoes was a conversational commerce early adopter, allowing customers to order a pizza simply by typing “” in a text. The dream.

Another is the coffee giant Starbucks, which uses conversational commerce to improve the purchasing experience. Customers can use the brand’s barista bot to order and pay for their tall caramel frappuccinos and grande vanilla lattes. Once their drink is ready, customers receive a notification and can skip the line to get their caffeine fix. 

The app is voice-activated, making it even easier for users to order their favorite coffees and snacks. The tool also allows customers to track their rewards points and redeem special offers.

If you don’t have time to build an app, consider adding a chatbot to your checkout page. In a recent HubSpot poll, 47% of respondents said they would consider buying products and services through a chatbot. The chatbot can also help consumers understand your shipping and returns policy. 

Post-purchase

In addition to answering questions during the sale, chatbots can also help automate your post-purchase customer engagement. 

The office supply store Staples is well known for its “easy button” promotions. In these ads, the store says finding and purchasing whatever you’re looking for is as easy as pushing a big red button.

Staples brought the easy button to life with its “Easy System” customer support messaging app. Built in partnership with IBM’s Watson, the bot can handle most customer support questions. It also makes repeat orders a breeze for procurement teams.

Conversational commerce tools can also help with your upselling and cross-selling strategies. Let a chatbot reach out to customers when the product they most recently purchased is likely running low and remind them to reorder.

In addition, you could use live chat to make recommendations based on past purchases or highlight complementary products.

Brand loyalty

We also love the idea of using conversational commerce tools to build brand loyalty.

For inspiration, check out Casper’s Insomnobot3000. The site uses a chatbot to “hang out” with customers who are having trouble falling or staying asleep. It loves talking about popular TV shows like Seinfeld and Stranger Things, as well as the merits of pizza and waffles.

Sure it might be a bit too Black Mirror. But Casper’s Insomnobot3000 is so engaging it was nominated for several awards and has been featured in multiple marketing publications. 

Conversational commerce examples

When it comes to engaging your customers, there’s multiple conversational commerce platforms and tools for you to choose from.

1. Chatbots

A chatbot uses software to mimic the natural cadence and context of a human conversation. These vary from tools that can answer common customer queries to advanced “digital assistants” that make the user feel like there’s a real-life agent on the other side of the screen.

They can be used on your website and in the messaging platforms your customers already use every day. Since they’re fairly quick and easy to implement, chatbots are a popular choice for brands just getting started with conversational commerce. 

2. Live chat

Many consumers are familiar with using live chat for their customer support inquiries. But these services can be valuable throughout the buying journey, allowing customers to quickly find the information they need to feel more confident about their purchases.

3. Messaging apps

Apps like Messenger and Telegram are becoming increasingly popular conversational commerce platforms. They allow consumers to engage with brands privately, at their convenience. Users also appreciate the ability to use common messaging icons like emojis, GIFs, and memes.

4. Voice assistants

Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing to allow users to run internet searches and conduct simple tasks with the sound of their voice.

The hands-free convenience empowers users to multitask. For example, when you’re baking you can ask Siri how many teaspoons are in a cup — without having to wash the flour off your hands.

Getting starting with conversational commerce

Like anything new, it can be difficult knowing where to begin. Here’s the best practices to follow for getting started with your conversational commerce strategy.

1. Identify your needs

Conversational commerce can do a lot, from helping you reduce shopping cart abandonment to improving the customer service experience. Before you start your journey, think about the goals you’d like to achieve and the areas of your business you want to support. 

After your brainstorming session, prioritize your goals and needs. Depending on your budget and bandwidth, you might have to start slowly. Knowing which priorities to focus on first can help ensure you move forward more confidently and strategically.

2. Do your research

The goal is to meet customers where they are. To achieve that, you need to do your research to find out which apps and services your customers are already using. 

According to Zendesk, which helped popularize customer support automation, 45% of consumers prefer to use embedded messaging to interact with brands. A little more than 30% said they prefer social media messaging apps like Facebook’s Messenger. 

3. Don’t focus just on selling

The most successful brands use conversational commerce tools to support their customers throughout the buying journey. You want a solution that can harness the power of data to continue the conversation on every touchpoint. If a customer reaches out on your website chatbot then tries to continue the conversation via Messenger, you don’t want them to have to repeat themselves or go through the frustration of listing all of the steps they’ve already taken to resolve the problem. 

4. Ask for demos

There’s so many conversational commerce platforms for you to choose from. To help you find the best solution for your needs and your customers’, sign up for demos, free trials, and webinars. You want to find a solution that will work with your current technology setup and capabilities. For example, if you’re short-staffed, 24/7 live chat may not be the best option. 

5. Decide what success looks like

The goals you set before starting your conversational commerce should shape the KPIs you use to measure its success. Look for a tool that offers real-time visibility into metrics like conversion rates and customer satisfaction scores. These can help you understand what’s working and what needs to be improved so you can pivot as necessary. 

6. Make sure your mobile experience is up to snuff

With many conversational commerce interactions taking place on smartphones, you want to make sure your mobile website is modern and adheres to best practices for user experience.

This is vital even if you’re not ready to dive into conversational commerce. Today, just shy of 73% of online sales take place on a mobile device.  

How to win at conversational commerce

The best way to get started with conversational commerce is to work with a platform who can do it for you. Our Questions & Answers portal allows you to quickly implement and manage a conversational commerce strategy that works for your brand, team, and customers.

With Questions & Answers, you can quickly and easily reply to customer questions on over 1,750 retail sites, increasing brand awareness and allowing you to respond to customers wherever they shop. Our clients have seen as much as a 98% increase in conversions thanks to Questions and Answers, as well as a 50% decrease in support center costs.

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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.

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That was further amplified this year, since more people are shopping online. But, all these returns can offer a wealth of insights for brands, helping you improve your products and learn more about your customers.  

E-commerce holiday sales were projected to jump 40% in 2020 to $234.9 billion, and about $70.5 billion in purchases were expected to be returned, according to a CBRE report. Overall, holiday returns were estimated to be 73% higher this year than the average over the past few years. 

Still, return policies are an important consideration for shoppers. According to PwC, 53% of consumers base their buying decisions on return politics. Millennials are especially keen on generous and flexible return policies, and 40% (compared to 20% for all consumers) planned to return more items this year compared to last. 

4 ways to reduce holiday returns

Though returns can be costly for brands and retailers, they also present a learning opportunity. Here’s four insights you can take away from your holiday returns to reduce e-commerce return rates. 

1. Identify trends in your holiday returns 

The first step in reducing returns is to understand which products consumers are returning most and why. Some questions you need to answer include:

• Are shoppers returning a certain brand more than others?
• Is size the most common reason for online apparel returns or is it quality?
• Are product descriptions accurate? 

To find out, make sure your return processes ask consumers direct questions. Let them select a specific reason for the return, such as “too big,” “size,” or, “quality not expected,” to gather returns data. Scan review comments for common keywords, as well. 

This valuable customer feedback and the data you pull from it can inform future product launches or improve existing products. Shopper data helps brands and retailers make better decisions about inventory and sales projections, too. It also gives you a glimpse into your customer and their preferences, information you can use to create targeted, personalized marketing campaigns. 

2. Optimize your product pages based on the trends you’ve identified 

Having to return a purchase is a consumer’s least favorite part of shopping online, and 39% say they’ve never purchased from a retailer again after a disappointing purchase. Complicated return processes are even more frustrating. For example, many consumers aren’t able to print out return shipping labels at home. 

Head this off by updating and improving your product description pages. Use the insights and user-generated content (UGC) gathered from analyzing your holiday returns trends to add extra information and more accurate details. 

Returns data often mentions that apparel sizing is off or the color doesn’t match up with the product photo, for example. Including those details in the product description helps other shoppers make better decisions and could cut down on online apparel return rates. 

3. Audit your products with UGC 

When product descriptions contain UGC, like reviews, ratings, photos, and questions, it inspires brand loyalty, enhances customer service, and reduces e-commerce return rates. UGC also provides the social proof shoppers need to feel confident making a purchase. When shoppers are more confident knowing how a product looks up front, holiday returns are less likely.

Products without UGC tend to have higher returns rates. So, it’s a good idea to identify these items and create a campaign to increase review volume. Send emails to the consumers who’ve purchased the product asking for a review — in exchange, offer them an incentive, such as a coupon or freebie. Product sampling is another proven way to encourage reviews and build UGC quickly. 

Clothing giant GANT for example wanted to reduce return rated (both holiday and year-round) so the brand worked with Bazaarvoice to increase the number of customer reviews on an item’s fit and size. The brand also added the ability to ask questions and comment on reviews. These product reviews led to a 5% reduction in return rates.

We have found that customers trust the opinions of other customers more than advertising claims

Head of E-Commerce, GANT

4. Segment your shoppers 

Reviewing purchase and returns data also helps segment shoppers, enabling you to discover their individual needs, shopping habits, and preferences. When you better understand what your customers want and why they’re making returns, it’s an opportunity to build relationships and retain customers.

Segmenting customers guides targeted marketing messages, helping you identify the best ways to communicate with shoppers and recommend new products. You’ll be able to send the right message to the right customer at the right time. Consumers appreciate high levels of personalization, and reward brands who take the time to get to know them with repeat business. 

Reduce holiday returns, increase profit

Holiday returns may be a given, but don’t just take it as a regular seasonal occurrence. It’s an opportunity to learn. These returns contain a wealth of insights that can help you learn more about your customers and how they shop, as well as which products need improvement. The more you learn, the less your customers will have to return. Rhyme intentional.

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According to Pew, the ability to ask questions is a key deciding factor for consumers and is second only to price competitiveness. And in a study, the Harvard Business Review found that consumers value easy access to reliable information about products while shopping, with many reporting that FAQs and online question and answer platforms are valuable resources.

The simple truth is that unanswered questions can keep shoppers from buying your products and, even worse, cause potential customers to distrust your brand. If someone came into your physical store and asked you a question, you wouldn’t ignore them. So why ignore them online?

When you think about the impact, that’s 700 fewer calls or emails coming through to our customer service team. It’s time and money saved, so the impact is significant

Kristina Rapljenovic, Website Manager, Nestlé Canada

For good reason, question and answer platforms have become a staple in e-commerce. These tools allow brands and other consumers to directly answer product questions from in-market shoppers. That’s a big benefit to shoppers, but it’s an even bigger benefit for your brand.

Question and answer platform key benefits

Building a question and answer platform into your product pages enables you to have a one-to-one conversation with your shoppers. Whenever you’re able to have a direct channel to your audience, especially when they’re ready to make a purchase, your brand will benefit.

For example, Bazaarvoice customer MeUndies found exactly that when they implemented a question and answer platform on their site.

By answering customer questions on product pages, future shoppers can learn more about products and save themselves the effort of having to contact the team. It also enables the brand to turn a negative experience into a positive one. This has increased conversions and decreased the number of customer service tickets MeUndies employees must respond to.

Here’s the the top reasons to include a question and answer platform on your e-commerce site.

1. Reach shoppers at key decision moments

Let’s start with the biggest benefit of question and answer platforms: When shoppers are asking questions, they’re engaged and already well into the decision stage. In short, they’re ready to buy something and just waiting for validation.

There’s two types of common consumer questions:

• With quantitative questions, shoppers are asking or looking for product-specific questions that center around features. “Does this dress come in black?”, “How many HDMI ports does this TV have?”, “Is this gluten-free?” These questions focus on the hard details of a product or service.

• On the other hand, qualitative questions tend to focus on more subjective product details and personal opinions: “Is this a good blender for green smoothies?”, “What do you think of the picture quality on this TV?” These types of questions see the shopper trying to either validate or discredit their own opinions. In short, they’re looking for a second opinion, preferably from someone who has already experienced the product.

When you can provide answers to these two kinds of questions, it makes for a powerful combination. Facts and figures quickly reduce uncertainty about your product, but decisions tend to be rooted in emotion. Quantitative questions give shoppers facts and figures, while qualitative questions tell a story about the product.

2. Organically build a list of FAQs to increase conversion

One type of question and answer platform is frequently asked questions (FAQs). Aka one of the most tried-and-true methods of improving consumer confidence. The same study as above by Harvard Business Review showed the value of making it easy for consumers to gather, understand, and weigh their options. Brands that did this well were:

• 86% more likely to be purchased by the consumers considering them
• 9% more likely to be repurchased
• 115% more likely to be recommended to others

The easier a brand makes the purchase-decision journey, the better, and an FAQ list can move shoppers quickly towards validation.

But making an FAQ can be tough. You have to do customer research to identify common questions and pain points, and then you have to answer them. And you have to do that across all of your products. This can be a project.

So what if you crowdsourced your FAQs? What if you could identify exactly which questions continue to crop up from interested consumers about your products?

With the right question and answer platform, you can do just that. By giving shoppers a platform to ask their questions, you build yourself a powerful repository of consumer insight into common questions you’re facing in the market. You can answer your potential customer’s questions before they’ve even had to ask it.

3. Build more social proof around your products

Social proof has been one of the buzzier concepts in e-commerce over the past few years and for good reason. It explains a psychological and social phenomenon where people look to their peers to figure out the right thing to do. It’s the “if everyone is doing it, then I should be” feeling.

In the context of commerce, it’s a powerful force. Simply put, people often turn to their peers when making purchasing decisions. That’s why user-generated content (UGC), like ratings and reviews, has proved so successful in e-commerce. At its most basic, it prove that other people are using something.

Question and answer platforms scratch a similar itch. In addition to allowing customers to ask questions and find answers, they also show shoppers that other people are interested in — and own — the product in question. But Q&A goes one step further than ratings, reviews, and other forms of UGC — it allows shoppers to ask why the crowd is moving in a certain direction.

We want to know that other people have shared our experience. More importantly, we want to know that the choice we are making is the choice that other people have made.

Crazy Egg — web analytics tool

Research has shown that the more UGC and social likes, shares, and follows a product or brand has, the more likely it is to command respect. Sometimes all it takes to get a customer to click the buy button is to show them that other people have already hit that same button.

4. Boost SEO with key content to attract more shoppers

When you’re juggling a lot of products — and multiple product pages — it’s likely that you’re missing details somewhere. The more information you provide on product pages, the more customer questions you answer and the better your page performs in search.

Shoppers tend to ask questions when there’s a lack of information, which can help you identify content gaps on your site and then fill them with keyword-rich content.

As an added bonus, allowing customer questions on your site organically boosts your SEO. First, when your product pages are constantly being updated with new questions and answers, your pages have fresh content, which positively impacts your search ranking.

Second, people’s search queries often match the keywords in customer questions, so your pages rank higher and people are driven straight to your products. Let a question and answer platform do the heavy SEO lifting on your product pages for you.

The best question and answer platform on the market

From the original bazaar to the new connected marketplace, shopping has long been a social activity — consumers ask each other questions, talk to store assistants, and examine and compare products. While e-commerce has changed that, the tools that bring those in-store experiences online have helped fill the experiential gap.

Question and answer platforms do just that, offering up answers to shoppers when they’re on the cusp of making a decision, convincing them to make the purchase. And they’re very convincing at it.

For example, the composite organization featured in a recent Total Economic Impact Study of Bazaarvoice, which uses Bazaarvoice’s own question and answer platform, allowing them to answer questions at-scale within minutes, saw conversions increase by 20%, reaching a rate of 5%.

Learn more about Bazaarvoice Questions & Answers here or get in touch directly below to get started.

As digital marketers adapt to increased online privacy measures and data collection regulations, they’re faced with a variety of hitches along the way. One of their main challenges is the quality of the data they can access. Nielsen’s 2021 Annual Marketing Report reveals that over 40% of marketers at medium and large-sized companies consider data quality, including accuracy, a major obstacle.

Likewise, in a customer experience report conducted by the Harris Poll in partnership with Redpoint Global, surveyed consumers and marketers questioned the accuracy of brands’ customer data. Consumers cited outdated and inconsistent data among their top concerns. And if consumers don’t get something in return for their data, like a more valuable or personalized shopping experience, 75% claim they’ll opt out of data tracking altogether.

Arguably, the best kind of first-party data is the kind that consumers willingly — even enthusiastically — submit themselves. This method ensures the data is authentic, up-to-date, and accurate. Quiz funnels are one of the best ways to achieve this desirable outcome. They offer an interactive and often fun way for customers to volunteer their own information.

Quiz funnels solve more than just the data quality piece of the puzzle. Quiz funnels inherently produce results based on the participants’ responses, so they also offer the value exchange that consumers are looking for.

Time to give your potential customers a pop quiz they’ll actually want to take, while alleviating your data dilemmas and winning leads in the process. Find out how to successfully integrate quiz funnels into your e-commerce strategy.

What is a quiz funnel?

A quiz funnel prompts website visitors to answer a series of quiz questions relevant to a brand and its products to receive tailored results based on their feedback. Their responses enable brands to collect data, segment customers, and generate leads.

An effective quiz funnel produces a result that inspires further action, moving the customer further down the marketing funnel.

Are quiz funnels effective?

Good question. Quiz funnels accomplish an array of marketing goals, plus they provide entertainment value. Score. Here’s some of the primary advantages of quiz funnels for e-commerce brands:

• A reliable first-party data collection tactic. Quiz funnels are a way to collect detailed customer data and contact info that customers provide instead of having their website activity tracked.
• Customer segmentation. This is an extension of the first benefit. Marketers can segment customers into different categories based on their answers to the quiz, which they can use to personalize results and for future marketing outreach.
• Affordable data collection. This is yet another data-related bonus. Quiz funnels offer a low-cost way to collect first-party data compared to more expensive methods and software, like advanced customer relationship management (CRM) and customer data platforms (CDPs).
• Enable personalized recommendations and results. The main objective of a quiz funnel is to deliver a customized result based on consumer input, something craved in online shopping. The majority of consumers will convert to repeat customers after a personalized experience with a brand.
• Guide future campaigns. The insights gained from quiz funnels provide brands with customer preferences, including what they seek in products, services, and experiences. This invaluable information can inform marketing messaging and targeting as well as product development.
• Generate leads. A main quiz funnel component is a contact form to access the results of the quiz, providing brands with qualified leads. You can also grow your marketing email list by including an email sign-up check box.
• Increased conversions. Quiz funnels can produce conversions and sales when they include CTAs like “add to cart” or “view products” with their results. Especially in the case of product recommendations.
• Build interest in products and the brand. They’re another way to convey your brand’s message, value, and promise, while allowing shoppers to become familiar with what you have to offer.

Elements of an effective quiz funnel

To unleash the maximum potential of a quiz funnel, you need to design it to produce the best results. When creating a quiz funnel for your e-commerce site, make sure it has these core components and functions.

1. It’s relevant to your products and representative of your brand

Your quiz should convey how your products and services fit into your customers’ lives. So tie your questions into the different use cases and features of your products and the lifestyles and behaviors they complement.

2. It appeals to your target audience

Ask questions that resonate with your customers’ unique frustrations, desires, confusions, and passions to make them feel connected and to give them tailored results.

3. It features straightforward question and answer options

Your questions should be clear, easy to understand, and easy to answer. Likewise, your multiple-choice answers should be concise, specific, and in line with the question. This will ensure a quality experience for your audience and help you properly sort your customers into segments.

For example, if one of your questions is budget-related, you could ask your customers what they’re willing to spend on a monthly subscription, with different price ranges for the multiple-choice answers. If one of your questions is about what your customers’ priorities are, the answers could include qualities like convenience, sustainability, price, and a variety of product options.

4. The results provide value

The results of your quiz can be in the form of product recommendations, thoughtful feedback, an educational report, or a genre reveal. Either way, they should be accurate, relevant, actionable, and teachable. Craft the tailored result options based on the different possible answer outcomes. Refine, revisit, and update the different result options as your brand, products, and customers evolve.

5. Points and key takeaways are illustrated with visual elements

Include photos, sketches, charts and graphs, and videos throughout your quiz. Use visuals for multiple-choice answers, especially if your brand is apparel, beauty, home decor, or consumer packaged goods.

6. It’s prominently displayed and easily accessible

Feature the quiz on a dedicated landing page or the homepage of your website. Extend its reach and increase participation by distributing it and sharing it on your blog, social media, email campaigns, podcasts, and any other relevant channels.

7. It includes a lead generation form and CTAs

Require a lead generation form with primary contact info. Position the form at the beginning of the quiz for participants to access the questions or after the questions for participants to access the results.

If your quiz results include customized product recommendations, add product page links or “add to cart” buttons. Prompt your quiz takers to view any surveys, case studies, videos, or blog posts relevant to their results. Depending on the type and nature of the quiz, make the results shareable and give participants the option to post an image or video of their results online.

Include options to book a call, demo, or appointment. Guide your prospects to the next step that will convert them into customers.

Quiz funnel examples

Many direct-to-consumer companies, traditional retailers, and online marketplaces use quiz funnels in different ways to meet their customers’ and business needs. These examples show a range of quiz styles and formats, from short and sweet to extensive and elaborate. This isn’t a comprehensive list of all the different types of quiz funnels out there, but these real examples offer inspiration to go forth and create whatever is the best fit for your brand.

Product discovery and customized recommendation quizzes

Product recommendation quizzes are a popular type of quiz funnel, and for good reason. They offer personalized recommendations based on each person’s unique feedback, and by taking the quiz, shoppers can become more familiar with your products. For brands that have several different relevant products for each result, these quizzes are a great chance to cross-sell similar products and multi-product kits, which can increase average order value.

For example, Trade, a direct-to-consumer coffee company, prompts website visitors to take a quiz for customized coffee and subscription options. The quiz asks shoppers questions about their coffee-making habits and preferences and then recommends the perfect brew supplies for their tastes.

Personal style quizzes

Another type of quiz that speaks to consumers’ curiosities and uncertainties is a personal style quiz. Personal style quizzes are especially fitting for apparel, beauty, and home brands. They provide expert advice for consumers while showing how your brand and products can cultivate your customers’ style.

Overstock.com’s “What’s your interior design style?” quiz is an excellent example. The quiz asks visitors to pick their favorite images from different design categories, culminating in what their definitive style is.

When shoppers receive their results, they’re prompted to shop for home decor items and furniture that fit that particular style and aesthetic. Here we have an example of results with product recommendations from Overstock.com’s “What’s your interior design style?” quiz:

Consultation quizzes

Consultation quizzes demonstrate your expertise and the thoughtfulness of your product development while providing focused value to your customers. Brands that have products formulated to meet nuanced and diverse purposes would benefit from consultation quizzes. Health and beauty brands are a natural fit for these types of quizzes, as are consumer packaged goods like tools and hardware.

The custom hair care brand Prose bases their entire business model on making personalized recommendations according to each customer’s unique hair type. Their consultation quiz asks a series of detailed questions, some with corresponding illustrations and images, to determine the best hair care routine for each customer. The results show how each respondent scores on different factors that go into making the tailored product recommendations.

Incentive quizzes for lead generation

Some quizzes can be more condensed and to the point, like the ones designed primarily for obtaining customer contact info. There should be some value exchange, like delivering personalized content based on reported customer details, a discount promo code, or a resource download like a webinar, tutorial, or e-book.

Bazaarvoice customer The Seaweed Bath Co. designed a one-page combination quiz funnel and email sign-up form that offers a 15% discount for subscribing and answering a few skincare-related questions. This clever tactic obtains lead generation material, specific customer data, and email subscribers in one quick and convenient motion.

Supercharge your quiz funnels with social proof

Brands build trust and authority with their audience by creating quiz funnels that enable them to learn more about their customers and provide expert, personalized results. Brands can make their quizzes go the extra mile by showing content from their customers.

Enhance your quiz funnel results with influential user-generated content (UGC), including customer reviews and visual UGC, like photos and videos from social media tagged with your products. 

Quiz funnels are just the beginning. Learn more ways you can use interactive gamification with our full guide to gamification marketing.

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How to collect content that engages and converts

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Rather than respond to each request individually (of which there’s obviously millions), we decided to consult internal experts and put together this best practice guide instead.

Chapters:

1. What does a UGC content manager do?
2. Key traits to look for
3. Interview questions to ask candidates
4. A UGC refresher

If you’re like most business leaders today, you’re struggling with employee turnover and keeping up with hiring and retention. Tons of people are changing jobs, retiring, or quitting work altogether — over 4 million every month since July of last year. The great resignation is truly here.

And hiring in the semi-niche industry of user-generated content (UGC) manager roles? Even harder.

If you’re not a UGC expert yourself, it’s hard to know what to ask. That’s why it’s so important to ask the right interview questions and be able to identify great responses. Before your next UGC content manager interview, read this guide we created with help from industry professionals.

What does a UGC content manager do?

UGC content managers lead marketing teams on a comprehensive UGC strategy. They need to demonstrate a working knowledge of all forms of UGC — ratings and reviews, shopper photos and videos, and questions and answers.

While UGC may have previously been part of other roles like social media or e-commerce managers, it’s increasingly a role and focus in its own right. 

A UGC content manager is usually responsible for:

• Collecting and managing UGC
• Distributing UGC across websites, retailers, social channels and search
• Collecting the associated customer data
• Conducting influencer campaigns
• Overseeing sampling campaigns from beginning to end
• Analyzing metrics and revenue generated
• Communicating insights to stakeholders

Key traits to look for in a good UGC content manager

Hiring content teams in today’s competitive and title-bloated market isn’t just challenging; it’s excruciating, says Joe Manna, Content & SEO Manager at Alyce, a corporate gifting platform.

“At my previous company in the cloud communications space, the desire to hire someone ‘right now’ sometimes superseded hiring the right candidate. This impatience resulted in unfit leaders who later brought on unsuccessful candidates. What followed? A complete turnover of the communication and content teams. To avoid this disaster, evaluate EVERY potential content marketing producer by drilling deeper.” — Joe Manna

To identify a truly great UGC content manager candidate, look for these key traits:

• Emotional intelligence. All good leaders — and good marketers — need to empathize and understand emotions. To be effective, a UGC content manager needs to empathize primarily with users.
• Time management and proactiveness. UGC content managers need to manage multiple projects and deadlines. Someone in this role often juggles projects from influencers, contributors, and internal creators. All in tandem with broader marketing campaigns or product releases.
• Creativity and wit. To thrive in the social media space, UGC content managers need to have a friendly and humorous tone of voice. They also need to balance that creativity with a sense of responsibility to the brand’s reputation.
• Critical thinking and resourcefulness. Since it’s an emerging field, UGC content managers need to be confident decision-makers who can think on their feet. And also take swift action if necessary.
• Flexibility. UGC content managers need to be able to quickly adapt to different audiences, topics, and customer pain points. As well as manage different personalities.
• Technical skills in writing, editing, SEO, and online marketing analytics are a must. Also helpful is the ability to create GIFs, memes, videos, and other visuals.
• Business acumen to contribute to the larger goals of a company.

Top interview questions to ask a UGC content manager candidate

Ask open-ended questions to identify an interviewee’s skills and talents for a UGC role as well as a leadership position.

Below are some of the top questions to ask a UGC content manager during an interview, along with ideal responses.

“Can you provide examples of how you move users to take action?”

Get specific with examples. Ask job candidates to tell you about times they’ve had a great marketing idea that moved users to take action, recommends Makenzie Rath, President at Talent Plus, a global human resources consulting firm. This type of question shows resourcefulness and critical, out-of-the-box thinking.

Evaluate responses based on how specific they are. If the interviewee answers with vague, jargon-heavy platitudes, they’re probably not qualified for the role. Or, they don’t know how to communicate effectively, which in itself could be difficult to overcome in a marketing position.

“What are the most important things to consider while planning a UGC marketing campaign?”

Answers to this question speak not only to technical skills but also to a candidate’s business acumen. Also whether they know how to contribute to a company’s larger goals or not.

“UGC managers must have the necessary ability to understand and explain the business value of your content marketing efforts to the company,” says Deni Ivanov, Digital Marketing Director at Royal Cleaning, a London-based cleaning company.

Responses should indicate how candidates structure and prioritize work and show care for the target audience’s needs. Can they look at the bigger picture?

“Knowing a goal of a campaign and making sure we understand it is a must,” says Agata Szczepanek, Community Manager at MyPerfectResume. Candidates should also demonstrate how UGC interacts with a brand’s image, values, and tone.

“How do you increase team member engagement?”

If your UGC leader will manage people, then asking about team engagement will help you understand their leadership style and empathy. You’re looking at more than technical skills since those can be learned. Reading between the lines, you’re actually asking: “Are they human-centered and responsible as a leader?” Szczepanek advises.

This question will also help you determine if a candidate is a good cultural fit with your brand. “If you bring in someone unable to connect with people, embrace constructive conflict, and roll their sleeves up and work,” says Manna, “you’d be spending thousands of dollars every week for someone to move Asana tasks around.”

Whether your role is people manager or a project manager, candidates still need to have high emotional intelligence. This question helps answer that. Emotional intelligence is important for UGC content managers because it means they can show restraint and handle social media crises with grace, says Padmaja Santhanam, Growth Manager at FirstPrinciples.

“Tell me about your day-to-day responsibilities.”

The title “content manager” and “content marketer” seem similar but have vastly different experiences and duties. To avoid hiring someone without the necessary expertise, Manna recommends asking interviewees to tell you about their daily responsibilities.

“Have them talk through the types of campaigns, challenges, or ‘fires’ they had to resolve,” says Manna. “Ask for samples, even redacted ones, and get extremely clear about this person’s SPECIFIC responsibilities. Did they concept, write, edit, proof, publish, and promote the piece? Or were they spectating?”

“Tell me about our target market and current content marketing efforts.”

Asking interviewees about your brand’s marketing can help you figure out if they are serious about your company, according to Ivanov. Are they critical thinkers? Are they prepared for this position? Their response should demonstrate that they’ve done their own research about your company, target audience, and competitors. It will also show you how they process information and make recommendations.

“The candidate’s answer will provide an insight into his research skills and how well he understood the company’s target market,” says Ivanov. “I will be most impressed with answers that not only cite our target market correctly but also share insights on what we should be doing to improve our current content marketing efforts based on the candidate’s research.”

“Tell me about any one of your most successful campaigns.”

This question will help you gauge a candidate’s experience and how they define a campaign’s success, says Ivanov. The best candidates, according to Max Benz, Founder and CEO at BankingGeek, will also be able to show you high-quality, error-free, engaging samples. Candidates should be able to provide clear explanations of the campaign’s objectives, details of the approach, and quantitative and qualitative measures they used to determine success.

For example, according to Ivanov, a stellar response might be something like this:

“Last year, one of our clients required us to generate buzz for their newly launched makeup line. We developed a campaign that encouraged customers to post and share vlogs using our products for a chance to be hired as a featured model. And we saw an immediate increase in our engagement. By the end of our six-month campaign, we successfully exceeded our revenue goal by 150% thanks to the increased attention brought by user-generated content promoting the new product line.”

“How do your favorite brands use UGC?”

This is another great way to evaluate a candidate’s critical thinking skills and preparedness for the position. Look for specific examples in their responses, especially if they can tailor their response to your industry, says Holly Landis, SEO & Digital Marketing Consultant.

Candidates should be able to grasp a brand’s voice and persona, and how UGC has honed and expanded it, says Santhanam. “The UGC manager should be capable of focusing on grabbing audience attention while maintaining the business discoverability.”

This means candidates should demonstrate they have a deep understanding of what makes UGC content good, as well as fluency in using terms like customer/follower engagement, account click-through rate, site referrals, or, according to Landis, “anything that could point to how the UGC benefited the bottom line of the business.”

“How would you use different social platforms for our brand’s UGC?”

Asking this question will show you if candidates are aware of the social media landscape and how each platform works for different industries and audiences, according to Landis. This shows “a deep familiarity with the options for gathering content and permissions for reposting or sharing on each of the platforms that they’re discussing.”

“At minimum, I would want them to talk about demographic breakdowns generally across different platforms, e.g., having a good understanding that beauty/apparel/home goods, etc., would likely work well on TikTok or Instagram with younger audiences,” says Landis. “If paid advertising is something that you’d be looking for too under this role, I’d want to hear mention of TikTok Spark influencer advertising and Instagram whitelisted campaigns to get UGC in front of new audiences.”

“What metrics would you track to extract knowledge about our current social media strategy?”

Santhanam recommends asking candidates this question to help you get an overall idea of their qualifications and knowledge for the job. You could also ask what tools they would use to schedule posts, which would be more role specific. You need to know if they’re adept at social media and familiar with collecting, curating, and promoting UGC, says Benz.

“In marketing, setting up KPIs and tracking metrics is vital to measure the campaign’s performance,” says Santhanam. “So the response should include the ideas and metrics to measure the success in all social media campaigns mingled with creativity into effective strategies to promote the brand. The candidates’ responses also should include the plan to manage day-to-day social media accounts and engage your target audience in the long run.”

“What will your strategy be to keep our organization on top of new trends and features?”

This is a behavioral question, says Santhanam. You could also ask how they have raised brand awareness using social media in their previous positions. According to Santhanam, qualified candidates will mention updating the news feed, trade journal subscriptions, networking, and engaging with potential customers.

Here’s a good response, inspired by Santhanam’s advice:

“I managed a brand’s Twitter and Instagram accounts in my previous role and stayed abreast of industry trends by reading social media news feeds, joining groups like [Name of Group], or following experts like [Name of Expert]. I also subscribed to trade journals like [Name of Trade Journal]. When planning posts, I put my own spin on trending topics, so it ended up being 50% brand voice and 50% trend. To get real-time updates on brand mentions and customer sentiment, I engaged customers in comments and relied on X tool to monitor brand mentions.”

“How do you manage competing priorities and deadlines?”

Any manager has to tackle multiple projects simultaneously, says Logan Mallory, VP of Marketing at Motivosity, an employee recognition platform. And in the fast-paced world of internet marketing and UGC, it’s important to get a sense of how candidates manage their time, how productive they are, and how well they stick to deadlines.

Ideal responses should speak to how candidates distribute and prioritize tasks. According to Szczepanek, candidates should be able to show “flexibility to switch between different audiences, topics, occasions, etc., and to manage different types of people effectively.”

“Can you perform a compensated project?”

This last question (and the resulting project) will help you understand how candidates approach their work. “Give them a REALISTIC — not fictional — campaign scenario and brief with a few requirements,” recommends Manna. “You’re not asking for a week’s worth of work, but just several hours. Pay them 2x the market rate given the turnaround time. It’s well worth paying someone $1,000 [rather] than losing so much more on a bad hire.”

In their completed project, you’ll be able to evaluate their writing, editing, and technical skills, as well as their curiosity, creativity, and interest in the job. Szczepanek points out that candidates should demonstrate industry knowledge, wit, a friendly tone of voice, and broad knowledge of pop culture. Santhanam’s advice follows suit: look for candidates that show a sense of humor and creativity that can differentiate your brand in a saturated space.

In addition, a completed project will show a candidate’s actual productivity and critical thinking skills in real life. Manna says that candidates should be willing to “take the time to understand the market, the opportunity, and the novel ways for the brand to stick out and how you’d piece the campaign together and execute it.”

It is important to note that if a candidate turns in a great project, it’s still theirs. “Don’t steal a candidate’s ideas,” advises Manna. “Even if they turned down the job (or you rescinded it), it’s extremely poor form.”

Fill your UGC content manager position with top talent

Getting qualified, willing candidates to the interview is half the battle. Once you’re there, make the most of your time (and your candidate’s time!) by asking the right questions. Now that you know which questions to ask and what to look for in the responses, you can fill your open position with the best.

And remember to provide a great interview experience for job candidates, says Rath. “Even if they cannot join your team now, they can still be a potential customer, user, or referral source for your business now and into the future.” 

If you’re unsure of what a UGC content manager should know, read up on our guide to UGC. Or feel free to check out the rest of our Long Read content for more UGC best-practices!

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7 UGC examples and why they work

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Bazaarvoice University, or BVU as everyone (just us) is calling it, is our one-stop shop for your Bazaarvoice platform education. From beginner tips and tricks to advanced skills, check out our bitesize classes to get up to speed with everything about managing the Bazaarvoice platform.

Luckily, we’re going to show you how. And why. And possibly even when. Using global brands, and Bazaarvoice’s own client success stories, we explain exactly how you can rock customer centricity.

Chapters:

1. What is a customer-centric selling approach?
2. Benefits of customer centricity
3. How brands use data to implement customer centricity
4. Use UGC to enable the right strategy

Imagine you’re shopping online for a new social media management tool. You’re checking your LinkedIn account, scrolling through your feed, or listening to your favorite podcast at the same time. Suddenly, you get a DM from a salesperson crowing about their platform. You need to sign up right now! Quick! This is a one-time deal! Aaaand… Close browser.

The truth is, most people prefer to buy from salespeople who first establish a friendly connection and then take the time to personalize their pitch to you and your needs. That’s customer-centric selling at its core.

Most e-commerce managers know customer centricity will help them grow revenue and foster customer loyalty. In fact, a Vantage Partners study suggests that companies that adopt a mature customer-centric approach realize 2.5x revenue growth compared with the average company. But in practice, many brands still end up fumbling around in the dark and not really harnessing the data to make this happen.

Here’s how top e-commerce brands use UGC about real customer challenges to inform their customer-centric strategy.

What is a customer-centric selling approach?

Customer-centric selling is a sales methodology that puts customer needs first to establish a successful, mutually beneficial relationship. Engaging in a customer-centric approach relies on empathy and nurturing a two-way dialogue with customers. It’s the approach that actually provides the best customer experience.

Customer centricity also allows brands to modify their processes, product, messaging, and sales timeline to fit customer needs. A brand that adopts a customer-centric selling strategy becomes its customers’ best problem-solving ally because it approaches customers in a way that benefits the customers.

For a successful customer-centric selling approach, salespeople (and marketers, too!) should engage prospects and customers with key behaviors. In the influential book “CustomerCentric Selling,” co-writers Michael Bosworth, John Holland, and Frank Visgatis break down those behaviors into eight basic tenets, which I’ve adapted and simplified below:

• Actively listen with curiosity — not assumptions.
• Ask curious, open-ended questions that give them the freedom to express themselves in a non-pressured environment.
• Focus on helping them overcome a challenge, solve a problem, or satisfy a need.
• Align with their values.

Here’s a great visual that defines customer centricity on four different levels of maturity:

Customer-centric vs consumer-centric

Customer-centric selling is an empathetic, inside-out approach in which all teams — R&D, product management, marketing, sales, support — seek to learn and understand what your customer’s needs truly are.

Compare this to the more traditional consumer-centric selling, which is a product-focused, outside-in approach. Rather than asking questions, consumer-centric selling seeks to make a sale by judging and assuming what the customer’s needs truly are.

The table below offers an easy way to compare the two approaches, adapted from the book “CustomerCentric Selling” and an article published in California Management Review:

A recent example of assumptions gone wrong comes from the wonderful world of Disney. Taking a consumer-centric approach to marketing Encanto, Disney assumed people would love the character of Isabela. She’s classically beautiful, has that perfect Disney princess singing voice, and so on. So, Disney made tons of Isabela merchandise.

Except… Little girls actually loved Luisa. A character whose signature muscles the film’s development team had to fight with Disney executives to keep. Following the film’s release, Disney has had to scramble to meet customer demand for Luisa merchandise.

Had Disney taken a customer-centric approach, it may have been less shocked by changing tastes and trends for women. And maybe Luisa’s beloved, fan-favorite muscles could have been helping Disney generate even more revenue.

In contrast, Blue Bottle Coffee has taken a customer-centric approach by allowing newsletter subscribers to opt out of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day marketing messages.

The company realized that many people struggle with the constant barrage of messages surrounding those holidays. So instead of assuming that their audience relates positively to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and pushing marketing on them, the company listened to what their audience wanted and took action based on that insight.

Benefits of customer centricity

A customer-centric selling approach is more successful because it’s focused on building a sustainable, trusting relationship. According to Nielsen’s 2021 Trust in Advertising Study, most people place the most trust in recommendations that come from people they know.

Sales and marketing reps obviously can’t be a friend or family member to every customer. But, they can strive to do the next best thing — “put the consumer first in every strategy, plan and execution.” In doing so, brands will earn the trust of customers and foster positive word of mouth.

The goal isn’t to become better sellers but rather “buyer facilitators,” said Chris Sargent, senior director of Global Sales Enablement at NICE inContact, during his discussion on sales training.

If employed correctly and combined with the right data-collection tools, a customer-centric selling strategy will help your brand better resonate with customers and bolster both customer success and customer support. It will target their specific needs and pain points.

Your customers will be better served because your brand will be providing a better overall value.

As a result, loyalty and trust will grow. Loyal customers will transform into full-fledged ambassadors who will help positively characterize your brand by word-of-mouth. Your entire company will better understand and empathize with its audience. This will promote more innovative product development and an elevated cycle of inspired, engaged employees.

The more engaged your employees are, the better the customer experience will be. And the better the customer’s experience is, the more customer loyalty and retention will increase — not to mention your revenue.

How brands use data to implement customer centricity

The best customer centricity strategies rely on asking the right questions and actually listening to customer responses. Traditionally, brands hired consumer psychologists to design focus groups and surveys. But this process is long and arduous, not to mention expensive.

Today, brands can utilize sophisticated software to source and use first-party data and user-generated content (UGC) in their marketing and sales efforts.

Enventys

According to Roy Morejon, President and Co-founder of Enventys Partners — a B2B product development, launch, and marketing firm — customer-centric data is often found through interactive data tracking. This involves tracking data such as the number of confirmed purchases, abandoned carts, and returns.

Brands can also collect quantitative first-party data through recurring email subscriptions, Morejon explained, by analyzing open rates and measuring how many customers click the links within the emails they received.

“Analyzing this data in comparison to other user details,” said Morejon, “such as general internet behavior, job, lifestyle, and other personal data (age, gender, etc.), provides insights that you can use to optimize customer-centric selling.”

Morejon mentioned Pardot as a specific tool to help harness this data.

“Pardot is a great feature integrated with Salesforce. This app tracks how customers move through the sales funnel, tracking purchases, abandonments, and returns. It provides data on how customers interact with digital marketing assets, such as social media ads and emails, and even offline interactions. It gathers data submitted through user forms, Salesforce, and other integrable platforms.” — Roy Morejon.

Unilever

UGC, like reviews, and questions and answers, is a common method to bolster customer centricity. Unilever set out to get more user reviews, which it then used as a marketing tool to improve revenue. In doing this, it also improved customer loyalty and satisfaction, and increased organic search traffic and engagement.

This success was facilitated by Bazaarvoice-powered sampling campaigns. Unilever saw a massive increase in customer reviews across all its brands, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. This, in turn, gave Unilever additional leveraging power.

“When we include reviews in social ads and display ads,” said Jenna Spivak Evans, Innovation and Digital Capabilities Manager at Unilever, “we see about a 20–30% improvement in performance.”

“Because UGC delivers such rich content, you can see increases in search traffic of 15–25% as a result of using customer-generated content,” said Evans. “You will also see increases in website engagement metrics such as product page views per visit, average time spent onsite, and return-visitor rate.”

Unilever also cross-referenced the people leaving reviews with the customer data it has about those people in its CRM. Doing this not only helped collect UGC and demographic data, but it helped increase personalization as well.

According to Evans, “Integration of UGC into CRM will give us deeper demographic information and provide an incremental way to understand different customers’ needs.”

For a closer look at Unilever’s path to success, check out the Bazaarvoice case study.

Kärcher

Kärcher, a global cleaning technology company, uses UGC to collect customer insights, drive conversions, and strengthen its relationships with retail partners. By monitoring customer feedback and reviews throughout the sales process, the brand was not only able to create new products customers would love, but also improve pre-existing products and set a company-wide quality standard.

“Having reviews in place just before the retailer releases our products gives consumers the confidence to try our new products right from the start,” said Kevin Wiredu, Senior E-Commerce Specialist at Kärcher. “It’s a key to our success.”

In Kärcher’s first sampling campaign, 98% of sample recipients responded with a review. The brand received hundreds of high-quality product reviews, videos, and images. Currently, it’s collected over 280K reviews across 73 retail sites.

With new valuable UGC data at its disposal, Kärcher was able to jumpstart its latest sales cycle and product launch by having numerous, high-quality reviews ready and available the moment new products went live.

Even better, leveraging UGC data helped Kärcher address some issues with product messaging. After reading some customer reviews, the brand realized that many customers didn’t understand the purpose of one of their products — or even how to use it. So, the company was able to tweak the product messaging and packaging to better communicate the product’s intended use.

This is a key example of customer-centric selling because the brand listened to customers and made relevant changes to address their needs.

You can read Bazaarvoice’s full Kärcher case study here.

Nestlé Canada

By leveraging UGC data, Nestlé Canada improved both its overall performance and its relationship with customers. The types of UGC that proved most beneficial were customer reviews and insights, customer feedback, and customer questions.

Thanks to Nestlé’s broad reach, it receives thousands of reviews on a constant basis. But all that data can be difficult to manage. So the company used Bazaarvoice Insights and Reports to make sense of the flood — and, more importantly, to inform business decisions.

Other helpful solutions Nestlé Canada leveraged were Bazaarvoice-powered focus groups and Questions & Answers. In fact, within three months of enabling Bazaarvoice Questions & Answers, Nestlé Canada received over 700 questions from its customers.

The driving force behind Nestlé Canada’s focus on reviews is that the company wants to listen to customers and solve their needs. “Consumers do the talking for us,” said Lee Beech, Director of Consumer Experience at Nestlé Canada. “They speak, and we listen and take action. ”

By leveraging all these solutions, the Nestlé sales team observed that many of its neutral product reviews contained customer questions. In response, Nestlé implemented Bazaarvoice Salesforce Connector and began devoting time each day to provide responses, enhancing customer support all from a single tool.

“It saves, on average, eight minutes to code a case,” according to Kristina Rapljenovic, Website Manager at Nestlé Canada. “We previously didn’t have the capacity and had to let go of engaging with as many of the reviews as we wanted. It would have taken eight minutes to open a case and transfer all of that content. Now, it’s all automated.”

For a more in-depth look, check out the Bazaarvoice’s Nestlé Canada case study.

KidKraft

Like Nestlé Canada and Kärcher, KidKraft uses data from UGC to make product changes. It’s been able to fine-tune its product positioning and fuel its marketing messaging due to the automated ways it can now collect customer feedback, reviews, and customer-shared product photos.

As a mark of its success, KidKraft has collected over 100,000 reviews across the Bazaarvoice Network and achieved 100% review coverage on retail sites as a result of syndication.

“We work really closely with the product development team,” said Heather Stables, the Director of Consumer Engagement at KidKraft, “to make sure that if we see consistent issues or questions being raised by consumers, we can go back and address that by making changes to the actual product.”

One example of this comes from KidKraft’s playhouses. Using Bazaarvoice Insights, KidKraft was able to quickly observe that many customers were DIYing one of the playhouses to have a white, more modern appearance. Recognizing the need, KidKraft released their own white, modern-style playhouse and saw a huge uptick in sales as a result.

Check out Bazaarvoice’s KidKraft case study to learn more.

Adeo

Adeo, a French home improvement retail company, launched a successful UGC program across all its brands. It also implemented strategies to handle fake reviews by collecting UGC data directly after a sale and including a verified purchase badge. Even more, it accessed new markets that, until recently, had low brand awareness. Its latest goal is to reach an overall customer satisfaction rating of four stars.

To begin implementing its customer-centric selling approach, Adeo began collecting UGC data such as customer reviews and ratings. Similar to Nestlé Canada, it also took into account customer questions. And like KidKraft and Kärcher, it utilized customer product photos.

UGC was particularly important to Adeo because its products are often used to complete technical projects like plumbing and electricity that require a degree of expertise. UGC helps to solve a common customer problem — confidence.

“Incorporating reviews, photos and questions by our customers on our products and services pages provides this reassurance and complements the expertise of our sellers,” said Nicolas Fillat, Marketing Business Leader, Customer Care and Feedback at Adeo.

Adeo also places a high value on reviews written in a language that customers can read. With the Bazaarvoice Translated Reviews feature, Adeo has been able to ensure both ratings and reviews are always presented in the customer’s preferred language. This way, customers benefit from reading insights from other customers.

“Bazaarvoice, with its strong global network, allows us to support our customers regardless of country or language,” said Fillat. “This has allowed us to collect, moderate, and display product reviews throughout ten group business to date.”

Check out Bazaarvoice’s Adeo case study for more info.

Wayfair

Wayfair stands out as another example of successful customer centricity. For its UGC campaigns, Wayfair encourages customers to share their design ideas using the branded hashtag #WayfairAtHome.

By measuring both demographic and UGC data, Wayfair has been able to deepen its understanding of its audience and deliver a hyper-personalized experience. It’s achieved this through analytics and predictive AI. Wayfair creates a detailed buyer persona through this AI system. This helps to show customers only the products most relevant to them. Wayfair simply has too much content not to do this.

Customer centricity isn’t just a choice for Wayfair. It’s a necessity.

“On average, we capture and store four terabytes of data every day and over the course of a year, we track approximately 40 billion customer actions on our site. Data has been democratized across the organization — it can be accessed and used regardless of whether an employee works in marketing, logistics, or engineering. Data has allowed the company to better execute on its strategy through improved personalization.” — Steven Conine, Wayfair Co-founder

By focusing on customer centricity, Wayfair has avoided the problem of customer experience becoming overwhelming and time consuming, which would certainly hurt sales metrics and decrease Wayfair’s overall revenue.

Instead, Wayfair has successfully streamlined the buyer process, thanks to its machine learning technology.

Use UGC to enable a customer-centric selling strategy

Customer centricity is a better approach to selling. To do it well, you need the right data and tools to collect it:

• Sampling campaigns
• Focus groups
• Insights and Reports solutions
• Questions & Answers
• (Translated) Ratings & Reviews
• Integrated reviews with CRMs

Now that you know how and why to put the customer first in sales, enable customers to make those sales for you by using product sampling and user-generated content. Or get in touch directly below to request a free demo.

You can check out more of our Long Read content here for more marketing strategies, tips, and insights.

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A customer satisfaction survey measures how happy or unhappy a consumer is with your brand. Plus, it’s a valuable tool to help you gain insight and information about your products and the people who buy them. 

Measuring customer satisfaction helps you create meaningful customer experiences and deepen your connection with shoppers. Most consumers feel connected to brands if they think the brand understands their needs and wants. When they feel a connection, 57% of consumers will spend more with those brands and 76% will keep purchasing from them, according to Sprout Social. 

Above all else, though, customer satisfaction surveys are also another method of collecting user-generated content (UGC), especially ratings and reviews. Brands and retailers can leverage this UGC to build authenticity, boost sales, and attract loyal shoppers. 

Below, you’ll learn:

• Ways customer satisfaction surveys can generate UGC
• Designing surveys to collect the most valuable information
• How you can leverage the survey responses. 

How customer satisfaction surveys generate UGC

When shoppers fill out a customer satisfaction survey, you’ll find out exactly what they think about the experiences you offer. Aka, what you’re doing well and what you can do better. 

These responses can be incorporated into your UGC strategy. You can post anonymous quotes from the surveys on social media or your website. You can also use the survey as an opportunity to ask shoppers to leave a review for a recent purchase in exchange for an incentive like loyalty points or coupons. 

Consumers view reviews and other UGC as authentic and trustworthy, and 78% of shoppers trust online consumer reviews, according to our 2020 Shopper Experience Index. Nearly 40% of consumers rely on product reviews most to make quick and informed shopping decisions. 

What questions to ask on a customer satisfaction survey to collect UGC 

Customer satisfaction surveys give you the best information when you ask the right questions. Here’s some examples of the right questions to ask: 

• Binary scale questions offer a choice between two answers, such as yes or no, or a thumbs up or thumbs down. Survey example questions include, “did the product meet your needs?” or “was your experience satisfying?” These types of surveys are simple, but they have some limitations. For one, you’re not able to drill down into the reasons behind why someone answered the way they did. 

• Multiple-choice questions provide at least three mutually exclusive choices and let customers choose one or multiple answers. These surveys let you ask details about the shopper, such as their occupation or why they were shopping for a specific product. 

• Scale questions ask how satisfied a customer is with a product or experience, or how likely they are to shop again. Respondents are given a scale, such as, “between one and five”, or, “strongly disagree to strongly agree”, to rank their opinions. 

• Semantic differential scales are similar to binary scale questions. The survey features two statements, and consumers can pick a point on a scale between the two that best describes their experience. 

• Open-ended questions let you collect detailed information about a customer’s experience and satisfaction levels, details like the how and the why of their sentiments. These questions can be used with other kinds of questions, like multiple choice, to gather more information. 

You can mix and match the question types within a survey. No matter what types of questions you decide to ask, keep in mind that survey fatigue is real. So, keep your customer satisfaction surveys short and concise. Ten to 20 questions is ideal, and ask only the questions that are relevant to your UGC goal. 

Best practices for designing customer satisfaction surveys for UGC 

Once you’ve decided on what questions to ask, consider the timing of the customer satisfaction surveys. Sending too many surveys will turn consumers off. Instead, send surveys soon after shoppers have interacted with your brand in some way—such as by contacting customer service or making a purchase. The experience will be fresh on consumers’ minds and they’ll provide accurate feedback.  

To encourage consumers to respond to the survey, offer something in return. A discount or free gift will incentivize them to provide honest, detailed feedback. Incentives are also a great way to encourage shoppers to leave a consumer review. 

Consumer satisfaction surveys also shouldn’t be a one-off thing. Ask for feedback regularly to build meaningful relationships with shoppers. This approach shows that their opinions are valued and that you care about delivering top-notch experiences. This will also keep fresh UGC flowing in. 

Follow up with survey respondents, too. For example, ask for more information related to a response to get a full sense of their opinions. And, be sure to address any negative feedback that comes through the survey to build trust. Keeping the survey experience positive will entice consumers to complete future surveys and continue sharing feedback with you. 

How to leverage survey feedback 

Customer satisfaction surveys provide a wealth of actionable data that you can use to improve shopper experiences. Surveys reveal a lot about shoppers, including what they’re thinking before making a purchase, why they chose your product, and any pain points along the way. It provides an opportunity to uncover any negative experiences or recurring problems that shoppers encounter. 

Measuring customer satisfaction helps you understand your customer better, so you can better meet their needs. This leads to higher brand loyalty, retention, and increased sales. Leveraging customer satisfaction surveys to generate consumer reviews extends these benefits. When shoppers engage with reviews on best-in-class sites, brands can see a 138% boost in sales conversions. Our Ratings and Reviews tools can help you get started.

Through customer satisfaction surveys, you’ll also uncover shopping trends, like what people are buying when, how consumers use your products, and any products that need improvement. The feedback might also reveal new uses for existing products or inspire ideas for new items. 

Customer satisfaction surveys and consumer reviews give shoppers a voice—and, they appreciate opportunities to share their thoughts with you. Learning and responding to consumers’ needs offers so many benefits for brands, including higher sales, loyal shoppers, and trusting relationships with consumers.

This means the digital e-commerce experience is more important than ever when attracting customers and building brand loyalty. Continuing to ramp up digital efforts, like site functionality, ordering capabilities, customer service, and fulfilment speed, will help brands and retailers stay on top well after the pandemic has passed.

What are shopping bots?

Many brands and retailers have turned to shopping bots to enhance various stages of the customer journey. Sadly, a shopping bot isn’t a robot you can send out to do your shopping for you. Maybe one day. But for now, a shopping bot is an artificial intelligence (AI) that completes specific tasks. Still pretty neat. And highly, highly effective.

One of the most famous examples is chatbots that answer customer questions or help you book services on websites and social media. You’ve probably seen these before, somewhere like Amazon or Festicket. Other shopping bots recommend products to shoppers or help them find the best discounts across the web. 

Customers today are conditioned to expect things fast, especially with brands like Target and Amazon offering same-day or two-day delivery. Our 2020 Shopper Experience Index found that when customers ask brands a question via social media, 29% of customers expect the brand to respond within one hour, and 24% expect a response within 24 hours. 

Shopping bots can help you meet consumer expectations in the digital age and be one of your most reliable “employees.” You won’t have to wait for the workday to start to answer a customer’s 3am email, and you won’t need to find someone to cover a shift because shopping bots don’t take PTO. They’re always available to provide top-notch, instant customer service. 

Of course, you’ll still need real humans on your team to field more difficult customer requests or to provide more personalized interaction. We’re not quite at I, Robot yet. Still, shopping bots can automate some of the more time-consuming, repetitive jobs.

The best shopping bots on the market

Below, we’ve rounded up the top five shopping bots that we think are helping brands best automate e-commerce tasks, and provide a great customer experience. 

1. Shopify Messenger

Shopify Messenger is a pretty well-known bot in e-commerce. This bot aspires to make the customer’s shopping journey easier and faster. Shoppers can browse a brand’s products, get product recommendations, ask questions, make purchases and checkout, and get automatic shipping updates all through Facebook Messenger. They don’t ever have to leave the app. 

This is important because the future of e-commerce is on social media. 97% of shoppers worldwide say they’ve made a purchase on social media, and 89% of companies are either currently utilizing social commerce or planning to do so within the next two years.

Brands can also use Shopify Messenger to nudge stagnant consumers through the customer journey. Using the bot, brands can send shoppers abandoned shopping cart reminders via Facebook. In fact, Shopify says that one of their clients, Pure Cycles, increased online revenue by 14% using abandoned cart messages in Messenger.

2. Kik Bot Shop

Kik Bot Shop allows brands to customize what kind of bot they want to use to interact with their specific audience. For example, Sephora’s Kik Bot sends users beauty videos and tutorials, and then helps shoppers find the products used in those tutorials on Sephora.com. Their bot will also send product ratings and reviews to in-store shoppers curious about a new product. Any brand can create its own unique bot with minimal development experience, making it especially beneficial to the startup scene

3. MobileMonkey

SMS marketing is in massive resurgence. How many brands or retailers have asked you to opt-in to SMS messaging lately? About 75% of consumers are comfortable receiving SMS messages from brands as long as they opt-in to messaging themselves, and 59% of people would like to communicate via programs already built into their phones, rather than downloading multiple apps. 

MobileMonkey offers brands a quick and easy way to communicate with their shoppers via text message. Merchants can view all SMS conversations with customers in one place, create keyword-based opt-in for text message subscribers, send text message blasts to SMS contacts, and view SMS leads’ customer profiles.

4. Cybersole 

Limited edition drops are becoming way more popular today. This is especially true for sneaker brands. Cybersole is a bot that helps sneakerheads quickly snag the latest limited edition shoes before they sell out at over 270+ retailers. The customer can create tasks for the bot and never have to worry about missing out on new kicks again. No more pitching a tent and camping outside a physical store at 3am.

The app is equipped with captcha solvers and a restock mode that will automatically wait for sneaker restocks. We wouldn’t be surprised if similar apps started popping up for other industries that do limited-edition drops, like clothing and cosmetics. 

5. NexC

NexC is basically a personal shopper. A shopper tells the bot what kind of product they’re looking for, and NexC quickly uses AI to scan the internet and find matches for the person’s request. Then, the bot narrows down all the matches to the top three best picks. They’ll send those three choices to the customer along with pros and cons, ratings and reviews, and corresponding articles. 

Apps like NexC go beyond the chatbot experience and allow customers to discover new brands and find new ways to use products from ratings, reviews, and articles. 

Get ahead with automation

Automation tools like shopping bots will future proof your business — especially important during these tough economic times. Customers want a faster, more convenient shopping experience today. They want their questions answered quickly, they want personalized product recommendations, and once they purchase, they want to know when their products will arrive. 

E-commerce bots can help today’s brands and retailers accomplish those tasks quickly and easily, all while freeing up the rest of your staff to focus on other areas of your business. The brands that use the latest technology to automate tasks and improve the customer experience are the ones that will succeed in a world that continues to prefer online shopping. Simple as that! Learn more about automation tools here.

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