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Learn From Your Customers - Trustpilot Blog

Reviews - Learn From Your Customers

Woman with glasses looking straight ahead

Nuestro análisis es una interpretación del comportamiento humano para entender mejor la experiencia de los consumidores. Aprende a usar este feedback para conocer mejor a tus clientes, satisfacer sus necesidades y aumentar tus ingresos.

Listening empowers you to learn from and talk to your customers in order to create ever-improving experiences.

Businesses with quality data are more likely to collect actionable customer insights, which can help them grow their bottoms line in the long run.

## So what are consumer insights, exactly?

A consumer insight is an interpretation used by businesses to gain a deeper understanding of how their audience thinks and feels. Analysing human behaviours allows companies to really understand what their consumers want and need, and most importantly, why they feel this way. 

When consumer insight research is conducted properly, it should improve the effectiveness of how a company communicates to its customers, which is likely to change consumer behaviour, and therefore increase sales.

But [collecting good consumer insights can be challenging](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/introducing-trustpilots-new-machine-learning-tool-review-insights), so here is what you need in order to collect and use consumer insights properly:

__1. Good data quality__

Data quality is vital to the collection of consumer insights. Without high-quality data, your conclusions or results might suffer.

__2. A dedicated analytics team__

The role of your data analytics team is essential in order to understand how your customers think and behave. If you don’t have the right analytics team, it’s hard to understand what the data is telling you.

__3. Consumer research__

It’s important to understand and acknowledge consumer behaviour and consumer insights should help you engage with customers emotionally. In order to do that, [it’s essential not to ignore the results of your consumer research](https://uk.business.trustpilot.com/reviews/how-staysure-uses-the-power-of-ai-to-build-customer-trust), whether you agree with them or not.

__4. Database and segment marketing__

Database marketing is a form of marketing using databases of customers to generate personalised communi cations. These databases can lead to personas, different sets of audiences or segments. As consumer insights remain theoretical, database marketing is another essential element to your research when it comes to testing and learning. Indeed, test actions are necessary if you want to turn insights into facts.

## But what’s the difference between market research and consumer insights?

__Market research__ can be defined as an effort to gather information about customers or markets. It provides information about market needs, market sizes, competitors and customers. It is the “what” of customers and markets. 

Market research delivers statistics and knowledge. 

__Consumer insights__ deliver the same, but tend to come with recommended actions that will help you amplify the company’s growth. This means the team in charge of consumer insights will deliver both data and narrative, allowing you to make use of the data.

Long story short, research tells us what is happening, whereas consumer insights tell us why it’s happening, and will allow us to make changes to our business in order to improve customer satisfaction, customer retention, and increase our bottom bottom line.

If you’re still unsure how you should be using these insights to influence your business and better engage customers, we’ve got you covered.

## Using consumer insights to amplify your marketing efforts

__Consumer insights help analyse the competition__
Whether or not you are the market leader in your industry, looking at how consumers talk about products and services in your industry can reveal a lot about consumers’ needs, and what you can implement to improve your own product, service, or business. 

Being aware of consumers’ conversations when it comes to other products can be extremely valuable, regardless of whether or not they mention or are aware of your business.

### Consumer insights help improve the customer journey


The customer journey’s 5 different stages: awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy. Mapping your customer journey will help you understand your customer’s experience and should highlight any gaps you may have.

The customer journey’s 5 different stages: awareness, consideration, purchase, retention and advocacy.

Consumer insights can also help companies map their customer journey and identify any gaps where there might be some, as well as find what works best, and what can be improved for a better user experience and customer journey, from awareness to purchase and advocacy.

Forbes covered [a great example](https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2017/12/15/leveraging-customer-data-to-create-relevant-customer-experiences-2-examples/#731b07d961d3) of how consumer insights was used. Wayfair, a multi-billion dollar online home goods retailer conducted consumer research and analysed their data, and realised they needed to improve their overall customer experience. So they built an app that lets users take pictures of items they see and like giving the information needed so Wayfair can offer recommendations.

Not only did this research allow the business to improve customer experience, but the app now also provides the company with new insights into customers’ styles and needs. As a result, Wayfair saw a 50% increase in customer retention the year the app came out.

### Consumer insights help personalise your marketing

Mass marketing is a strategy in which a company decides to ignore targeted marketing and speak to a whole market instead. The example below illustrates mass marketing perfectly.

An example of mass marketing advertising: toothpaste advert

An example of mass marketing advertising

Today, companies offering a service or product used by many still tend to use mass marketing, like this toothpaste advert. Indeed, by definition of mass marketing advertising, mass-market products do not necessarily need to personalise their communications in order to sell more. 

But in a world where competition is so tough, personalisation has become a necessity for many retail brands out there. Targeted and personalised help communicate a better, clearer message, and therefore attract and retain customers.

That’s why consumer insights can help businesses understand why people buy certain products over other ones and what’s driving those preferences. 

This can help you refine your personas, and determine the best way to speak to your different audience segments. Here are a couple of examples of personalised marketing.


Very personalised website homepage

An example of personalisation

*Very* uses personalised messaging based on sign-in information and seasonal weather data to make a more intimate connection with the site visitor.

Spotify billboard displaying social proof and personalised content

Spotify’s new billboard campaign uses internal consumer data to create unique singular stories that highlighted how personal listening to music can be.

Netflix's personalised homepage

Netflix, on the other-hand, uses algorithms based on previous viewing behaviour in order to recommend the right kind of content to viewers.

Whether it’s with algorithms, internal data, or a mixture of internal and external data, consumer insights help refine the way you communicate to your customers - these brands all use consumer insights to better understand their audience and personalise their marketing and offerings.

Insights are essential to learn about and understand your audience better, as well as find deeper, more actionable insights to improve the way you market your business. 

There are many ways you can use insights to boost your company’s bottom line - so we’ve put this list of steps together to get you started!

### Getting started with consumer insights

- Establish what you want to learn: before conducting research, make sure you know what (and how) you’ll get your data. 
- Identify your resources: How will you obtain data, who’s going to collect it, who’s going to analyse it? Make sure you have enough time and employees dedicated to getting and using your consumer insights.
- What’s your collection method?: How you’ll collect data is extremely important. Are you targeting a specific audience? Existing consumers? Will you use a survey? A focus group? These are important questions. Trustpilot's Review Insights tool is a great way to get started.
- How will you use the data? Make sure your efforts are not going to waste. It’s important to plan and think ahead. Once you have the data, start thinking about what departments, processes, strategies, and initiatives might be affected and what the plan is for that.

Lastly, get started! Obtaining consumer insights is hard work but can pay off in the long run. Find out how Trustpilot reviews can help you collect great insights, learn about Trustpilot's [Review Insights tool here](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/introducing-trustpilots-new-machine-learning-tool-review-insights), or create a free Trustpilot account today to get started.


¿Qué puede ofrecerte el feedback de tus clientes y cómo puedes utilizarlo?  

Use the insights in your customer reviews to better your business

Use the insights in your reviews to better your business

Review Insights usa la inteligencia artificial para ayudarte a descubrir información procesable con la que tomar mejores decisiones comerciales y brindar una experiencia perfecta a tus clientes.

Some companies believe that with so many different customers, it’s impossible to please all of them — and pointless to try. When it comes to [customer experience](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/the-role-of-customer-experience-in-outperforming-industry-peers "The role of customer experience in outperforming industry peers"),  neither of these extremes are true. 

You’ll never be able to please every single customer, but if there are areas where the majority of your customers are unhappy then you should be listening. And if there are areas where the majority of your customers love what you’re doing, you should make sure to lean into that and keep it as a focus for your brand. 

Think of your customer reviews as a wealth of [consumer insights](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/what-are-consumer-insights-and-how-do-i-use-them "What are consumer insights and how do I use them? An introduction") that hold the key to success for your business. But the more reviews you have, the harder it can be to try and guide your decisions with such a vast amount of – often conflicting – data. 

That’s why our team developed a tool called [Review Insights](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/review-insights "Review Insights") — so businesses like yours can easily uncover the consumer insights trends within your Trustpilot reviews. No heavy lifting required! 

## Consumer insights answer questions before you ask them 

Terms like data and insights might seem vague, which can make it hard to relate them to your brand. 

Having website or checkout issues during large volume shopping periods? New trends in your reviews could help you be aware of these as soon as possible so you can get back up and running and minimize any lost revenue. 

Relying on a lot of customer service reps or sales reps? By adding tags to your reviews it can automatically tie each review to an individual rep, so you can spot trends within feedback around each of them to understand where training is needed and how well they’re each performing. 

Struggling to get pricing just right? In depth insights into how your customers are mentioning pricing in their reviews could help you understand if you could raise your prices a little for a better bottom line, or lower them a little so you can appeal to more customers, grow your customer base, and stop losing potential customers to prices that may be a little unrealistic. 

There are so many ways that trends in customer reviews have [helped companies improve their businesses](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/7-ways-reviews-can-provide-actionable-consumer-insights-and-better-roi "7 ways reviews can provide actionable consumer insights and better ROI for your business"), and the list is constantly growing. 

## Go deeper than a simple star rating 
When you use Review Insights, our AI is automatically sifting through all of your reviews. It easily spots all of the trends in them that might help you improve your business. You’ll even receive a monthly consumer insights report that simplifies these trends, easily guiding decisions in different areas of your product, customer experience, and more. 

Trends in customer reviews

Looking at reviews in terms of star ratings can only get you so far. Often 4-star reviews will be mostly positive but contain one or two negative comments. These negative comments show you the areas where your business came up just a little short of delighting your customer. 

### Insights can change your customers from satisfied to ecstatic

The negative comments in otherwise great reviews are a gold mine for you in terms of knowing what you need to do to turn your satisfied customers into ecstatic customers. But going through these reviews manually to do this exercise would be an absolute nightmare. 

Review Insights can detect many different sentiments in each review, and it knows whether each is positive or negative. It’s smart enough to understand that there are positive sentiments in negative reviews, and vice versa. 

Once the tool pinpoints the negative sentiments in your 4-star reviews, you’ll easily see where you’re coming up short and what you need to do to turn those 4-star reviews into 5-star reviews. This means more customers raving about your business and influencing those around them to try out your brand. 

## A look into your business from the most important angles, at any given time

Depending on the nature of your business, some terms will come up in reviews more frequently than others. 

Looking at different common terms in your reviews

Whether it’s your shipping and delivery, pricing, or something more specific to your business Review Insights gives you a snapshot into exactly how each different aspect of your business is performing, at any given moment. It also shows you how they change over time. Watching these terms month over month gives you a quick snapshot into areas of your business that are improving and areas that are declining. 

This helps you spot problem areas that you need to be focusing on. With Review Insights quickly identifying potential issues for you, you're able to handle and correct them before the problem gets any larger.  

### Be alerted as new trends emerge 
The thing about review data is that it’s constantly changing. As your business changes, your reviews change with it. This is why it’s so important to keep monitoring these trends, instead of just checking how your brand is doing here and there. 

This allows you to stop negative trends as they’re happening, instead of finding out about them after you’ve potentially lost business. 

Watch as new trends in your reviews emerge

Fortunately, Review Insights does this for you. On top of monthly consumer insights reports, you’ll also receive detailed reports as new trends emerge within your reviews. This allows you to adjust your business operations to keep your customers as happy as possible. 

## The data is already at your fingertips. Tap into it with Review Insights 
Using reviews as a way to engage with your customers is excellent for your customer experience, especially with customers that are unhappy. But fixing the larger trends behind why many of your customers are unhappy removes the problems before they even begin. 

With [Review Insights ](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/review-insights "Review Insights Product Features")you can better understand your customers, so you can give them exactly what they want and keep them coming back for life. 

Ready to get started with Trustpilot? [Creating an account is free](https://business.trustpilot.com/signup?cta=free-signup_header_home "Create your free account") — and our experts are [just a call away](https://business.trustpilot.com/request-demo "Request a demo") if you’d like more information.

Review Insights: Usa la valiosa información que contienen tus reseñas para mejorar tu negocio

7 ways reviews can provide actionable consumer insights and better ROI for your business

Analiza el nivel de satisfacción de tus clientes. Conseguirás valiosa información para situarlos en el centro de tu empresa. Descubre cómo puede ayudarte Trustpilot a mejorar la experiencia de compra de tus clientes.

Monitoring changes in your star rating can help you stay on top of how your customers are feeling and make sure you’re giving them the best experience possible. 

But when it comes to making sure your customers are happy, is your job ever really finished? Even the smallest changes to how you operate and communicate with your customers can translate into pretty large boosts in customer satisfaction, resulting in more loyal customers and better ROI for you. 

Your customer reviews contain [powerful consumer insights](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/what-are-consumer-insights-and-how-do-i-use-them "What are consumer insights and how do I use them?"), and tapping into them can [shed light](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/increasing-loyalty-by-using-customer-feedback-insights-from-trustpilots "Identifying areas for development with consumer insights") on changes you can make to ensure a better experience for all of your customers going forward. 

Some of them – like shipping issues – might seem obvious, but there are also some surprising ways we’ve seen businesses tap into the goldmine of insights within their reviews to improve their operations — and their ROI.  

## Top 7 ways businesses can improve by using the trends in their reviews

### 1. Finding the pricing sweet spot

Many larger brands pour money into consulting on their pricing strategies and struggle to find the perfect balance between making a profit and keeping customers coming back. If you’re a smaller brand, this might not even be an option for you. Whichever you are, the insights in your reviews can really help you here.

If you search your reviews for terms like pricing and overpriced and you’re seeing a lot of negative reviews then it’s definitely worth looking into. Lowering prices on some of your products might feel like it will mean less revenue for your company, but if enough of your customers are taking the time to complain about your pricing they probably won’t be shopping with you again. 

This negative feedback online could also be deterring new customers from shopping with you. We can’t tell you what’s right for your business, but lower prices could mean more return customers as well as more new customers. 

### 2. Effectively managing shipping expectations  
This one might seem a little obvious, but filtering your customer reviews to look at the ones containing terms like shipping and delivery can shed a lot of light on your current shipping practices. For some customers shipping will always need to be as quick as possible, but often the underlying issue here is a breakdown in communication. 

ES Customer review quick shopping

ES quick shipping

If you have a large amount of customers writing negative reviews containing these terms, adjusting the shipping policies on your site or putting them in a more prominent location might help ensure that customers have better expectations of when they’ll receive their orders. 

This will lead to a lot less annoyance on their end and fewer negative reviews for you. 

### 3. Identifying website issues 

Having an issue on your site – even if it’s only live for a few hours – can really impact your bottom line if customers are getting frustrated and give up on their purchase. This is especially true during busy periods like the holidays or black friday. And if there are issues, you can rest assured that frustrated customers will likely be talking about it in their reviews. 

We’ve noticed that many successful businesses closely monitor their reviews during these high volume periods so that they can make adjustments in real-time and fix bugs as soon as possible. A [better onsite experience](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/how-to-improve-customer-experience-on-your-website "7 ways to improve customer experience on your website") means happier customers and [higher sales ](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/browsers-to-buyers/how-great-sites-convert-visitors-to-customers "How great sites convert visitors to customers")all at once, so identifying and quickly fixing these issues is key. 

### 4. Improving and recognizing your workforce  
Does your business rely on a lot of customer facing sales or service reps? Some review providers make it [easy to add tags](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/review-tagging "Review tagging") to your reviews to automatically track which salesperson or service rep assisted that reviewer.  This can give you unbiased insight into how your different reps are doing. Once you have that insight, it’s easy to level up your workforce. 

If you have employees consistently getting negative reviews, you can schedule training for them to help them improve. And by highlighting employees who consistently receive rave reviews, you can improve their morale or even gamify their performance with a leaderboard for your team, encouraging better performance from everyone.

### 5. Overcoming sizing challenges

This one is very common — and extremely important. With many brands serving multiple countries all with different sizing systems, communicating size conversions is a struggle many clothing brands face. Fortunately, with clearer communication, it can be easy to fix. 

ES customer review sizing

ES customer sizing 

If you’re getting a lot of negative reviews that include terms like size and fit, you might want to update the language – and make sure it’s hard to miss – on your site to note that certain products run smaller or larger. 

Including sizing guides can be really helpful as well. Clearer communication around sizing shows customers what to expect, and can improve your customer satisfaction while minimizing returns. 

### 6. Managing third-party support ticket vendors 

Many businesses use third-party vendors for submitting support tickets on their site and this can mean that a big portion of your customer experience is somewhat out of your hands. Outsourcing support is largely a great thing, but having limited control over the support experience can be scary for conscientious brands. 

Monitoring your customer reviews is a great way to easily spot any issues in your support ticketing process. By searching your reviews for terms like ticket and support you can identify how often these issues are occurring and figure out whether it makes sense to keep working with that specific vendor. 

### 7. Putting customer service first 

Customer service is often the biggest thing that customers will either love or hate about a brand. Because of this, it’s extremely important to keep an eye on how your customers feel about yours at all times. 

Reviews make this [incredibly easy](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/3-ways-reviews-can-help-you-deliver-excellent-customer-service "3 ways reviews can help you deliver excellent customer service"). Not only do they help you get a general idea of how you’re doing, because customer service can elicit such an emotional reaction – whether positive [or negative](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/how-to-respond-to-negative-reviews "How to respond to negative reviews") – reviewers often detail exactly what happened. This helps you know exactly what kinds of experiences your customers are having, and how to improve those experiences in the future. 

## Let Review Insights be your roadmap to better business results

To sum it up, there are a lot of valuable insights hiding in your customer reviews. But for some businesses, monitoring all of these things at once can feel overwhelming. 

Our [Review Insights](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/review-insights "Review Insights") tool can help by doing most of the heavy lifting for you. Instead of digging around for patterns and trends in your reviews, it will automatically uncover problems and [areas of improvement for you](https://business.trustpilot.com/customer-stories/ecommerce/lovebook-reveals-how-review-insights-bring-them-closer-to-their-customers "LoveBook reveals how Review Insights bring them closer to their customers"). It’s constantly working in the background to help you improve your business for your customers and it delivers your insights to you in easily digestible dashboards and reports. 

Ready to get started with Trustpilot? [Creating an account](https://business.trustpilot.com/signup?cta=free-signup_header_home "Create your free account") is free — and our experts are [just a call away](https://business.trustpilot.com/request-demo "Request a demo") if you’d like more information. 

7 formas de recibir comentarios útiles de tus clientes para mejorar el ROI de tu empresa

Empowering your eCommerce business with customer insights 

Listening empowers you to learn from your customers, allowing you to create experiences that will deliver better business outcomes. Brands with access to quality data are more likely to capture insights that will make the difference they’re after.

The average consumer faces an insane amount of choice when shopping online – it’s a channel that has rocketed towards the stratosphere in the last few years.

Now, eCommerce businesses are in a constant fight for patronage. Competitors are only a click away, ads are running across every channel… 

The differentiator for businesses that want to maintain a lasting edge? Listening.

Listening empowers you to learn from and talk to your customers, allowing you to create a consistently-improving experience that will deliver business outcomes. 

But not all listening is made equal; eCommerce businesses with access to quality data are [more likely to capture actionable customer insights](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/introducing-trustpilots-new-machine-learning-tool-review-insights) that will make the tangible difference they’re after.

## What exactly are consumer insights?

A consumer insight is an interpretation, used by a business, to gain a better understanding of how their customers think and feel. This goes beyond simply what a consumer might be looking for from an online shopping experience, and includes their buying motivations and feelings about the experience.

When conducted properly, consumer insight should also improve the effectiveness of how an online business communicates to its customers — changing behaviours, driving loyalty and increasing the bottom line. 

But collecting these insights is where the challenge lies. There are four clear fundamentals you need for collecting and utilising customer insights properly: 

__1. Good quality data__

Bad data kills insights before they even get started. Data needs to be high-quality, accurate and timely, otherwise you risk being misled in your conclusions. 

__2. A dedicated analytics team__

Analytics already plays a crucial role within eCommerce; the beauty of the online experience being that any specific details can be captured and analysed. That same approach should be taken with customer insight data – expert teams will give you expert insight. 

__3. Consumer research__

A staple of brick and mortar storefronts that is now just as applicable to online ones, consumer research gets you below behaviour and into the driving layers of customer emotion. [Crucially, you need to adhere to these results, whether they are positive or negative](https://business.trustpilot.com/customer-stories/finance-insurance/how-staysure-uses-the-power-of-ai-to-build-customer-trust). 

__4. Database and segment marketing__

Database marketing uses databases of customers, with the goal of sending them personalised communications. With smart enough technology, these databases can be broken down into audience personas. Testing theoretical customer insight via database marketing is the only way to truly know if you have improved your digital storefront or not. It’s how you turn insight into facts. 

## But wait – what’s the difference between market research & consumer insight? 

Often confused, there are clear differentiators between these two disciplines. Both have a part to play for successful online commerce ventures, but you first need clarity on what they are and what they do. 

Market research focused on gathering information about a wider market and the customers within it. It’s the ‘what’ of customers and markets, focused on stats, knowledge and benchmarking. 

Customer insight on the other hand, is one layer deeper, the ‘why’ which looks at the reasons behind what is happening. This added data can tell an eCommerce business both what it needs to change and why it’s important, and can often be used for specific goals like improving customer retention or CSAT metrics. 

So, how do we turn these insights into tangible business and customer benefits? 

### 1. Analyze the wider competition

Better the enemy you know. eCommerce is a razor-sharp business model with a lot of competition, so who better to (steal) learn from? Analysing your customers’ discussions around other businesses, products and services can help you to improve your own offerings – and steal a march on the competition. 

### 2. Improve the customer journey

Consumer insights can provide a beacon to light up customer journeys, especially through a website. From awareness to purchase through to advocacy, insights can show you where customer journeys are thriving – or lacking. 

One eCommerce example [covered by Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2017/12/15/leveraging-customer-data-to-create-relevant-customer-experiences-2-examples/?sh=2eb1e21f61d3) looks at Wayfair, a multi-billion dollar online home goods store. After analysing their insights, Wayfair realised that the customer experience was lacking on their site. To combat this, they built an app, allowing customers to upload pictures of items they like and receive Wayfair recommendations based on them. 

The result? Happier customers getting personalised recommendations and a happy business, which saw a 50% increase in customer retention. 

### 3. Personalize your marketing 

Mass marketing – there’s a reason it’s been around as long as it has: it works. 

But as we shop via eCommerce more and more, it can be hard to break through the noise. And a major trend that is allowing online businesses to do just that, is hyper-personalisation. Customers like to be seen more as people than consumers, and so personalised messaging, deals and recommendations helps attract and retain them. From Spotify’s end of year personal ‘Wrapped’ playlist through to supermarket loyalty cards giving you discounts on your most common purchases, hyper-personalization has become a major marketing force.

Again consumer insights can fuel this personalisation, allowing you to see what people are buying and why. You can then start to segment your audience for clearer, bespoke marketing that appeals to them. From Spotify’s billboards based on listener data through to Netflix’s consistently learning algorithm, personalisation based on insight is powering some of the biggest brands. 

## Getting started with consumer insight 

There are many more ways that insights can make a significant impact for online businesses, but oftentimes it can be tough to know where to start. You’re in luck: we’ve put together the following four-step plan for taking advantage of this powerful business strategy. 

- *Establish your goals*: What do you want to learn? Before research, ensure you have a goal for what you want to know – and how to get it.
- *Identify your resources*: Ready to get stuck into insight? Make sure that you have allocated the internal or external resources for this. Time and resources are going to be needed to obtain, sort and analyse the data. 
- *Sort a collection strategy*: How are you going to get the data? This is extremely important. Is it from a specific audience? Existing customers? Via a survey/interviews/focus group? Our Review Insights Tool is a great way to approach this step. 
- *Set data goals*: How will you use the data? Insight gathered and shelved is a travesty; so plan ahead on how you’re going to use it. Once the data is in, you want a clear plan about what aspects of your online business and its strategies it is going to inform. 

Finally – just get stuck in! Obtaining consumer insights can be a tricky job to tackle, but the payoffs are immense. Find out how Trustpilot reviews can help you collect great insights, learn about Trustpilot's [Review Insights tool here](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/introducing-trustpilots-new-machine-learning-tool-review-insights), or create a free Trustpilot account today to get started.

Empowering your eCommerce business with customer insights

Why the finance industry needs to pay attention to consumer insights

If you’re in financial services, the simple act of listening to your customers has never been so crucial as it is now. In this article, we discuss why the finance industry needs to pay more attention to consumer insights.

According to a survey commissioned by Trustpilot, consumers are [50% more likely](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/build-trusted-brand/building-trust-in-financial-services) to say that their level of trust in financial services providers has decreased (rather than increased) over the last 3 years. 

This is hugely important because when you’re [dealing in finance](https://business.trustpilot.com/industries/finance), you’re likely dealing in relationships. Your customers aren’t buying a pack of gum. They’re entering into what could be a multi-year partnership with your company. 

So with a trend of rising distrust, you can bet that more and more people are doing their due diligence before choosing a company to handle their money — which brings us back to the importance of listening to your customer. How well you listen determines how well you can actually communicate to your audience, build ever-improving experiences, and ultimately improve your bottom line.

And that all starts with capturing consumer insights.

## What are consumer insights, again?

Consumer insights are actionable interpretations of human behaviour that are used to gain a deeper understanding of how an audience thinks and feels. Analysing these insights helps companies understand the motivations, desires, and feelings of the people they want to engage with, all so they can serve them more effectively.

__In short: if you want to meet your customers where they really are, you first have to know where that is.__

When it’s done right, the application of consumer insights can change how you communicate (and resonate) with your clients, increasing sales and customer satisfaction.

Collecting consumer insights can be tricky — here are a few things you’ll need:

__1. Good data quality__

- It all starts with collecting solid data. Without high-quality data, your conclusions or results will likely suffer.

__2. A dedicated analytics team__

- Oftentimes, the most valuable insights aren’t exactly obvious from glancing at a datasheet. You’ll want a dedicated data analytics team to extract the stories out of the data you’ve collected. 

__3. An open mind__

- Gathering and analysing information on consumer behaviour is one thing. But actually acknowledging the sometimes-inconvenient truths that your data is showing you? That’s another. 
- It’s essential to carefully consider the results of your consumer research, whether you agree with them or not.

__4. Database and segment marketing__

- Database marketing uses databases of customers to generate personalised communications. If they are purposefully crafted, these databases represent specific personas, audience segments, regions and more. 
- These kinds of groups are essential to test the authenticity of your consumer insights across different strata. That kind of multifaceted testing can confirm your hypotheses as facts.

## How do consumer insights differ from market research?

These two terms are easily confused, but are markedly distinct. 

__1. Market research__

For starters, market research is an effort to gather information surrounding a given market. That means recording metrics like market needs, market sizes, competitor presence, market rates, service pricing, and more. 

__2. Consumer insights__

If market research tells us *what* is happening, consumer insights tell us why it’s happening. The team providing these insights will offer a narrative around the data with the goal of making actionable recommendations towards typically lofty goals like improving CSAT metrics, increasing customer retention, and generating more revenue. 

And *it works*. 

Here are a few ways financial institutions can use consumer insights to better attract and engage with customers.

## 3 Ways you can turn consumer insights into tangible benefits

### 1. Analyse the competition

Because financial services companies don’t vary wildly when it comes to rates, the company that can best listen to consumers (and utilise that information) usually ends up serving customers the most effectively. That can also mean listening to what customers are saying about your competitors’ services and considering that information as you improve your own. 

### 2. Improve the customer journey

Another way consumer insights can amp up your consumer experience is by revealing specific opportunities to better your customer journey. 

Take the [example of Wayfair](https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2017/12/15/leveraging-customer-data-to-create-relevant-customer-experiences-2-examples/#731b07d961d3), a leading online home goods retailer. After analysing consumer research, they realised their customer journey had some sizable gaps - so they built an app for recommending products based on user interests. Not only did that insight-driven pivot lead to a 50% increase in customer retention for that year, the app now also provides the company with new insights into customers’ styles and needs. 

### 3. Personalise your marketing

Especially when it comes to the financial industry, marketing to “an average consumer” isn’t the best way to make people feel seen. When their money's on the line, consumers tend to appreciate a more personal, more cared-for approach. That’s where hyper-personalised marketing can come into play and help them feel like your company is truly speaking to them as individuals.

Consumer insights can help you develop your understanding of your audience to the point where you can make your marketing truly personalised.

## Next steps

__1. Establish what you want to learn__

- Before conducting research, make sure you know what (and how) you’ll get your data.

__2. Identify your resources__ 

- How will you obtain data, who’s going to collect it, who’s going to analyse it? Make sure you have enough time and employees dedicated to getting and using your consumer insights.

__3. Decide your collection method__ 

- How you’ll collect data is extremely important. Are you targeting a specific audience? Existing consumers? Will you use a survey? A focus group? These are important questions. Trustpilot's Review Insights tool is a great way to get started.

__4. How will you use the data?__ 

- Make sure your efforts are not going to waste. It’s important to plan and think ahead. Once you have the data, start thinking about what departments, processes, strategies, and initiatives might be affected and what the plan is for that.

*Lastly, get started!* It can be a challenging process to build up a stable of customer insights, but it can massively pay off in the long run. 

Find out how Trustpilot reviews can help you collect great insights, learn about Trustpilot's [Review Insights tool here](https://business.trustpilot.com/features/review-insights), or create a free Trustpilot account today to start collecting reviews.

Why consumer insights are now crucial to the finance industry

Consumer insights are an interpretation of human behaviour used by businesses to gain a deeper understanding of how their audience thinks and feels. Learn how to use them to better understand your customers, meet their needs, and grow revenue.

What are consumer insights and how do I use them? An introduction

Untitled Artwork 45 (1)

What type of metrics measure customer success

We all know customer satisfaction is important, but with many different variables it can be tricky to measure. Learn some of the different metrics to monitor and work on for an improved customer experience.

These are more long term questions, but customer satisfaction levels are also constantly changing, so brands need to keep an eye on them in the short term as well. If levels dip, action needs to be taken immediately to prevent further decline. If they rise, figuring out what changed and replicating it across your business can lead to even more success. 

And even if your customer satisfaction has long been in decline, it’s never too late to try and create a better experience for your customers — the kind that will help you gain more loyal customers and see more success in the long run.

Measuring customer satisfaction can feel a little intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be. And it’s okay if there are some areas where you’re falling short. But if your customers are unhappy it’s much better to understand why and resolve the issues than to keep your head in the sand and hope the problems magically disappear. 

So, where to start? There are a few important customer satisfaction metrics to help you understand how you’re doing already and find areas for improvement. Even a tiny improvement in the following focus areas can mean a better experience for your customers, and a better bottom line for your business.

## Customer satisfaction metrics to guide your business
Depending on your business, some of these will probably make more sense for you than others. You don’t necessarily need to focus on all of them, but committing to monitoring a few of them can bring you great results for your business. The more of them that you can focus on, the more your customer satisfaction will likely improve. 

### Customer retention and churn rates – do they stay or do they go? 
[Customer retention](https://www.salesforce.com/eu/learning-centre/customer-service/customer-retention/#:~:text=To%20calculate%20your%20customer%20retention,E%2DN) looks at which of your customers stay with your business over any given period of time. You can figure out how to calculate yours [here](https://blog.totango.com/2021/03/how-to-calculate-and-improve-your-customer-retention-rate/ "How to calculate and improve your customer retention rate"). 

Because acquiring new customers is generally more expensive than retaining your current customers, customer retention rates can have a huge impact on your bottom line in both the long and short term. 

There are a few different [strategies for boosting customer retention](https://www.shopify.com/blog/customer-retention-strategies "What is customer retention? 5 strategies to keep customers"). Starting a customer loyalty program can be an excellent way to incentivize customers to keep spending with your brand and so can offering a discount towards their next purchase at the end of their transaction. Better email engagement programs and win back campaigns sent to customers who have already moved on can help as well. 

### Repeat purchase rate
To figure out your repeat purchase rate,simply divide your total number of customers by your return customers. This is an excellent way to measure customer satisfaction because if you have a large number of customers returning that indicates that your customers are happy enough with your product or service to keep coming back. The numbers speak for themselves.

Unless you’re selling something where people truly only need one or can use the same product for a long period of time, a low repeat purchase rate is typically a bad sign for your business. It means it’s time to ask why your customers aren’t coming back. 

If you’re suffering from a lower repeat purchase rate, there are plenty of [ways to help improve it](https://blog.smile.io/how-to-calculate-purchase-frequency/ "How to calculate purchase frequency and how to improve it"). And even if yours is doing pretty well, any improvements to this will still translate into large financial gains for your brand. 

### Customer lifetime value
Closely tied to repeat purchase rate, your [customer lifetime value ](https://blog.hubspot.com/service/how-to-calculate-customer-lifetime-value "How to calculate customer lifetime value")is the total amount of sales your business will typically see per customer. And it stands to reason that the better your customer experience, the more business you will likely see from each of them. 

This is a great metric to keep an eye on as you put more of a focus on customer satisfaction. If you do it properly, you’ll be able to watch it grow over time as your focus on their experience has them coming back more and making larger purchases. 

Once you get to a point where you’re seeing higher lifetime value from each customer, you can really put all your focus on acquiring new customers, because the ones you have are already happy with your brand and extremely loyal to it. 

And here’s the real beauty of working to improve your customer satisfaction levels: the happier your existing customers are, the easier (and cheaper) it will become to [attract new customers](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/browsers-to-buyers/the-complete-guide-to-reviews "The complete guide to marketing with customer reviews").

### NPS – are your customers promoting your brand? 
Your NPS – [Net Promoter Score](https://blog.capterra.com/what-is-nps-net-promoter-score-explained/ "What is NPS? Net promoter score explained") – measures how likely your customers are to recommend your business to a friend. This is done with a brief survey asking your customers how likely they are to recommend your business on a scale of 1-10. Chances are, you’ve encountered this survey question embedded right into a software product you frequently use.

Answers between 0-6 reveal your detractors, 7-8 are your passives, and 9-10 are your promoters. Subtract the percentage of detractor responses from the percentage of your promoters and you’ve got your score. 

This can be a great option for businesses because it’s a relatively simple survey that your customers are likely already familiar with — and possibly more likely to engage with. It also takes just a moment to fill out. You can also [get a lot more out of it](https://blog.hubspot.com/service/what-is-nps "The ultimate guide to your NPS score") by leaving a spot for your customers to be able to leave qualitative feedback about how your business could improve. 

Re-calculating your NPS score over time can help you see how your customer satisfaction levels are rising or falling, so for best results you should do this once or twice a year.

### Customer reviews for qualitative and quantitative feedback 
Customer reviews go straight to the source about how your customers feel about you. And because they consist of both star ratings and the actual review, they also provide you with both quantitative and qualitative feedback. 


Customer review Swappa

Reviews can also tackle two different customer service issues, right at the source. [Responding to reviews](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/how-to-respond-to-negative-reviews "How to respond to negative reviews") and resolving customer issues helps keep individual customers happier. But taking it a step further and making changes to your business based on [common trends in your reviews](https://business.trustpilot.com/reviews/learn-from-customers/introducing-trustpilots-new-machine-learning-tool-review-insights "Review insights: using the wealth of insights in your customer reviews to better your business") helps ensure that future customers won’t have the same issues. 

Because of this, customer reviews are both a metric for customer satisfaction and a tool to help you engage with your customers and offer them better customer service, all at the same time. 

Customer reviews are a powerful customer satisfaction tool for one other reason. They offer your customers a place to engage with your brand – and for you to build trust in your brand by engaging with them. Your customers are going to be talking about your brand online either way, but collecting and responding to your customer reviews allows you to be a part of that conversation. 

### CSAT scores for a quick and simple pulse check 
[CSAT scores](https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/customer/what-is-csat/ "What is a CSAT and how do you measure it?") are another method of direct customer feedback. You survey your customers and give them a 1-5 scale to rank how satisfied or unsatisfied they are with your business. You take the number of customers that gave you a four or five – satisfied or extremely satisfied – divide by your number of survey responses, and multiply by 100. That gives you your percentage of satisfied customers. 

These can be emailed to your customer base as surveys, come as a popup at the end of checkout, be sent through SMS, or any other way you communicate with your customers. 

CSAT scores are a great way to get a general pulse of how your customers are feeling, but the main limitation here is the lack of qualitative feedback. CSAT doesn’t help you figure out where you’re missing the mark for your unsatisfied customers or how you could improve their experience going forward. 

## When you grow your customer satisfaction, you grow your business
Not all of these customer satisfaction metrics are going to be right for your business so it’s important to take a look at each of them and decide what’s right for you. Once you have an idea of which ones – and we definitely suggest more than one – make sense, then you can get started. 

We know that negative feedback is never fun, but shying away from it only hurts your business in the long run. Confronting your negative feedback head on is the only way to improve your business moving forward and create a better experience for your customers. 

If customer reviews seem like a good metric to measure and [improve your customer satisfaction](https://business.trustpilot.com/customer-stories/training-education/how-kaplan-internationals-customer-satisfaction-skyrocketed-with-trustpilot "How Kaplan International's customer experience skyrocketed with Trustpilot"), we’re here to help. [Click here ](https://business.trustpilot.com/request-demo "Trustpilot request a demo")to speak with one of our specialists and start collecting reviews from your customers today. 


What type of metrics measure customer satisfaction

What types of metrics measure customer satisfaction? 

Your reviews contain powerful insights that can be the key to improving your business and making your customers happier. Learn more about using these insights to your advantage. 

Review Insights: Using the wealth of insights in your customer reviews to better your business

Highlighting areas of improvement 

In this article, we'll show you how to improve customer service on your eCommerce site in order to increase your retention rate, improve your reputation, and increase your revenue.

And while many businesses utilise tactics like lowering prices, increasing deals, or offering discounts, they fail to realise the one area that can make a huge difference - customer service.

Good customer service has now become vital. Consumers are looking for friendly, customer-centric brands who care about what their customers think and feel. Review data from our upcoming research report shows that one-star and 5-star reviews most commonly mention ‘customer service’

Great customer service keeps your customers happy and loyal, brings your business more insights on what currently works and what can be improved, and helps you acquire new customers.

An Adobe Digital Shoppers Index report found that return and repeat shoppers make up over 40% of an eCommerce site's revenue despite only making up 8% of total shoppers. Repeat shoppers also generate five times more revenue per visit than first time shoppers. A great way to increase the chance of return and repeat visitors is by focusing on customer service.

This article will show you how to improve customer service on your eCommerce site in order to increase your retention rate, improve your reputation, and increase your revenue.

## Developing and improving your eCommerce customer service

### 1. Make your contact information easily accessible

Every page that contains information about your company, your products, or your services should contain your contact information, or at least an easy-to-find link to your ‘Contact’ page. You should also include contact information in the main navigation tab, the footer and consider adding your phone number or email address to both your ‘Contact’ and ‘About Us’ pages too.

These changes will reduce the amount of effort and friction customers or browsers will experience if they need support or have some kind of question. By giving them a way to get their issues sorted onsite, you’re decreasing the chance of having a visitor navigate away from your site and increasing their chance of making a purchase.

To provide more direct access, consider a pop-up or a permanent banner on the side. That way, if one of your customers feels the need to contact you while checking out your website, they can do so on the same page they’re browsing.

The Glossier 'Contact Us' page is both informative and helpful

Glossier Contact Page

Include your details in your FAQ section too. If your customers can’t find the answer to their question, they’re more likely to contact you straight away. If they can’t, then they might navigate away.

__What to include on your contact page:__

- Company name
- Address (consider including a map)
- Phone number
- Email address
- Contact form
- Opening hours
- Closing dates
- VAT number

### 2. Ask for feedback

To pinpoint the exact areas where you can improve your customer service, collecting customer feedback is one of the easiest ways to do it. Direct feedback will help you understand what your customers like and don’t like, what can be improved, and how to do it.

By asking for feedback, you’re showing your customers that you care about their satisfaction, and that you are constantly working towards ensuring potential customers are having a fantastic experience. Collecting feedback is necessary in developing your eCommerce business, reduce customer churn (or attrition), and boost loyalty.

__Different ways of asking for feedback:__

- On the phone
- By email
- By SMS
- With third-party review platforms
- Survey customers

Your customer feedback can also present an opportunity beyond customer service. By giving you insight and quantitative information on your reputation, you can leverage it as social proof for your marketing channels, increasing its performance.

### 3. Provide real-time help

When your site visitor is confused and upset, it’s better for your business to offer help as soon as it can, and that usually means instantly. It’s a great way to differentiate yourself from the other eCommerce companies, improve your customer service, and increase the chance of having that potential customer leave your site having made a purchase.

On-site live chats are a great customer service tool that allows you to engage with your existing or future customers via your website. Real-time customer service helps reduce churn, and boosts customer loyalty by increasing their chance of returning.

According to Kissmetrics, “44% of online consumers say that having questions answered by a live person while in the middle of an online purchase is one of the most important features a website can offer.” Answering questions directly on-site means customers are more likely to have their issues resolved quicker, which keeps them engaged and interested in your business for longer.

95% of unhappy customers are more likely to return to your website if you have resolved their issue quickly and efficiently.

Nike Store offer a live chat function right on their product page

It’s also recommended to hire a community manager in order to look after your brand’s social accounts. Someone taking care of your social media accounts full time will help you assist angry customers on Twitter and Facebook, and will help you showcase how much you care about your customers’ satisfaction. It’s also a way to provide immediate help if a browser or customer has a question or concern.

With nearly half of digital buyers saying that reading customer feedback on social media influences their buying journey, you wouldn’t want to miss out on great customer service on social channels, would you?

### 4. Use your own customer's voice

With over 84% of consumers not trusting advertisements anymore, and 80% of people trusting other consumers’ feedback as much as personal recommendations, it’s become essential for eCommerce companies to use user-generated content (UGC) as much as possible. If you’re wondering how UGC plays into customer service, it all starts with the community.

Letting your customers review your product or service gives potential customers the opportunity to look for answers to their questions without having to get in touch with your customer service team. By leveraging reviews, you’re letting your customers create useful and unique content that will help people looking for basic answers. And by displaying them either via a third-party site or directly on your site, you’re showing visitors that you do care about your customers and their experience.

Encouraging UGC is also a great way to build communities of customers and create brand advocates. Loyal customers who are part of a brand community are generally willing to help new customers.

Dusk showcase reviews and user-generated content on their homepage

Estrid display their customers' most common questions on their FAQ page

Integrating your customers' most common queries on your FAQ page will help you address common pain points to reduce the number of customer calls. It’s a great and easy way to integrate unique content to your website while helping customers in the middle of their journey. It will save both you and your customers a lot of time.

### 5. Make your on-site experience seamless

All eCommerce companies should invest in their own website’s experience. After all, a poor site navigation experience makes for a poor customer experience, and you’re likely to lose out on potential customers as a result.

Let’s start with the search bar.

It’s important for customers to find what they’re looking for quickly and most of all, easily. Consider investing in a search bar that anticipates your customers’ questions or keywords as they type. McDonald’s website has a perfect example of this.

ASOS autofill their search bar with commonly typed keywords

Moving on to navigation… It’s important to speed up your website. 30% of people would abandon a website if it took more than 6-10 seconds to load.

Crazy, right?

The less consumers spend time looking for what they need, the better. If possible, try to make every product page accessible within 3 or less clicks, and make the checkout process as easy as possible with few ways to navigate away from the page.

## Great customer experiences are a must

A great customer experience means your customers are less likely  to come across a problem during their customer buying journey, which saves you time and money when it comes to the work your customer service team will have to do in the long run.

Using your own customers’ feedback to improve your customer experience and satisfaction is the best way to improve your overall customer service in the long run, and keep customers happy and buying.

To learn how Trustpilot reviews can help improve your customer service, request a free demo below.

5 Ways to improve your customer service on your eCommerce site

Trustpilot Consumer Insights: Buying habits to know for a successful festive season

As the eCommerce space continues to become busier, standing out from the competition is getting increasingly harder – especially in the second half of the year. In this article, we'll give you tips and tricks to help you succeed during the holiday season.

The global pandemic has pushed consumers to spend almost entirely online. A survey of US consumers by McKinsey & Company gives a detailed breakdown of [the shift to digital shopping channels](https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-great-consumer-shift-ten-charts-that-show-how-us-shopping-behavior-is-changing) throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the survey showed a 15 to 30% growth in US consumers who made purchases online across a broad range of product categories.

Mastercard also found that [online sales increased by a whopping 54% in February 2021](https://www.businessinsider.com/e-commerce-sales-rise-up-february-pandemic-mastercard-online-shopping-2021-3?r=US&IR=T), compared to the same month last year. Even though most global consumers were forced to shift to online shopping due to national lockdowns, it is believed that the eCommerce boom we’ve all experienced in the last year is here to stay. 

As the eCommerce space continues to become busier, and as shopping behavior continues to shift, standing out from the competition is getting increasingly harder – especially in the second half of the year. So to help you prepare for success, we’ll discuss:

- The state of reviews and what we expect in the second half of the year
- Consumer behavior and buying habits from the last two holiday seasons
- Industries and categories you can expect to see trend in the next few months
- Successful strategies you can put in place for the  the last few months of 2021

Without further ado, let’s dive into it!

## The importance of online reviews in the second half of the year

To understand the role of online reviews in the last two quarters of the year, it’s best to start with an overview of the state of reviews as a whole. 

Service reviews left on Trustpilot.com between January 1st 2019 and December 31st 2019. Here, we can observe a significant increase in service reviews from October onwards.

Here, we can see that over 2.7 million global service and product reviews were left in December 2019, up from 2.4 million in October and November 2019. In January 2020, over 2.5 million reviews were left, a 200,000 review drop from December 2019, due to the end of the busiest shopping season of the year. 

Overall, in 2019, we saw a 47% growth in reviews from January to December.


Product reviews left on Trustpilot.com between January 1st 2019 and December 31st 2019. Here, we can observe a significant increase in service reviews from July onwards.

In 2020, things weren’t too different. Over 4.5 million global service and product reviews were left in December, up from 3.7 million in November, and 3.4 in October, and 58% more reviews were left in December 2020 than in January 2020.

4 million reviews were collected on Trustpilot.com in January 2021, a 500,000 drop compared to the previous month, demonstrating once again that the second half of the year continuously gets more reviews than the first half.


Service reviews left on Trustpilot.com between January 1st 2020 and December 31st 2020. Here, we can observe a significant increase in service reviews from October onwards. 

Product reviews left on Trustpilot.com between January 1st 2020 and December 31st 2020. Here, we can observe a significant increase in service reviews from October onwards.

So what does this tell us? Well, we saw a whopping 58% growth in reviews from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020. If the past two years are any indication, the festive months clearly have a positive impact on how many reviews are left on Trustpilot.com, which suggests that shoppers rely even more heavily on third-party reviews to make sure their holiday shopping goes as smoothly as possible.

During the months of November and December – with holidays and events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday – consumers tend to descend upon retailers to spend significant amounts. With such a major opportunity, it’s safe to say that competition increases dramatically at that time of year. 

Retailers who commit to their consumers are bound to see better results. It’s during that time that reputation, reviews, and expectations matter most, which is why it’s in your business’s best interest to collect and showcase third-party reviews from September onwards.

We’ve observed that consumers leave more reviews in the second half of the year. But what types of businesses are they looking to read and write about?

In the next section, we’ll look into the categories that received the most profile views and the most reviews on our platform during the last two holiday seasons.

## Consumer shopping behavior and buying patterns from the last two holiday seasons

We also took a deep dive into our global review data to identify the categories that received the most profile views and the most reviews on Trustpilot.com during the last two holiday seasons.

With our findings, we’ll forecast which industries we can expect to see do well in 2021, and which categories could be the most popular for gifting this holiday season. 

### The most researched categories of the 2019 and 2020 holiday season

When looking at the five most popular categories in October, November and December of 2019 and 2020, it is interesting to see that the top five industries were the same year after year.

In the final quarter of 2019 and 2020, the categories with the most profile views on Trustpilot.com were shopping and fashion, electronics and technology, money and insurance, home and garden, and entertainment, in that order.


Industries with the most profile views in Q4 2019

This comes as no surprise as some of the top holiday buys often include:

- Clothing and accessories
- Phones, headphones, sound systems and TVs
- Homeware items such as festive decorations, and tableware for entertaining
- Games, films and music for guests and family entertainment

However, it is interesting to see that money and insurance was the third most popular category in the last two holiday seasons. This could be due to consumers looking into better alternatives to manage their money while planning their holiday season shopping budget. It could also be due to consumers looking for better money and insurance providers for the new year.


Industries with the most profile views in Q4 2020

When comparing the total amount of business profile views between the last quarter of 2019 vs. 2020, we can see that the volume of traffic received in 2020 was, however, much higher than in the same period of the previous year.

This was anticipated, due to the shift in shopping patterns during the global pandemic and the lift in service and product reviews left on Trustpilot.com during the same period (as observed in the first section of this article).

Overall, looking at our consumer data, we should expect to see a continued growth in the amount of profile views in the second half of 2021. 

__*Based on the last two years, we can forecast to see the same five categories  this festive season, in the same order as the previous holiday seasons.*__

### The most reviewed categories of the 2019 and 2020 holiday season

When we compare the categories with the most reviews in the last quarters of 2019 and 2020, they’re pretty similar for the most part. 

Shopping and fashion, home and garden, and electronics and technology all make sense as top gifting, and therefore top reviewed, categories. 


Service reviews by industry Q4 2019

The business services category is where we see a change. It’s the only category that changes rankings from 2019 to 2020, from the third most reviewed category in 2019 to the top reviewed category in 2020.

Service reviews by industry Q4 2020

Business services include shipping and logistics. This explains both why it’s so high up with the other gifting categories and why it saw such a huge jump in reviews in 2020. 

Because most of us were forced to do our pandemic holiday shopping online, the world was relying on shipping and logistics companies a lot more than during regular holiday seasons. This category also includes office supplies – something that many of us were shopping for throughout the pandemic – as we looked to make our work from home setups more comfortable and productive. 

Although we can’t be sure where business services will fall for the last quarter of 2021 – with new COVID-19 variants it’s impossible to know how many of us will be back in or out of lockdown through the next few months – it’s safe to say that the other top categories will likely remain the same. 

If your industry falls into shopping and fashion, home and garden, business services, or electronics and technology you should plan on receiving a large amount of reviews towards the end of the year. We highly recommend monitoring your customer reviews during high volume times, as this can help you fix issues as you go and improve customer satisfaction. 

But whether your business falls into these categories or not, you’ll need to focus on delivering great customer experiences and customer service to succeed this holiday season. 

## 7 Strategies to help your business be prepared for success in the second half of 2021

Let’s get into the good stuff. What are the concrete ways that consumer trends are going to affect your brand in the second half of 2021? And how can you best prepare so that you can see great ROI and happier customers? 

We’ve rounded up our seven biggest predictions on how brands can best position themselves for success as 2021 comes to an end.

### 1. A holistic approach to mobile users can only help you succeed

Each year, the amount of eCommerce sales completed on mobile devices increases. By some projections, this year’s  eCommerce sales could make up for [72% of this year’s sales](https://www.statista.com/chart/13139/estimated-worldwide-mobile-e-commerce-sales/). As long as you provide an excellent mobile experience, your brand will be in place to benefit from this trend. 

But a mobile-first world isn’t just limited to how your site looks on a mobile device – although that’s extremely important as well. SMS open rates are as high as [98% compared to just 20% of emails](https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/roi-showdown-sms-marketing-vs-email-marketing/). 

Why not let your customers opt-in for text message updates on their orders and shipping instead of just email? This is an excellent way to communicate more effectively with your customers while they wait for their order. 

### 2. The pandemic surge in online shopping is here to stay 

Although many customers will do more brick-and-mortar shopping this year than they did last year, online shopping will still be where a lot of the holiday purchases take place.

One study found that [38% of consumers](https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-e-commerce-fits-into-retails-post-pandemic-future) still intend to do more of their shopping online, while visiting retailers that provide excellent in-store experiences. For brands that have brick-and-mortar stores, this means focusing on improving your in-store experience as much as possible. 

Brands that sell both online and in-store are likely in the best position to succeed this holiday season. 

### 3. Free shipping is a great way to stand out from the competition 

More and more consumers [expect free shipping](https://smallbiztrends.com/2021/06/consumers-expecting-free-shipping.html). 

66% of US consumers expect it on every purchase they make online and a whopping 80% expect it when ordering above a certain amount. 

If you’re able to offer free shipping, this is one of the best things you can do to stay competitive at this time of year – especially to keep up with eCommerce giants such as Amazon and Walmart. 

### 4. Shoppers still expect free and painless returns

Shopping online – where customers can’t try on or see the product in real life – means that some amount of returns are going to be inevitable. 

Similar to free shipping, today’s consumers expect to be able to easily send returns, without any cost to them. 

We recommend trying your best to offer this to your customers. Why? Well, because if a customer receives a product that they aren’t totally satisfied with, and need to jump through a lot of hoops to return it, they’re more likely to be dissatisfied with your customer service levels. 

This could mean never shopping with you again, writing a negative review, or telling their friends and family not to buy from your brand in the future.

### 5. Less uncertainty means higher spending 

Last year, many families were unsure of the future of the pandemic, layoffs, and more. As a result, this affected how they chose to shop for gifts, and how much they were willing to spend during the festive season. 

With economies starting to [bounce back](https://www.wsj.com/articles/turbocharged-u-s-economy-attracts-foreign-investors-11624263520) and less uncertainty around the future, this isn’t as likely to be the case this year. 

This means [more opportunities for your brand to win business](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-economy-grows-by-48-in-second-quarter-as-post-lockdown-reopening-drives-spending-spree-12379320), if you provide an excellent experience and product or service for your customers. 

### 6. Let your customers shop how they want and offer curbside pickup 

As more and more consumers have gotten used to the convenience of ‘Click and Collect’ or ‘BOPIS’ – buy online pickup in-store – and [curbside pickup](https://news.yahoo.com/why-curbside-pickup-is-here-to-stay-for-some-retailers-162847022.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAM9ZTFzJO5_8xXB0zzDty-f1J8DxEr6WQ-6J9U1IAcVasUMPv4RsFkJughRDZiEh9Wmz1KzaTo7kC554yX5fTK8TlQVtsVUcom_kfbdmz5Kpt0739sL2aVF0asykvwZbcGUyfVm1WXIxvLr3VWbzorYgZBsLRI0XVAPBe5LG8sDn), this will continue to be a great way for brick-and-mortar retailers to let their customers choose what kind of in-store experience they’d like to have. 

If you’re not already offering this, it’s worth looking into now before the holiday rush starts. If you are offering this, look into different ways you can [improve your pickup experience](https://blogs.oracle.com/marketingcloud/post/improving-all-5-steps-of-a-curbside-pickup) for shorter waiting times and a better experience for your customers. 

Even small improvements can translate into large increases in customer satisfaction. 

### 7. Supply chain delays mean an earlier start to the holiday shopping for some, and increased need for clear communication 

[Supply chain delays](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/03/shipping-crisis-strikes-black-friday-shopping-amid-europe-china-floods.html) have been a big part of 2021 and they don’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. This means that many consumers will try and get their holiday shopping out of the way earlier than usual, to avoid delayed deliveries. 

However, this could also present a potential problem for brands out there, as some customers might not think ahead and still expect their gifts on time – even if they order at the last minute. 

The best way to minimize fallout with these customers is to be extremely transparent about shipping expectations. Be clear about when the last day to order – if you want to receive your gifts in time –- is, and try to keep customers in the loop as much as possible throughout the shipping process. 

Customers are often understanding about waiting times, as long as you’ve communicated this beforehand. If you overpromise and underperform – leaving customers unexpectedly empty-handed on Christmas day – you’re likely to get more negative reviews, and never see those customers again. 

## Consumers will be looking for ease of use this holiday season

If the last two holiday seasons have shown us anything, it is that reviews and online shopping are continuing to grow year on year, partly because of the shopping behavior shift we all witnessed in 2020 and 2021 due to the global pandemic, but also because of the need for ease of use and convenience (avoiding crowded shops, home delivery, easy return policies, more product or service choice…). And although many customers could opt for brick-and-mortar shopping this year, online shopping will still be where a lot of the holiday purchases take place.

Business services, shopping and fashion, electronics and technology, money and insurance, home and garden, and entertainment were the most researched and reviewed types of businesses on Trustpilot.com during the last two festive seasons. Whether your business is part of these industries or not, your success in the last quarter of the year will be strongly influenced by some of the strategic choices you make. 

And with a lot of people willing to spend higher amounts this year, our top tip to be prepared for the busiest time of the year is to continue to provide great experiences to everyone.

- Continue to offer ease of use: think [free shipping](https://thegood.com/insights/offer-free-shipping-right-way/) and free returns, as shipping or return costs are some of the top reasons for cart abandonment, especially at this time of year.
- Omni-channel experiences are key. Offering a seamless experience from shop to mobile or desktop is more likely to convert shoppers as today’s consumers like to navigate through different channels before making a purchase. In fact, marketers using three or more channels in any one campaign earned a [287% higher purchase rate](https://v12data.com/blog/25-amazing-omnichannel-statistics-every-marketer-should-know/) than those using a single-channel campaign.
- Communicate clearly and set expectations before purchase. This is especially important during the last quarter of the year, when consumers are in a rush, or looking to get their orders before a set date. Set expectations straight away. This can be done through your website, social media or via email marketing too.

It’s become apparent that today more than ever, consumers need to be able to trust in the brands they shop with. Finding ways to implement our seven strategic tips will give your brand the best chance to succeed this holiday season, [alongside a strong review strategy](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/browsers-to-buyers/the-complete-guide-to-reviews).

*Don’t have a review strategy just yet? *

Don’t panic! There’s still time to [create a free Trustpilot account](https://business.trustpilot.com/signup) today, or book your Trustpilot demo below.

keeping customers happy and buying

keeping customers happy

In this article, we'll remind you of one of the cornerstones of marketing: your existing customers actually offer the ripest opportunities for further monetization.

But what if we slightly shifted the underlying idea here? What if we focused as much - if not more - energy on retaining customers as we do on attaining them?

What if we could shift our strategies to create more loyalty among those whom we’ve already earned instead of over-investing or risking resources in trying to find so much new? We're going to remind you of one of the cornerstones of marketing: your existing customers actually offer the ripest opportunities for further monetization. 

Retention, therefore, represents the most lucrative investment for savvy eCommerce teams looking to break away from the accepted status quo as we move further into 2020.

## The benefits of customer retention

A little time spent on retention activities can have a big payoff. If you haven’t heard about the benefits of client or customer marketing, let us remind you why it’s deserving of much more than a half-hearted acknowledgement.

- It’s 6x-7x more costly to acquire than retain customers, and by boosting your retention rate by just 5%, you can drive 25%-95% more profit.
- Loyal customers spend 31% more with a brand than the average consumer.
- You have only a [27% chance of a customer returning after one purchase… but a 54% chance of them returning after a second or third purchase](https://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/blog/first-time-buyers-active-customers-infographic/). 

These incredible statistics reaffirm this essential truth: *__retention__ deserves __attention__ and __intention__... at least as much (if not more) as acquisition*.

This strategic mindshift *must* be made if you want your marketing to be efficient and effective. 

Today, we're going to show you how to make this shift, sharing several techniques you can implement *right now* to start boosting your retention rate and revenue immediately.

## How to retain more eCommerce customers 

When it comes to retention, depending on your [higher-level marketing objectives](https://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/blog/rethink-your-marketing/), it’s all about inspiring first-time buyers to purchase again, executing personalized repeat and post-purchase campaigns, taking advantage of trigger- or event-based opportunities, and encouraging loyalty.

### A prerequisite – setting the stage for personalized interactions with customers

Go about your retention efforts as you might a new friendship. The best brands know how to take that relationship up to the next level, creating a trusted, go-to friend. The point I’m after is this: you’re creating a real, ongoing relationship with each individual customer.

It’s critical that you take the time, energy, and effort to intimately learn about the interests and preferences of each of these relationships that customers willingly enter into when they choose your brand. You must to get to know one another better… “personalized courtship” is a requirement of a successful retention strategy.

Those of an acquisition-only mindset may rarely stop to think, “How can we lovingly engage those we already have?” But since you’re reading this article, we’ll assume that’s not you. You want the loyal friend!

*How?*

Start with a good newsletter and preference center.

Don’t overlook the power of your newsletter! It’s perhaps the most versatile vehicle in any eCommerce marketer’s arsenal. With a list of opted-in subscribers, a quality newsletter with variable widgets and access to the right automation technology, you can create a world of incredible value… that reaches contacts over and over.

Preference centers (and connection to your CRM or martech solution) are a must-have so that new and long-time subscribers are able to set and amend the frequency and types of content they want to get from you. 

Once you get opt-ins and you begin to get to know customers, moving each through the funnel and attaining that initial purchase, it’s time to begin working with retention techniques. 

*Note: You shouldn’t be throwing around these tactics at random. Ensure they’re a strategic part of your [customer lifecycle marketing](https://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/blog/lifecycle-marketing/) strategy and that they [align with your business objectives](https://bit.ly/2IHaowp).*

### 1. First-time buyer to second time

Congrats — your new contact has made their first purchase! Now it’s time to send post-purchase content to this new customer with personalized recommendations based on what they just purchased. 

Even after one purchase, you can begin to identify customers’ purchase patterns and behavior and drive them toward their second purchase to help them advance in their loyalty status. 

The value of post-purchase emails for first-time buyers can’t be overstated:

brands work hard and smart to convert customers

Getting a first-time buyer to repeat isn’t easy (and you may not get a second chance), so we recommend spending some time thinking about how you want to set up these automations. 

You’ll want to use what you do know at this stage to make personalized offers (related items) including a personalized incentive to drive them toward their next purchase. 

Emarsys customer and fashion retailer, Luisaviaroma.com, saw a 37.5% increase in post-purchase campaign conversions. Outnorth, an outdoor Scandinavian clothing brand, saw a 25% uplift from first-time buyer programs!

Unfortunately, many brands still struggle to convert customers from first-time to repeat buyers. 70%-80% of a typical eCommerce business’ customers are single-order customers! So, you have to ensure that you optimize the post-purchase experience to drive that second purchase. 

*How?*

Use the information and customer preferences you do have at this juncture in the relationship to do follow-up personalization.

It’s important to follow up in a non-intrusive way where customers are opted-in to receive communications from you (whether email, SMS, mobile app, etc.). Additional cross-sell opportunities are the best way to generate revenue post-purchase. 

Bad post-purchase emails offer the same product customers already bought and are too salesy — and more retailers are doing this than should be the case. Good post-purchase content includes helpful content, relevant offers, and timely information related to previous purchases. Make the purchase process a seamless experience, positioning cross- and up-sells as an added convenience to enhance the quality and improve the function of whatever was just bought. 

### 2. Honor special events and milestones

These triggered, special event emails take advantage of a milestone or notable event in your relationship with the customer. 

They can be sent during a number of occasions and show customers that you know and care about them. Of course, each of these should be personalized with as much information as possible: date of initiation with your brand, length of time together, memories or acknowledgements of past purchases, and more.

*How?*

- [Create automations](https://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/blog/video-understanding-marketing-automation/) for birthdays, anniversaries, holiday or seasonal messages, loyalty status, back-in-stock, price drop, and apology (if necessary).
- Birthdays. Who doesn’t love a wonderful discount coupon for their birthday? The aforementioned Outnorth saw a 270% uplift from birthday campaign programs! The most effective birthday discounts utilize personalized codes (as opposed to one-size-fits-all).


personalized birthday email

Birthday email

- Anniversaries (with your brand). A lot of retailers take advantage of anniversaries (one year, two year, etc.) of customer-hood. You can help loyal customers celebrate with custom emails!

- Holiday-related or seasonal emails. Celebrate in style — and provide seasonal availability or hours information.

Seasonal email (sale) from anthropologie

Any good relationship works best when each party feels known and cared about. This is the core of retention marketing and the automations that make customers feel cared for! 

Sometimes, it’s the little things in marketing that can have the biggest impact.

### 3. See if there’s an opportunity to engage on other channels

Even though email should serve as the core, you should always provide implicit opportunities for customers to opt-in or follow you on other channels like SMS, social media, and on your website, to receive browser notifications, for instance. 

*How?*

“Cross-promote” channels.

The goal of diversifying your various touchpoints with each customer within your database is to effectively broaden the scope through which you can market to – or form deeper relationships with – each one. You have a better chance of a customer seeing and converting when they interact with you via email, follow you on social, and enable push notifications through your app than one who’s only receiving weekly emails.

One example of how to do this is to offer a discount within emails to opt-in to SMS updates. Provide in-store signage with incentives for downloading your mobile app. And, of course, enable all of these options on your website with a nice incentive in exchange.

Once you get to know your customers better, you can more overtly and openly request, announce, or show them why connecting with you via multiple channels is a benefit.

### 4. Use other tactics in tandem – and move more customers to become loyal buyers 

There are many other techniques and tactics you can implement at various stages within the buying cycle in a retention-oriented context in order to increase AOV, order frequency, and engagement.

*How?*

Here are three additional ideas for boosting retention. 

__1. Set up browse abandon and abandoned cart emails that will work.__ 

[Abandoned cart emails](https://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/blog/10-recommendations-for-abandoned-cart-emails-gizem-terzi/) effectively give contacts a second chance to buy. They:

- Allow for revenue recovery by bringing the customer back to complete the purchase
- Can be fully automated so there’s no need to think about them once they’re active
- Can include dynamic incentives based on the value of the cart

Why is that so important? 

Well, recovering just a tiny percentage of your customer base could markedly increase revenue. 

__2. Create and execute GDPR re-permission campaigns.__

If your organization relies on consent as the lawful reason for processing personal data, you must make sure that data you hold is GDPR-complaint in order to continue using it.

You must also have an audit trail of how, when, and where consent was obtained, so that you can provide evidence if required. If you can’t identify how, when, and where consent was obtained, the best option in order to be compliant is to *ask (to communicate with contacts) again*.

You can do this most effectively with [re-permissioning campaigns](https://www.emarsys.com/en/resources/blog/definitive-chapter-guide-re-permissioning-campaigns-gdpr-examples/) — where you’ll again seek the permission from contacts to email, text, or otherwise message them.

__3. Re-engage and retarget database contacts who show signs of leaving (or have already left) to get them buying again.__

When a customer begins to defect, it’s important to do what you can (without seeming creepy) to win them back. 

Why? You have history with these contacts — so it’s worth trying to make it work with them, as opposed to starting anew (in reality, you’ll obviously have concurrent acquisition campaigns running), but this is about salvaging what you’ve worked so hard to maintain.

Re-engagement or win-back campaigns show the customer, via their favorite channel (usually email) that “we miss you” and often ask “where have you been?”

Leverage personalized content here.

These emails can include personalized codes, product recommendations, and local information, too.


We Miss You Email

### To sum up...

As tempting as it is to focus exclusively on new customers, it’s your existing ones that offer the most value. 

You’ve got to give (personalized experiences) to get (more business). And we get it! At the end of the day, we all need more customers engaging at higher rates to drive profitable growth for our businesses, and to do retention in the first place.

The best strategies will ultimately find a healthy balance. 

Retention marketing is about getting to know existing buyers, what they want, like, and prefer, and then giving it to them. This is the recipe that will drive higher conversion and retention rates.

If you'd like to learn more about how online reviews can help you keep your customers happy and buying, [check out our Complete Guide to Reviews here](https://business.trustpilot.com/guides-reports/browsers-to-buyers/the-complete-guide-to-reviews)!


*Lindsay Tjepkema* is Marketing Director, Americas at Emarsys and host of the [Marketer + Machine podcast](https://www.emarsys.com/en/podcast/). She and her team deliver resources that empower marketers to seek out solutions and strategies that will allow them to focus on what they love – strategy, content, and creative – not technology. Although her true love is tech marketing, Lindsay's experience is built on time spent leading in-house teams, in agency settings, and independently running her own marketing consultancy.

How to keep existing customers happy & buying

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