Appliance-Reviews.co.uk goes interactive

September 1, 2010

UK’s largest online white goods retailer increases customer engagement with new use of Bazaarvoice platform

DRL, the UK’s largest online white goods retailer, is working with Bazaarvoice to transform its Appliance Reviews website into the UK’s de facto word of mouth community for white goods and household appliances.

DRL, which powers end-to-end online fulfilment for nine major brands in the UK including, Boots, Marks and Spencer and Next, sees social commerce as the path for its future growth.

Bazaarvoice’s hosted platform will be used as the foundation for the online community of Appliance-reviews.co.uk, enabling customers to share experiences and opinions directly with one another, as well as with product manufacturers such as Whirlpool, Indesit, LG, Bosch and Hoover.

Centralised content management

It will also help to aggregate all the reviews that DRL receives – including text and video-based content – and publish them across the nine website sites the company operates.

The word of mouth (WOM) content from everyday customers will be used to drive website navigation so customers can search for top-rated products from people like them, as opposed to simply navigating by product features such as colour or price. Other retailers using customer rating data in site navigation have experienced significant increases in sales, and DRL said ‘social search and navigation’ would be an important tactic for success.

The move builds on DRL’s history of success using Bazaarvoice’s Ratings & Reviews service, which went live across its website portfolio last year. DRL has seen that review-readers converted 88% higher on the site and abandoned products 20% less. In addition, the brand attracted thousands of new visitors from the natural search benefit of user-generated content.

Two-way product feedback

DRL is now rolling out Ask & Answer across all of its sites, to enable potential purchasers to ask questions about specific products and receive responses from other users, manufacturers, or product experts at DRL. The site is also going live with the provider’s BrandAnswers component, allowing manufacturers to quickly view and respond to the open questions shoppers are asking on the various sites, to help the purchasing process and support future sales.

Appliance Reviews will further use Bazaarvoice’s Stories platform to encourage customer engagement. This will allow them to upload videos and pictures, and share their experiences on various subjects, such as ‘Your First Dinner Party Using Your New Appliance.’

“We’re turning the online retail industry on its head by allowing users to start their decision making processes with reviews from likeminded customers rather than by product features,” said Andrew Kirkcaldy, online marketing manager at DRL. “This gives customers far more control by changing the way they make decisions about the products they buy, and it will undoubtedly help to deliver a far more personalised service.”