When customers write reviews on Jewelry Television’s JTV.com, the retailer features the positive ones on its TV program and in e-mail promotions to drive up customer loyalty, vice president of e-commerce James Thome says.
“Ratings and reviews have become a key tool in our efforts to be the number one online destination for fine jewelry and gemstones,” Thome says. JTV.com, which uses an on-demand customer ratings and reviews application from Bazaarvoice, has logged more than 100,000 ratings and reviews within the past year, he adds.
The retailer doesn’t offer any incentives to induce customers to submit ratings and reviews, but some customers get caught up in the excitement of possibly seeing their reviews highlighted on one of the retailer’s TV selling programs or on JTV.com, Thome says. “We have a very passionate customer base,” he says.
Jewelry Television, No. 135 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, hasn’t determined the impact of customer ratings and reviews on its growing web sales, Thome says. But it uses the information about how customers feel about its products throughout its operations, including marketing, fulfillment and product sourcing and merchandising, he adds.
“It’s almost like getting instant feedback from our customers,” Thome says. To improve customer service and fulfillment, for example, the retailer may search through its reviews content for terms like “arrived late,” then analyze the results to look for common problems it can address.
When reviews data show a large number of customers recommending particular combinations of jewelry items, the retailer will pass that on to its product buyers, Thome says.
To support a marketing campaign in the 2007 holiday season, Jewelry Television searched its reviews file for reviews containing the word “believe.” The marketing campaign, also called “Believe,” incorporated several customer reviews, including comments such as this one: “And get this—inside the band, there are two small diamonds with the inscription ‘Past, Present, Future’—can you believe it?”
Back...
