When bad buzz can be a good thing
Positive customer comments help boost a brand and its products, but even negatives ones have utility, as outdoor adventure outfitter MountainGear.com found after it launched customer reviews from hosted provider PowerReviews on its site last November. Customer feedback can narrow the gap between a consumer’s expectation and experience if it’s used to adjust product descriptions on the site.
According to Whitney Parsons, MountainGear’s Internet marketing manager, PowerReviews moderates customer product reviews submitted for posting on the site for language considerations and to ensure that the review is product-focused: if it meets those criteria, it’s posted. “If something didn’t meet your expectations, we are going to share that so everyone else can form their own conclusions about it,” says Parsons.
So when a customer gave a product a two-star rating out of a possible five, MountainGear dug further into the review to find out why. The poster’s negative comment about the product, a pair of hiking boots, was that the weight as listed on the site was actually a pound heavier than they actually were—a significant amount of weight for a hiker. A check by MountainGear determined that the poster was correct, prompting a change in the product copy. “That let us provide the correct weight for everyone,” Parsons says.
Parsons says she’s also seen benefit from a program element in which customers who buy a product are invited to supply a review of it a few weeks after purchase. “We have seen a lift in the number of repeat orders just through that e-mail contact,” she says.
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