How iStrap took a 0.9 rating to 4.1 stars on productreview.com.au using REVIEWS.io

Richard Ball

February 28, 2022

4 min read

When the team at iStrap switched review solution, they were looking for more than your bog standard collection engine. They were after greater transparency, greater flexibility and a supportive partnership with their provider of choice. They found it in REVIEWS.io, along with the means to take full control of their online reputation.

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iStrap is one of our Australian clients. Founded in 2018, it’s a brand for the fashion conscious Apple Watch user - a market that, before iStrap, was largely uncatered for. Products did exist but were either sold at a premium, or made of cheap materials that couldn’t withstand daily wear and tear.

iStrap fills the gap, providing quality at an affordable price point. Its eclectic range of over 450 straps continues to grow, allowing customers to build collections that suit every style and occasion.

As an eCommerce brand, honest, authentic review collection has always been important to iStrap. But as we discovered when we recently caught up with the team, honesty and authenticity aren’t always that easy to come by.

The Search For The Right Solution

A solid review strategy goes beyond a collection of stars. Sure, they look great on product pages and give shoppers the confidence to buy, but stars are really just the beginning.

Authentic reviews add real value to both the buyer journey and a businesses’ development strategy. For the consumer, they help inform the right purchase decisions, and for the brand, they give first hand insight on how to improve the customer experience. It’s these benefits that prompted iStrap to collect reviews from the outset.‍

“Social proof is important, but the most important thing for us is genuine and honest customer feedback. We want to ensure our products are meeting expectations. A review is a great way for customers to tell us how we did so we can continuously improve, and give every customer that comes after the next a more tailored and better iStrap experience.”

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So the brand signed up with Stamped.io, and stuck with it for a year or two. But whilst the solution offered the tools for automated review collection, the team quickly felt that it wasn’t the open, transparent platform they were after.

The thing about review collection is that it has to give the full picture to have any value. A glowing 5* rating might seem like the ultimate goal but it’s perceived as too good to be true. Consumers know that no brand is perfect. In fact, they’re five times more likely to filter for 1* reviews to get a feel for customer service when things do go wrong. ‍

“The fact that you could edit a review before publishing it was a red flag for us. It meant that customers didn’t have a way of knowing what they said would be sent to us - or published - and there was no way to keep us accountable.”‍

They also found the functionality of Stamped.io a limitation, with few integrations to other platforms available. To make the most of customer feedback a review solution needs to work effectively as part of a best-of-breed tech stack, and it needs to be constantly updated with new tools and features that match how review content is consumed.

iStrap decided to switch to REVIEWS.io based on three key factors.

“Honesty, accountability, and integrations. Reviews.io is not the cheapest platform, but it’s the most highly regarded with no bull***t and no strings attached. The team are always there to help and to help us do better at every opportunity. Reviews is what they do, and they’re the best at it.”‍

iStraps Reputation Covered. Everywhere.

REVIEWS.io isn’t the only platform where you’ll find customer feedback for iStrap. As is the case for most eCommerce brands, iStrap’s customers come from multiple sources, and check out its track record on various sites. Trustpilot, Facebook, Google My Business - they’re all important for the brand. So the ability to split reviews between them with our Reputation Management feature is a major plus. ‍

“A fair and even collection split across all of the platforms we are on is integral for us, so the fact we can do this easily with Reviews.io is amazing. It’s also important for our customer service team that everything’s in one hub. It allows us to reply, action, follow up and internally flag every customer review.”‍

But perhaps of most value to iStrap’s reputation is our integration with Productreview.com.au. Our Australian readers might have had their own experience with the site, but for those that haven’t here’s a bit of context.

Productreview.com.au has a bit of a reputation as a soapbox review site - a space where the overly demanding vent their frustrations with long-winded, usually unfounded, complaints. The site doesn’t make it easy to submit feedback, so generally attracts customers of a certain ilk (essentially ‘Karens’, for want of a better term).

iStrap found itself in the company of leading Aussie brands like Bonds, Coles, Woolworths and JB Hi-Fi with reviews of less than 1*. Until they switched to REVIEWS.io that is. ‍

“The integration with Reviews.io (which we had a party to celebrate once launched) meant that within only a matter of weeks we turned our 0.9 star rating to a 4.1. It continues to grow and be in line with what the honest and open truth of our customers is. That figure (although it still has a few points to go) will soon sync with the rest of our reviews on other platforms nearing 5 stars.”‍

A Partnership For the Foreseeable

It’s the experiences of brands like iStrap that push us to do what we do. We’re constantly looking for innovative ways to add value to our product, and provide more of what our clients need to grow. We have every confidence that what we offer is a market leading solution, and it’s great to hear that the iStrap team feel the same. ‍

“We were 100% confident from the start and that confidence has only grown. Reviews.io is a key partner of our tech stack that we do not ever foresee changing.”‍

If you’re looking to switch from your current review provider check out what we’ve got to offer - from our vast integration library to our range of publication tools. We’ll even handle the switching process for you, importing all your existing product reviews so you can keep the trust you’ve already established.