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For personal care brands in the eCommerce space, social proof is key. Customers need assurance in the quality of a product, and that what they’re buying fits with their sense of style. So when Lloyd and his partner Jessica launched The Brighton Beard Co. in 2013 they knew authentic reviews and UGC were a must have.
But after several years of working with their chosen provider their marketing budget began to suffer, and the ROI was simply not what they needed it to be.
To continue to generate reviews and UGC - and make better use of them - they needed an alternative solution. They also needed to know that wherever they moved to, they could take their existing social proof with them.
“We’d been using Yotpo for around 8 years but it became really expensive. It also didn’t offer much flexibility. We wanted a platform that gave us the features we needed at a fair price.” - Lloyd Kite, Company Director at The Brighton Beard Co.
After comparing all the major players in the review space Lloyd decided that REVIEWS.io was the solution, and that what we offered matched everything he was looking for:
Most importantly, he saw a level of customer service that he’d been unable to find elsewhere.
“In the end it came down to the fantastic team at REVIEWS.io. Everyone I came into contact with was super helpful, and that gave me confidence the support would always be there when we needed it.” - Lloyd Kite, Company Director at The Brighton Beard Co.
Setting up for success with a new provider - and setting up quickly - was the primary focus here. That all starts with a well managed import process and the successful migration of existing reviews.
Just like it was for Lloyd, this is a major concern for brands that have already invested in review collection. For good reason too. Losing review data means losing the trust you’ve built, so assurance here is one of the main things to look out for when switching review providers.
Thankfully for Lloyd (and anyone else looking to switch), we’ve developed a robust import process for a smooth and secure transition.
“The biggest reservation was porting our existing reviews over from Yotpo - we have over 4000 reviews and they took a while to get. I was worried about migrating everything over - turns out I needn't have been. I was in safe hands.” - Lloyd Kite, Company Director at The Brighton Beard Co.
With all their data safely transferred, we worked with Lloyd to get REVIEWS.io up and running on The Brighton Beard Co. store. To offer that vital social proof across the whole on-site experience, the brand shares review content in multiple ways with a selection of our customizable widgets:
The card carousel widget on the home page - displaying average star rating and total review count next to a scrolling carousel of product reviews.
The product snippet widget on category and search pages - displaying average star rating and review count per product.
The product reviews widget on product pages - displaying customer photos, text reviews and Q&As on all product pages.
They also have a dedicated review page showing aggregate metrics, customer photos, and product, company and third party reviews.
What works really well are the customer photos that elevate the sense of authenticity you get from The Brighton Beard Co. The brand has built itself on this, using natural ingredients in its handcrafted products, each of which is named after a legendary character from their East Sussex home.
By publishing customer photos across the site, new customers get the sense that they’re buying into a lifestyle, not just a product.
“Reviews are really important to us so we can show future customers how happy our existing customers are. Social proof is a must with cosmetic products, and when you can share it with photos it’s even better.” - Lloyd Kite, Company Director at The Brighton Beard Co.
Lloyd switched review providers for two key reasons. One to lower spend, and two, to do more with the review content the brand collects. So moving forward we’ll be helping him maximize our solution to get the greatest return.
There’s a few of our features that are the perfect fit for brands in the personal care space, and The Brighton Beard Co. are keen to implement them:
Review attributes - buying a personal care product is, obviously, a very personal experience. Every customer that visits The Brighton Beard Co. store will have different needs, and review attributes are the perfect way to address this.
The brand can collect additional information as part of a review, like beard style or facial hair thickness for example. Customers can then filter review content by attributes that match their own to find the perfect product.
Shoppable UGC - with customer photos so important for the brand's social proof it makes sense to turn them into shoppable galleries.
They can publish these on site to aid product discovery and incorporate them into highly targeted email campaigns with our advanced Klaviyo integration.
We also know Lloyd is keen to collect video reviews, so we’ll be helping him set up a Video First campaign - a tool specifically designed to help brands generate more of this highly engaging, highly persuasive review content.
“It’s still early days with REVIEWS.io and I haven't made use of all the benefits yet - but I'm looking forward to doing more with our reviews. We’d pretty much reached our limit with Yotpo unless we wanted to break the bank, so it’s exciting to have all these great features available to us.” - Lloyd Kite, Company Director at The Brighton Beard Co.
If you’re a Yotpo customer looking to move to a more flexible, cost effective solution check out our Yotpo vs. REVIEWS.io comparison page. It gives you a breakdown of all the key features we offer to help your brand grow through the power of social proof.
