Marketing, product management, customer service, logistics - whatever hat you wear in an eCommerce business, seasonal campaigns are hard work. Not only do you have to deal with the pressures of increased demand, you also need to stand out from countless other brands and retailers competing for custom.
To do that, you need to offer more than flash sales and discounts. You need to create an experience that delivers on every expectation customers have when it comes to an event like BFCM.
And to do that, you need to take valuable learnings from your past campaigns.
There’s a couple of features in the REVIEWS.io toolkit that seriously streamline this learning process. One facilitates targeted data collection at scale, while the other analyzes that data in seconds to give you a concise and insightful picture of consumer sentiment.
These features are Review Attributes and AI Assistant respectively.
First up, let's take a quick look at these features independently so we know exactly what we’re talking about:
Review Attributes - these are additional questions that you add to review requests. They’re completely customizable and come with a range of question types like multiple choice, rating scales and free text. Essentially, they’re a tool for prompting feedback on very specific aspects of your business.
AI Assistant - this is your companion for highly advanced data analysis. Ask it a question, and AI Assistant will mine your review data at speed to uncover actionable insights. There’s also an ‘Insights’ tool which allows you to produce detailed reports based on specific filters (AI Assistant is one of multiple ways we’re using AI to enhance the REVIEWS.io solution).
So how can these tools help you run better campaigns?
Well, if you’ve been a REVIEWS.io customer for a while, you can use the new AI Assistant to mine review data from specific time periods - like last year’s BFCM or any other seasonal campaign you’ve run in the past.
You can ask what your top rated products were, or what you might look to remove from your next sale based on poor review scores.
You can ask if there’s a specific member of customer support that stood out, or if there were any problematic patterns around delivery times.
The possibilities are pretty much endless.
Of course, AI Assistant can only mine the data that exists - it’s totally reliant on the feedback past customers have volunteered. If you didn’t specifically ask for opinions on customer support or delivery, those opinions might not be there to learn from.
That’s why we’re recommending all our customers make strategic use of Review Attributes in any upcoming campaigns - prompting targeted feedback that can be leveraged for more informed and effective campaign strategies moving forward.
What you look to extract from customer feedback is of course entirely up to you, and dependent on the needs of your business. But since the concept of using Review Attributes and AI Assistant is brand new, we thought we’d offer up some inspiration.
Here’s a few areas you might look to focus on as we head towards this year’s BFCM, and some additional questions you might add to review requests for this period:
Packaging affects the first impression customers have of your brand and is a primary focus as consumers look to make more sustainable purchases (particularly over a season like BFCM where those purchases may be many).
Additional Questions:
A busy season is bound to bring challenges and service issues. Thankfully, good customer support can turn those challenges into positive experiences and build trust with your customers.
Additional Questions:
If you want to keep your customers happy you have to offer timely and reliable delivery, even during high-demand seasons like BFCM. But if you outsource delivery to a 3PL, it’s not always easy to keep track of performance.
Additional Questions:
Your website will inevitably see increased traffic during BFCM, so it needs to be able to cope. No matter how busy things get, it needs to deliver a consistently smooth shopping experience. Although our widgets are dynamic and
Additional Questions:
Customers rarely come at you through one specific channel, and they certainly won't during a seasonal campaign. Wherever they engage with your brand, consistency in their experience is key.
Additional Questions:
When designing your review requests, mix it up with your question types. Multiple choice and Yes/No questions are quick and easy for the customer, while centered selection questions are great for measuring deviation from standard. Be sure to leave room for open-ended comments so customers can provide specific suggestions and elaborate on their experiences.
So now you have all this data, what learnings should you be looking to take from it? Again, this is very much subjective. It all depends on the Review Attributes you collected, and the areas you feel you need to focus on most to improve your campaigns.
For a little bit of broad inspiration, consider the following:
And of course, you can use AI Insights to generate in-depth reports on specific business functions, which you can then share with the relevant departments.
Collecting feedback from customers after BFCM or any similar event is an excellent way to gather insights and refine your strategy. With REVIEWS.io, you have the tools you need to make that feedback highly targeted, and the ability to extract meaningful insights from it at speed.
That means you can make data-driven improvements for future campaigns.
For added convenience, the additional questions you add to review requests can be easily toggled on and off - so you can collect the same attributes with ease for every campaign.
It’s a proactive approach that ultimately leads to more insightful and actionable insights, allowing you to run smarter seasonal campaigns that smash customer expectations. Unlock the benefits of REVIEWS.io with a free 14-day trial.
