Learn how Barnes and Noble got 34, 000 reviews using our Post Checkout Survey.
Raising Visibility and Syndicating Ratings in 30 days.
In 2011, Barnes and Noble began focusing their attention on ResellerRating's to help combat negative reviews they felt were not completely representative of their services. They were looking for a reviews and reputation management company with which to work and help manage and monitor their customers' feedback.
The Solution
Using the ResellerRatings' Merchant Member tools Barnes & Noble started getting their ratings back on track. Most importantly, Barnes implemented ResellerRatings' Exit Survey, designed to convert customer feedback into published and syndicated reviews. As customers travel through the purchase and check-out process, they are elegantly prompted, post-purchase, to receive our survey via email.
ResellerRatings' Exit Survey is a custom-made survey process that is hyper tailored to make the ingestion of reviews - and protection of customer privacy data - a top priority. Within minutes of implementing Reseller's Exit Survey, Barnes and Noble had customers lining up to leave feedback. Take-away: Customers want to share their shopping experiences with others at ResellerRatings.com
Barnes and Noble Company Profile
Barnes & Noble, Inc., is a Fortune 500 company, the largest retail bookseller in the United States, and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products in the country.
After deploying our Exit Survey on their site, Barnes and Noble acquired hundreds of new reviews per day, which were indexed by Google. Placing ResellerRatings' Exit Survey on their site, alongside with exciting NOOK products as an incentive to submit reviews, Barnes and Noble acquired a larger sample size of their customer base that more accurately reflects their quality of service.
The Result? Lot's of great ratings for Barnes and Noble. A review from one enthusiastic customer (Uljier): "My overall experience was wonderful. It only took minutes between purchasing the book and having it available on my iPad to read... Very excited to download my next nook book from barnes and noble."
With hundreds of more reviews like this Barnes and Noble's ratings rose tremendously and most importantly…quickly.
Let's look at the numbers.
Figure 1. Ratings Acquisition Increase (snapshot May 22nd '12)
| Date | Ratings | Reviews | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2011 (no Exit Survey) | 0.00 |  |
8 |
| Dec 2011 (Exit Survey Launch) | 9.16 | |
8738 |
| Mar 2012 | 9.32 | |
4859 |
| Apr 2012 | 9.19 | |
4421 |
With no Exit Surveys, Barnes and Noble acquired only 106 standard reviews in February. After implementing ResellerRatings' Exit Survey, their reviews quantity skyrocketed to 4,859 in March alone! The percentage differential was massive - about a 4000% increase in one month!
Figure 2. Ratings distribution for lifetime (Snapshot May 22nd '12)
| Stars | # of reviews | Percentage of Total |
|
2061 | 3.48 % |
|
32071 | 82.11 % |
Let's take a peak at their lifetime reviews. The first thing to see is what review acquisition has done for Barnes & Noble - it has completely combated the negative reviews, but still establishes a ratio of negative to positive reviews. This is incredibly important as it lends legitimacy and credibility to Barnes & Noble review's quality. No one store can please all of their customers all of the time, but Barnes and Noble have come a long way to ensure that the majority of their customers have a great experience. Their Exit Survey reviews acquisition has pushed their positive ratings very high, and that looks great to a wary customer pausing to buy from this online vendor. Take-away: A wealth of reviews distributed across the spectrum can make your company look trustworthy to customers.
Lessons Learned
Have negative reviews? No problem! Start acquiring honest customer experiences and ratings on your own schedule. It works for the smallest to the largest of sellers. Merchants have the power to go directly to their customers and ask them to submit reviews of their shopping experiences.
The ResellerRating's Exit Survey works to handle the large volume of reviews coming in from Barnes and Noble and, through much research and multivariate testing methodology, converts those customers into real reviews.