AUSTIN, Texas - (Business Wire) Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today launched BrandAnswers™ to directly connect manufacturers with shoppers in the retail channel and fill the information gaps that create unnecessary barriers to purchase. With BrandAnswers, manufacturers can now find and answer shoppers’ questions on the world’s largest retail sites where consumers go to research and buy products. Answers are badged with the manufacturer’s name and logo and immediately appear on the retailer’s site, where they are available to millions of other shoppers who may have the same questions. By engaging consumers around the information they need, manufacturers are able to build brand equity and significantly increase retail sales, as well as reduce returns, decrease support costs, and gain real-time insights into consumer sentiment and behavior. “The Web has changed the way that we shop: surveys predict that 85% of Americans will research or purchase a product online this upcoming holiday season,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “BrandAnswers taps the social nature of the web, and the social nature of shopping, to transform the relationship between a manufacturer, retailer, and consumer. For the first time, manufacturers can directly reach out and engage potential customers on the retail sites where their products are sold – giving them a critical edge in a highly competitive market. Manufacturers do not have enough employees to help consumers shopping across all physical stores where their products are sold, but now with BrandAnswers they have that ability online and it will dramatically increase their impact in the channel forever - and this impact will be carried into the physical via mobile.”
The Cutting Edge of Social Commerce: Ripple Effect of Value
Research has shown that three out of four shoppers have walked away from a purchase due to a lack of available product information online. Resources to help consumers research and purchase online are especially critical right now, as every $1 spent online influences $5.77 spent in the store in the following two weeks.
BrandAnswers is a natural extension of Ask & Answer™, a product introduced by Bazaarvoice two years ago. Bazaarvoice pioneered Ask & Answer to tap the power of online communities to address the unanswered questions that can stop a purchase and send a visitor to a competing site. Ask & Answer has delivered measurable and significant business impact, as companies are able to increase sales, reduce returns, decrease support costs, and gain insights on products:
- Increase sales: Bazaarvoice analysis across a wide sample of client sites found that products with two or more answers saw a 20% increase in sales.
- Reduce returns: By providing more product knowledge, Ask & Answer is able to decrease returns and increase satisfaction. As recently reported in the Wall Street Journal, JCWhitney.com, was able to achieve up to a 23% decrease in returns by empowering suppliers to answer questions on its retail site.
- Decrease in customer support costs: Ask & Answer creates a unique knowledge base of information that benefits the entire shopping community. A Bazaarvoice client recently found that pre-purchase customer service calls dropped by 28% for products with at least one question and answer – and a drop of 81% for products with three or more questions and answers. This indicates that shoppers not only prefer the self-service model, but that answers have a long-standing benefit of helping future shoppers as well.
- Drive insights: Questions give brands detailed insight into what consumers are thinking as they consider purchases and help identify gaps in product information or marketing copy.
BrandAnswers extends the proven benefits of Ask & Answer by allowing the manufacturer’s voice to reach across a network that touches the majority of American shoppers in order to deliver additional advantages for participating manufacturers:
- Gain a competitive edge in the channel: Manufacturers who answer questions are able to gain a competitive advantage as the right information drives sales. On one large retail site, for example, suppliers who participate in the community by answering questions have been able to quickly capture market share from competitors who are not strongly involved. In one instance, a manufacturer that was second in its category (35% vs 65% of sales) was able to capture the top spot within two months of participation.
- Build brand equity on the retailer site: Answering shoppers’ questions increases the manufacturer’s presence and voiceshare on the retail site.
- Ripple effect of value: Unlike one-to-one communication vehicles, such as a customer email or phone calls, answers provided online help the overall community. When a shopper asks a question, it’s safe to assume that others have the same question. Additionally, having these answers within the purchase path helps drive sales conversion, so just one answer from a manufacturer can help drive incremental sales and brand affinity beyond the one person who asked the question.
BrandAnswers Features and Benefits
The BrandAnswers service instantly notifies manufacturers of open questions about their products across Bazaarvoice’s exponentially-growing network of top retail sites that have implemented Ask & Answer and provides manufacturers with the opportunity to respond. Initial results prove out BrandAnswers’ success in converting customers to shoppers by filling information gaps. A prominent consumer electronics manufacturer using Bazaarvoice was able to drive a 96% increase in page views and a 100% increase in question submissions when it answered questions on a top retail site. In addition, the manufacturer found that 91% of the questions were not addressed by its marketing copy, prompting immediate changes and development of supplementary material, and that consumers rated its answers 66% more helpful than the community’s average responses.
Key features of the innovative BrandAnswers service include:
- Single point of aggregation: Manufacturers gain a single destination to find and answer shoppers’ product questions across the Bazaarvoice network and their own site. Manufacturers also have a single sign-on to answer questions anywhere in the Bazaarvoice network.
- Configurable alerts: Manufacturers receive email alerts when there is an open question anywhere on the network.
- Answers bypass moderation: Fast track process ensures that manufacturer’s answers are posted as quickly as possible to the retail site, guaranteeing shoppers a timely response to their questions.
- Branding across retailers: All answers are badged with the manufacturer’s logo for maximum brand visibility.
- Shopper analytics: BrandAnswers gives manufacturers new insights into the consumer’s purchase decision-making process by uncovering deficiencies in marketing copy and new features that consumers would like.
“Bazaarvoice continues to create exciting new opportunities for partnerships between manufacturers and retailers to improve customer experiences and drive sales for both parties,” said Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice. “When a manufacturer directly answers consumer questions on retailer sites, they engage shoppers, shift interest to their core products, and gain insights into how consumers shop for their products. They also reduce support costs, enhance the site experience, and gain voiceshare at the retail site. This is the tip of the iceberg of a tremendous amount of value.”
About Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice’s Software as a Service (SaaS) social commerce solutions have served more than 70 billion pieces of customer-generated content on more than 600 brand web sites like Best Buy, Costco, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock, P&G, Panasonic, QVC, and USAA in 36 countries. The company connects organizations to their influencers through a unique network that reaches hundreds of millions of consumers around the globe, enabling authentic customer-powered marketing. Through syndication, analytics, partnerships, and consulting, Bazaarvoice brings the voice of the customer to the center of their clients’ business strategy, proving “social” can drive measured revenue growth and cost savings for manufacturing, retail, travel, and financial services companies. Headquartered in Austin, the company has offices in London, Paris, and Singapore. For more information and access to client success stories, visit www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at www.bazaarblog.com, and follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bazaarvoice.
For Bazaarvoice
Renee Newby, 757-651-6554
renee@bradypr.com
