Review syndication helps Andi-Co partners boost review volume

Since 1982, Andi-Co Australia has been a distributor of premium European household and commercial appliances. Andi-Co offers products for several industries, including biomedical, pharmaceutical, hotel, catering, and frozen food and beverage.

Today, Andi-Co is the exclusive distributor of major world-class brands, including Falcon, UK manufactured kitchen range cookers; Liebherr, German engineered refrigeration products; and La Cornue, luxury French handmade range cookers.

Because the company does not sell products on its site and instead specializes in distributing to retailers, it needed a way to amplify user-generated content (UGC) and boost SEO to get more attention on the products it offers.

Helping shoppers research online, buy offline

Andi-Co does not sell products on its website but wanted to syndicate reviews for its products on retail partner sites. Because the products are luxury, high-end appliances (think $50,000 range cookers), many people choose to research them online and then buy in-store. Andi-Co needed to ensure it was providing the right information for shoppers before they head to their retailer of choice to upgrade their kitchens.

To accomplish this, Andi-Co started working with Bazaarvoice around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

“People were not able to get out to the store to see the product during the beginning of the pandemic, but because we started with Bazaarvoice, they were able to now read reviews online,” said Robin Werth, Marketing Manager at Andi-Co. “That has helped us a lot in the last 18 months.”

Rate & Win competitions boost review volume and reward loyal customers

Andi-Co originally started using Bazaarvoice solutions for two of its brands, Falcon and Liebherr. Nearly all of the retailers Andi-Co partners with in Australia are part of the Bazaarvoice Network.

Falcon has about 100 products, and Liebherr has around 50, but before syndication, these products had barely any reviews.

“Prior to working with Bazaarvoice, you could probably count on one hand the number of reviews we had on partner sites,” said Werth. “Now, there are hundreds or thousands depending on the brand. This volume of reviews plays a major factor in winning over customers.”

To boost review acquisition, Andi-Co holds a promotion about three times a year where customers who leave reviews are entered into a drawing to win $500 worth of Falcon products.

Andi-Co amplifies reviews on social media to increase product trust and engagement. Having access to UGC has been a massive help to the company’s very small, resource-strapped marketing team.

“We filter out all the five-star reviews, and pull out a few words to create some nice Instagram posts,” said Werth.
Andi-Co also plans to use photos that customers upload of their kitchens on the “Inspirations” section of its website to help potential customers see what products look like in real-life kitchens.

The company also engages with customers by answering questions they leave on other websites.

“I can go into the Bazaarvoice portal and answer a question directly, then that just appears on the retailer’s website,” said Werth.

1,400+ reviews in a year

In just over a year, Andi-Co collected more than 1,000 reviews for Falcon products and more than 400 reviews for Liebherr. For Falcon products, 100% of reviews on retailers’ sites come from Andi-Co’s syndication effort. This lead to Falcon seeing 690x more reviews on retailer sites.

Bazaarvoice found that about 70% of people who buy Falcon and Liebherr products “research online, buy offline,” by reading the reviews syndicated to retailers before making their purchases. Even better, almost 100% of shoppers said they would recommend these products to friends.

Because of syndication and the constant fresh content on retailer sites, Andi-Co’s products have seen considerable improvements in Google Search results. For SEO-rich snippets and Google Shopping syndication, 100% of content comes from syndicated Falcon and Liebherr reviews.

Andi-Co relies on Bazaarvoice Insights to understand the consumer sentiment behind the products it distributes. If a product ever receives a review of three stars or less, the marketing team gets an alert and will forward the review to customer service.

“I will also leave a message with the person who’s left the review telling them to expect a call from customer service. That’s been a really good way to proactively manage any potential issues that come up,” said Werth.

Andi-Co’s brands have seen a much larger online presence since partnering with Bazaarvoice, and the company believes that reviews have helped more customers have trust in the products it offers to retailers.

“2020 and 2021 have been our biggest years ever,” said Werth. “We think a lot of that is due to the fact that people are online shopping and researching, and when they see the right type of information in the form of reviews, it builds trust.”

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