Gigaset sees a 70% conversion rate lift with Bazaarvoice

Since 1948, Gigaset has been locally designing, producing, and selling telephones in Germany’s Lower Rhine region. High quality and excellent service are top priorities for the company that proudly stamps their products with a “Made in Germany” seal. Over the last several decades, Gigaset has expanded their product portfolio to include consumer phones, professional phones, smartphones, and smart home systems.

But as more consumers shift to e-commerce, Gigaset has struggled to maintain a comprehensive collection of user-generated content (UGC) — content created by an individual rather than a brand — to streamline, inform, and enhance the shopping experience.
“We wanted to improve the customer experience in terms of providing additional user-generated information on our products. And on the other hand, we’re always interested in increasing our conversion rates and, therefore, we found that Bazaarvoice would be a great partner. We’re quite satisfied with the solutions we’re using,” said Joerg Bruehl, senior vice president of marketing at Gigaset.

3 ways Gigaset boosted conversion

Knowing what they wanted to achieve, but lacking the tools to get there, Gigaset opted to partner with a user-generated content platform: Bazaarvoice. After looking at the challenges Gigaset faced and the results they hoped to see, we implemented:

1. Product Sampling
2. Questions & Answers
3. Retail syndication

Each tool drives results in its own way, but together they combine to improve the digital customer experience, resulting in an increase in conversion rates for Gigaset. Here’s how they did it.

1. Sampling campaigns enhance the customer experience and build review volume

Product sampling campaigns are a powerful tool for encouraging customers to share their reviews. Customers are more likely to talk about a product once they’ve tried it, discovered its features, and experienced its value first-hand.

Gigaset explored sampling campaigns prior to launching new smartphone products to boost review volume before the launch date. This meant that customers could make a well-informed purchasing decision as soon as new products were introduced to the market at large.

Gigaset also used product sampling to test some of their more connected items, like upgrades for their smart home alarm system. In general, standard sampling campaigns send out product samples to an audience whose interests match the product. They’re asked to try the product and provide a review in return. But with connected products — like alarm systems — it’s difficult to sample one specific item at a time.

“When it comes to the smart home, we have a sort of ecosystem and all the devices are connected with one another. When we launch one new sensor, if you just buy the sensor or get a sample of this sensor, it wouldn’t be very helpful for you because you can’t connect it to anything,” explains Bruehl.

To solve this problem, Gigaset built a sampling community for their smart home alarm systems and focused their product sampling efforts on them. Even with a smaller sampling size, Gigaset was able to significantly expand review volume.

In total, the company collected reviews for 81% of their products, with each product receiving an average of 29 reviews, ensuring customers had a wide variety of information available to help them with their purchasing decisions.

“We had our own solution [prior to Bazaarvoice] for reviews but it was not really comparable. The guidance we now have leads to totally different reviews,” said Bruehl.

2. Q&A informs purchasing decisions and boosts conversion rates

User-generated content increases authenticity, builds trust with consumers, and provides a wealth of information for online audiences. Gigaset was particularly interested in how UGC could help their customers when purchasing more complex products.

Gigaset implemented Questions & Answers on product description pages to help customers make an informed choice, connect with shoppers, and provide guidance on product use.

“Q&A might be even more important [than reviews] because products are getting more complex. It’s very helpful to have a forum where people can ask questions and we’re able to answer them, but also other customers or potential customers are able to answer as well. This discussion also helps us get further insights on customer demands and product requirements from the customer side,” explained Bruehl.

In addition to informing customers, UGC, like ratings and reviews, leads to conversion rate lifts. According to Bazaarvoice’s Shopper Experience Index, 53% of shoppers feel more confident making a purchase decision when UGC is available, and 40% say UGC “makes them most likely to buy a product from an ad.” Gigaset felt the power of UGC first-hand after experiencing a 70% lift in conversion rates within the first 15 months of partnering with Bazaarvoice.

“We now see a massive increase in the overall conversion rate, and this is no surprise. When we have products with a very low number of reviews, they’re not the best sellers. On the other hand, the more reviews they get, the more we sell. We are convinced that Bazaarvoice has played a big role in this increase,” explained Bruehl.

Through UGC implementation, Gigaset encountered another unexpected benefit — product development feedback. When the company launched a brand new smartphone, the GX6, they found an increase in negative feedback within reviews and Q&A surrounding a specific error in the software that wasn’t picked up during the testing phase. As soon as the problem was picked up by the Gigaset marketing team, it was passed onto the product development side, and the error was fixed.

“This shows how the reviews can interact with our internal teams and give them guidance. Not only the customers but also the product managers should read reviews,” said Bruehl.

3. Syndication drives product discovery and increases product ratings

Low product ratings are a key disadvantage for brands that struggle to maintain a large volume of reviews on product description pages. As Bruehl explained, prior to Bazaarvoice their review collection process was very simple, “but the outcome was that we had less reviews and we had lower ratings.”

By syndicating reviews to major brands and retailers, Gigaset was able to build up their review volume and increase product ratings across the board. Higher review volume boosts product ratings because it reflects both positive and negative experiences. Customers who are generally satisfied with their purchase tend to leave fewer reviews than unhappy customers, resulting in more negative reviews, which drags down ratings.

By actively collecting reviews from customers and amplifying them through Retail Syndication, Gigaset ensured that positive sentiments were also reflected in the review collection, naturally boosting product ratings.

“The more people you drive into writing reviews, the more positive they will be. It was not our first goal to create more reviews but to collect better reviews,” explains Bruehl.

Improve your online shopping experience and boost conversion rates with Bazaarvoice

Gigaset is fully confident in their partnership with Bazaarvoice and attributes many recent benefits, including increased conversion rates, to the deployment of user-generated content. In fact, they rely completely on Bazaarvoice’s UGC solutions.
“The Bazaarvoice content is actually the only user-generated content that we have officially implemented into our website,” confirmed Bruehl. And if the numbers are any indication, that’s all the UGC Gigaset needs.

Want to see how you too can boost review volume, improve customer experience, and impact conversions?  Request a demo here.

Request a demo