L’Oréal Australia drives omnichannel strategy with the voice of the customer

L’Oréal Australia puts customer opinions at the center of its omnichannel strategy

Shopper journeys today are complex and non-linear, and customers reward companies that give them easy access to the kind of information they want no matter where they are researching or buying. As consumers make buying decisions on their own terms, best-in-class brands like L’Oréal Australia treat the buyer journey as a holistic experience and reach customers at various touchpoints along their path to purchase.

Driving sales on brand sites and at retail

L’Oréal Australia employs an omnichannel approach to winning customers with authentic, trustworthy consumer-generated content (CGC). Whether consumers are browsing products on one of the Group’s brand sites, at retail stores, or anywhere else, the global beauty brand leverages Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews and the Bazaarvoice Network to connect with shoppers and empower them to buy with confidence.

It’s crucial to share and receive content as much as possible with channel partners, as users visit both brand and retailer sites when researching a product, said Amanda Green, Director of eCommerce at L’Oréal Australia. It removes their feeling of need to hunt for varied opinions and that what they are seeing is the true opinion, said Green.

Many of L’Oréal’s Australian brands, including Kiehl’s, Lancôme, Maybelline, and Giorgio Armani, collect and distribute reviews by leveraging the Bazaarvoice Network of more than 5,700 brand and retail sites. For instance, the Maybelline Australia site has shared nearly 2,000 reviews with retailer sites, and almost all of the total review volume on those sites comes via syndication.

The company also syndicates its content globally across all of its own regional sites. For example, the Maybelline Australia site collected 11,000 reviews from the brand’s North American site, allowing the Australian site to launch with reviews already in place.

Shoppers are rewarding L’Oréal by buying and spending more on the brand sites and at retail. For example, the conversion rate on the Kiehl’s Australia site when visitors read reviews is nearly 500% higher than the conversion rate when there is no review content. In the UK, after syndicating more than 3,000 reviews to Debenhams, a major retail partner, Lancôme saw a 30% increase in conversions on the retail site.

Amplifying the voice of the customer

L’Oréal expands the impact of CGC by featuring review content in banner ads, social posts, print media, television commercials, and just about any time the company wants to support a claim with third-party validation.

We want consistent information available across all touchpoints and contextually-relevant content. Using creative that showcases reviews enables us to be part of the conversation without it being an overt brand statement on the product, said Green.

When the company features CGC in emails, it sees an increase in engagement, including higher click-through rates and a 4-6% lift in open rates when using reviews in the subject line.

Ultimately, the voice of our customers instills the kind of trust in L’Oréal Australia and our products that helps us maintain our strong reputation and success in connecting with the customer wherever they are, said Green.