Rossignol increased its conversion rate with customer reviews

Rossignol has recently undergone a major transformation with the aim of aligning the business to changing purchasing habits, getting to know its customers better and personalizing their experience with the brand and its products. Rossignol’s new approach favors direct interaction with consumers, combining e-commerce with its 25 physical stores present throughout Europe. This strategy offers Rossignol a unique opportunity to better understand its customers, who practice a variety of sports, and to benefit from a big revival in skiing following the health crisis.

Although shoppers once relied on multi-brand stores, consumers are nowadays turning to online shopping, highlighting the need for Rossignol to adapt to these new habits. Personalizing the customer journey means creating a universe specific to each customer when they engage with the brand, whether they’re a snowboarder, alpine skier, or a lover of hiking, trail, or even biking.

By collecting and sharing information through the Bazaarvoice solution, like product design and style ratings, or customer recommendations, Rossignol is aiming for a customer experience that goes beyond the simple transaction. Bazaarvoice supports the moderation process and actively manages the monitoring of user-generated content prior to posting, to ensure that reviews are authentic.

“The Bazaarvoice solution is constantly evolving and provides a robust back-office interface. Having undergone long-term development, it is perfectly designed for an international company like ours, and from a technical perspective allows us to perform various tasks. It makes it easier for our channel partners to share reviews around the world and ensures that our distributors are never without support,” explains Sophie Bolarin, CRM Manager at Rossignol.

In resorts, Rossignol organizes tests that are open to all ski enthusiasts. After the trials, the company asks participants for their opinions, thus providing critical product information. Automating review collection at various events means that Rossignol has constant access to user feedback during product launches. Retailers and distributors also play a key role in the product review and testing process. Rossignol has had its items tested by a panel of retailers, who gave the product an average score of 4.5. As a result, at the launch of its new collection in September, Rossignol already had reviews for these products from the previous tests. As well as retailers, Rossignol also consults athletes for their opinions, in the hope of benefiting from additional feedback on its products.

Improve and optimize product lines
The Rossignol customer service team regularly checks product reviews, paying particular attention to those who have a rating below a certain threshold. If a product receives a certain number of negative reviews, steps are taken to improve the product. Sophie Bolarin explains: “Product managers receive feedback from customers on the collections they have launched. Before bringing them to market, we test our products under demanding conditions. For example, we intensively test our products for one or more full seasons. Then, customer feedback helps other buyers make a decision by looking at the product sheet.” This allows potential buyers to review the product’s technical characteristics and learn from existing customers’ experiences. It should be noted that, while the majority of customers who use verified reviews are consumers, who refer to them when making purchasing decisions both online and in-store, they have also become a very useful tool for retailers to identify popular products.

“We manufacture a large proportion of our products in Europe and want to highlight the exceptional quality of our products using published reviews and high average ratings. All this has a positive impact on our conversion rate and helps to support our turnover. We integrate real consumer feedback into our marketing materials and newsletters,” says Sophie Bolarin.

Content comes primarily from consumers and is enhanced by athletes and ambassadors, which brings an authentic and influential dimension to brand communications, especially when it comes from competition winners. A number of partners play a key role in contributing significantly to review generation and information circulation, for which Bazaarvoice is an essential gateway. For example, Snowleader shares the customer reviews collected by Rossignol on its website, thus increasing the visibility of the brand’s products among its consumers.

To find out how you too can increase review volume and boost conversion rates, request a demo here.