Posts Tagged ‘Social Shopping’

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Can Social Media Build Loyalty?

by on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

Pitney Bowes recently released the results of a large-scale, multi-country online survey (PDF) about which specific engagement techniques encourage consumers to “continue using a business and maybe buy more from them.” The key finding of the study, as reported in MediaPost and elsewhere, is that social media has little effectiveness as a channel for building loyalty: “Only 18% of consumers believe that the ability to interact with a large company on social platforms would encourage them to buy from that company. This average drops to 15% for small companies.”

Consumers were more likely to be loyal to brands that gave them more control over the shopping experience: “Being able to choose home delivery; choosing how to interact with a company (which communication channel); controlling the frequency of those interactions; and having a say in the company’s development of products and services.”

Social Sharing (via Elmo H. Love, Creative Commons)

So, does that mean that social media is a waste of effort for brands that want engage with consumers? Not at all. Although the underlying survey data hasn’t been made public, the survey as reported reflects a very narrow understanding of social media and how it can be used to promote customer engagement.

The survey report focuses primarily on the use of social media as a communications channel between the brand and the consumer – a cooler but less measurable version of email. Viewed that way, it’s easy to conclude that social media doesn’t offer much as an engagement vehicle. But the potential of social media lies in so much more than its use as yet another top-down channel in which brands say a lot but don’t listen much.

One of the most fundamental recent changes in consumer attitudes and behavior is the decline of the brand as authority figure and the increased consumer preference to be in control – something reflected in the Pitney Bowes survey itself. But another aspect of this paradigm appears to have been ignored: Consumers who formerly relied on the brand as authority now are more inclined to rely on each other.

The online retail space is full of brands that facilitate interactions among consumers, not just between the brand and consumers. Kaboodle is a women’s clothing site that invites consumers to “Shop and share your style with friends.” Users share their style tips and can in turn be followed by other consumers. Kaboodle’s merchants rely on these interactions in making selection and stocking decisions. ModCloth has a similar social shopping model, including a “Be the Buyer” tool that lets users directly affect the merchandise that is carried.

Both of these sites facilitate consumer control, but the social context adds a dimension that arguably makes the relationship stickier. According to one customer: “I love Kaboodle because now I have people from all over the country (who used to be complete strangers) as shopping buddies! This is my new favorite way to shop.” Note, too, that most of the social interactions take place on these companies’ respective sites, not on social media platforms, although the ModCloth page on Facebook has almost 375,000 likes.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Social can build engagement and loyalty, provided it’s used creatively. It isn’t just another form of email.
  • The genius of social media is that it puts consumers in charge – and lets them learn from and help each other.
  • Social sharing is a paradigm, not a technology. It isn’t limited to Facebook and Twitter and might best be implemented on your own site.

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Is A “Deal of the Day” Right for You?

by on Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Every year some online concept seems to catch on with users, commentators and venture capitalists alike. This year’s hot concept is the “deal of the day” pioneered by Groupon. The daily deal is a deeply discounted product promotion available for one day only. Groupon features the deal on its web site and blasts emails to users who have opted in. It can provide substantial exposure to a marketer or product, although it doesn’t necessarily pay for itself. Is Groupon (or one of its many imitators) right for your business and its products? As usual, it depends.

The marketing psychology behind Groupon’s deals is simple: an ultra-low price to stimulate interest plus very brief availability to stimulate action. You’ve seen the same thing on direct response infomercials on late night TV. But those infomercials work. And so, at least to some extent, do Groupon’s deals.

The New York Times business blog “You’re The Boss” recently analyzed the math behind a typical Groupon deal. Separately, a team at Rice University studied how satisfied merchants were with their Groupon experience, and how likely they would be to use a Groupon deal again.

via Sofianos Rezk (Creative Commons)

In the Times article the bottom line was whether it cost more to acquire net new customers via the Groupon promotion or through conventional channels. That like a perfectly reasonable metric, although perhaps not the only relevant one. In the Times’ example the hypothetical business spent about the same to acquire net new customers through the promotion as through other channels, which made the promotion a wash, but the author pointed out that even small changes to the many variables could alter the result significantly.

That’s important because the Times example described more than a dozen different variables, from the the percentage of coupons redeemed to the percentage of redeeming customers who were not previously customers of the merchant. Depending on these variables a Groupon program could be anything between a home run and a disaster.

But running the numbers is not the only way to decide whether a deal of the day makes sense. The Rice University study led by Professor Utpal M. Dholakia (full pdf available here) reported a wide range of views from merchants concerning their satisfaction with the Groupon promotion and the likelihood of their using Groupon again. The three key predictors of repeating a Groupon promotion were

  1. Effectiveness in reaching new customers
  2. Percentage of Groupon users buying more than its value during the visit
  3. Employee satisfaction with the Groupon promotion

In other words, the promotion would be considered less than successful if it promoted trial but did not produce net new repeat business; did not result in substantial on-premises upsell of Groupon users; and did not satisfactorily account for reductions in commissions and tips. Merchants reported that unless these factors were present they would not be inclined to repeat a Groupon promotion even if their promotion had been profitable:

There is widespread recognition among many business owners that social promotion users are not the relational customers that they had hoped for or the ones that are necessary for their business’ long-term success. Instead, there is disillusionment with the extreme price sensitive nature and transactional orientation of these consumers among many study respondents.

Is Groupon too much of a good thing? The suggestion in the Rice study that Groupon shoppers are qualitatively different from ordinary shoppers would be troubling if true. This would suggest that consumers who are highly motivated by the brief availability of an extreme price reduction are not willing or able to see beyond the deal and are not particularly open to learning about the merchant or her (non-discounted) products.

Are there any benefits to a tool that brings traffic but maybe not genuine trial? It depends on the business. A retailer that does better when the store is full (e.g., because of a social element to the brand) may be able to leverage the traffic Groupon can bring. A restaurant that cannot adequately service a Groupon-driven wave of first-time customers (who may not be the best tippers) is likely to have an unsatisfactory experience regardless of the numbers. The key is to understand the process, understand the numbers and have realistic expectations.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Groupon isn’t as much about promoting trial of your product as it is generating buzz about your brand.
  • For the right business, Groupon can result in incremental sales to one-time customers and an acceptable level of new customers, all without upsetting and under-compensating your staff. But it doesn’t seem to happen very often.
  • Brands aren’t built with magic bullets. Surprise and delight your customers, reward their continued loyalty, and make it easy for them to share their experiences.

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When Things Go Wrong, There’s No Substitute For The Human Touch

by on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Social shopping sites (like Zavee), as well as many merchants’ own web sites, provide tools that let shoppers “self serve” information they want to make an informed purchase decision. Some large merchants are also asking customers to self-serve customer service issues, too. Is this a good idea?

For product-related issues, it’s a great idea. Many manufacturers, such as Apple, now host libraries of information to help consumers use and, when necessary, troubleshoot their product. This system filters out customers with easy to solve (or at least common) problems and frees the customer service representative (CSR) to deal with more difficult (or less common) issues.

Not another customer service complaint! (via Star5112 - Creative Commons)

Some companies have an intermediate stage between self-service and a conversation with a CSR: live chat. Live chat uses an IM-like interface for online interaction with a CSR in real time. Why would a merchant use live chat rather than a live conversation? Most live chat software lets CSRs conduct several live chat interactions at once, while they can handle only one phone call at a time. This can result in shorter wait times compared to phone queues, which may make the more impersonal quality of live chat a fair exchange.

Are consumers equally wiling to self-serve when the issue relates to the company’s service? Recent research supports the unsurprising conclusion that when things go wrong consumers want to interact with a human, either in person or on the phone. But not just any human will do. Consumers want someone who listens, responds appropriately (rather than from a script) and is empowered to address the problem.

Speaking of Apple, I recently had a wonderful customer service experience at the local Apple Store. They made an avoidable mistake that delayed the servicing of my laptop. When I called and pointed out the mistake, the service manager immediately took steps to make it right. He didn’t even consult the store manager; he just made the decision on the spot. I’ve always been a “Mac guy” but now I’m more likely not only to buy Apple products but to recommend them as well. Great customer service will do that.

Best Buy explicitly treats customer service as a sales channel. Its twelpforce program puts sales associates on Twitter where they respond to customer inquiries, which range from questions about what to buy to troubleshooting assistance to service complaints. Why Twitter and not either live chat or a phone call? First, from a look at the Best Buy feed the interactions clearly are unscripted and one-on-one. Live chat isn’t as spontaneous or personal. Second, Best Buy doesn’t offer twelpforce as an alternative to telephone interaction with a CSR – it’s positioned as tech advice for the consumer (even though they handle service issues). Twitter also scales better than the telephone. Associates can switch between helping customers in the store and on Twitter; a voice solution would would take associates off the floor. Finally (and I’m speculating here), I think it matters that twelpforce consists of sales associates rather than CSRs. Associates’ only mission is to grow the business, which includes providing a customer experience that makes buying – and returning – more likely. CSRs also are (or should be) tasked with providing a quality experience, but they encounter customers when they want to complain, not buy. So it’s easy to understand why CSRs might be less customer-centric than associates.

Smaller companies can’t (and probably wouldn’t want to) duplicate an enterprise level customer service structure, but there are lessons that small companies can learn from big ones. First, asking customers to self-serve on product issues can make sense and save money. It’s one of the smartest things you can do with your web site. Second, make sure that every customer-facing employee is trained to listen to customer concerns, respond appropriately and take prompt action (even if that action is to pass the customer to a more senior employee). Third, use customer service as a sales channel. Any action you take that goes beyond customer expectations – especially if you venture into “surprise and delight” territory – can increase that customer’s loyalty and create an advocate whose recommendations bring you new customers and more sales.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Understand the differences between customer service issues that relate to the products you sell and the service you provide. Customers are more willing to self-serve product issues than service issues.
  • When things go wrong there is no substitute for personal interaction, the more personal the better. Especially (but not only) in smaller companies, everyone is a CSR.
  • Customers share their experiences, both good and bad, so every interaction can be amplified. Great customer service creates brand advocates who recommend you to others. Poor customer service has the opposite effect.

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4 Things to Consider About Negative Reviews

by on Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Now that a New York court has dismissed claims against Yelp by a New York dentist based on a (very) negative review and on Yelp’s alleged removal of positive reviews, this might be a good time to think about what makes a review “negative” and what negative reviews mean to – and for – your business. You may think that negative reviews are just angry people taking shots at you. Here are four other ways to look at it:

via Marten Bjork (Creative Commons)

Readers recognize – and discount – outliers. Positive or negative, excessive emotions in a review diminish their credibility. It’s great to get an exceptional review for exceptional service. But if the glowing adjectives are out of proportion to a typical customer experience, readers are likely to apply the old saying: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Same thing with negative reviews. The surest way to lose credibility IS TO WRITE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS WITH LOTS OF PUNCTUATION!!! These are actually the best negative reviews you can get, because even if they are accurate, who will believe them? It’s true that some people write reviews to blow off steam, but readers know that, and respond accordingly.

Mixed reviews are not necessarily negative. Have you ever used Rotten Tomatoes to decide whether to see a movie? The site’s “Tomatometer” rating is based on whether published reviews were positive or negative. However, a review can only be either “fresh” (i.e., positive) or “rotten” (i.e., negative), no matter how mixed or qualified the review might be. For “Going the Distance” (51% rating), the fresh reviews include “solid but totally forgettable” and “hilarious in many individual scenes [but] less than the sum of its parts”. Rotten reviews included “funny but forgettable” and “The laughs kept me involved … but after I left the theater, it occurred to me that this slight comedy hadn’t gone very far at all.” Hmm. Many reviews – of anything – are mixed enough that it would be hard to give them either a thumbs up or thumbs down rating. So don’t consider every mixed review a thumbs down.

A mixed review is often more thoughtful, detailed and nuanced than an outright rave or pan. A customer who writes a review that contains some negative feedback isn’t venting, she’s helping. These are the reviews your customers will take seriously – and you should do the same. When you respond to reviews like these (easy to do on Zavee) you can use the review as the basis for an ongoing relationship. If you want a second chance at the customer and a more positive review the second time around, being proactive is the only way to get results.

Yes, competitors can try to hurt your business with fake reviews, but there are reasons you don’t hear about it happening very often. If you are running a good business deceitful reviews are unlikely to harm you, especially if you are actively communicating with your customers. Why? First, as discussed above readers will tend to discount rants whether or not they are malicious. Second, users of social shopping sites tend to be very skeptical of reviews that differ greatly from what most (real) customers experience. The unusual experience is another kind of outlier. On the other hand, negative reviews that go into detail about the experience and/or are written by a reviewer who has demonstrated credibility based on other reviews may well be taken seriously, but how many of your competitors are willing to invest that much effort just to undermine your business? If you are actively communicating with your customers you should be able to deflect even the most sophisticated malicious review. Finally, social shopping sites are trying to safeguard against malicious and fraudulent reviews. At Zavee, our system will reject a review unless the author has had a transaction at that merchant within 30 days of the review. Could a competitor jump through all those hoops just to hurt your business? Probably, but how many would bother?

A negative review is a positive experience. On the most basic level, a thoughtful review that recounts a negative experience provides valuable information for your business. You can’t be everywhere, and if a waiter or a sales associate didn’t behave appropriately, or if a product or service fell short of expectations, wouldn’t you want to know? Of course you would prefer to hear it privately, but in our increasingly social world these conversations are being held in the open. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A negative review can be a positive experience because your handling of the situation – again, in public – gives you the chance to move the conversation forward: increasing customer engagement and loyalty, building your reputation and your brand, and even persuading non-customers to give you a try.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Readers are smart, and they are good at recognizing which reviews to take seriously.
  • Negative reviews can hurt your business only if you ignore them or react passively. Especially on Zavee, where we make it so easy for merchants to interact with customers, make sure you respond to every review.
  • Always follow through on anything you promise – and don’t forget to talk about it.

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Employees: Your Brand Evangelists

by on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

One of the drivers of growth in the social shopping space is the recognition that personal recommendations are among the most trusted marketing communications. What many companies in the space, including Zavee, are trying to accomplish is to maximize the timeliness, reach and relevance of those recommendations. This need is most acute for smaller merchants, who don’t have the option of simply buying reach through conventional media.

Word of Mouth

Word of Mouth (via Mo - Creative Commons 2.0)

Smaller merchants do have one significant advantage over larger competitors: because they are close to their customers they should be better able to deliver the kind of customer experience that results in credible, actionable, recommendations. Because they know that word of mouth is so important, and because they are more likely to be competing on service than on price, smaller local merchants are uniquely positioned to provide the Wow! factor that launches word of mouth recommendations.

Smaller merchants also have a related advantage, one they should leverage more fully. Unlike much larger competitors, most small company employees are customer-facing at least part of the time. These employees should be hired, trained and required to promote significant, relevant brand equities at every customer interaction. They also should be encouraged (and empowered) to provide the same Wow! factor as the sales associate or the owner/manager herself.

But just as word of mouth is no longer restricted to face-to-face interactions, the role of employees in promoting the brand can also extend beyond individual encounters. In particular, merchants should require – or at least encourage – all employees to actively promote the company’s brand equities through social media.

As companies consider how to implement a social media program, the role of employees should be an integral element of the strategy rather than an afterthought. What role might employees play in a social media program? Here are some suggestions:

  • Create a group blog for employees. It’s easy to do, you can link from your web site and blog posts are indexed by search engines. Some content could be expressly about the company (e.g., as a workplace, if that is a key equity) but most of the content could be about what interests the bloggers. Here the message is more subtle but potentially very effective: You should shop here because this company hires people like us. Amazon now has numerous blogs with this subtext – even a car blog – something they may have learned from having acquired Zappos, which pioneered the concept.
  • Let your employees run your Facebook page. Facebook is now so flexible that a company’s fan page easily can accommodate both “official” content from the company and less structured content from employees. Employees can leverage their own social graph to expand the company’s reach. One objective should be to pierce the wall between the company and its customers. Here’s a simple example: instead of the company simply announcing its “Employee of the Month,” why not post nominations (perhaps including video clips of the employees in action) on Facebook and let the community vote?
  • Get your employees Tweeting. There are many ways in which employees can use Twitter to benefit their company. One is simply to tweet actively about topics that relate to the company’s business. This does not necessarily mean promoting specific products or deals, although (with disclosure) there is nothing wrong with that. But the employees of, say, a fashion boutique should be on Twitter constantly providing value-added content about fashion, art, music or anything else the clientele would find interesting (and bringing useful information back to the company). Employees also can be the “canary in the coal mine” for their company. By setting up keyword and hashtag searches on Twitter they can see and respond to mentions of the company, its products, suppliers, etc. and respond appropriately. The scope of this task will vary by company and it needs to be handled carefully, but any established company that isn’t using Twitter in this way simply has its hands over its ears.

One final note about empowering employees to use social media on behalf of the company. It’s in everyone’s interest to clearly specify what employees must, can and may not do. Transparency and disclosure are vital to every social media plan, and it’s important to have someone in charge of ensuring compliance. Mistakes are inevitable but they need to be addressed promptly, lest your lawyers come in and advise you to prohibit employees from using social media altogether (note: pdf download req’d).

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Your employees can help provide the kind of experience that produces word of mouth recommendations.
  • They also can help you increase the reach and impact of your word of mouth marketing if you integrate them into your social media strategy.
  • There are countless ways to leverage employee involvement in social media – be creative!

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The Social “Ask”

by on Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Remember Ask.com? Back before Google became almost synonymous with internet search (sorry, Yahoo!), Ask had users enter natural language questions rather than strings of keywords. Ask is about to relaunch with an interesting new structure. First, the search engine now returns natural language answers instead of links. Second, and even more interesting, users will be able to open their query to the user community for a crowd-sourced answer.

via Horia Varlan (Creative Commons 2.0)

Ask is hardly alone in making Q&A part of social search. A startup called Aardvark enables social Q&A by finding a person in the user’s network to answer a question. Aardvark may have been onto something, as it was recently acquired by Google. Other social search sites that have enabled social Q&A are Quora and Formspring. Quora considers itself a “continually improving collection” of user-generated questions and answers. Formspring is oriented toward “conversational Q&A [that] helps you express yourself”. Among the major social networks, Facebook is developing a Q&A application, which is currently in private beta. LinkedIn long has supported the ability to ask questions and hold threaded discussions within user groups, while Twitter can support Q&A but doesn’t have a specific application.

We think that Q&A is a natural extension of social search and will become a permanent part of the social media landscape. We think Q&A is particularly relevant to social shopping. The process that now begins with a shopper’s review or recommendation can just as easily begin with another shopper’s request for information. Like writing reviews, answering questions is a way for shoppers to provide value, demonstrate expertise and gain influence. Of course, we at Zavee are continuing to develop and refine our own social search capabilities, so you can look forward to exciting new features over the next several months.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Social Q&A is suddenly hot, but that doesn’t make it a fad.
  • Q&A is a natural extension of the social shopping feature set.
  • Look for exciting new social search features coming soon from Zavee.

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An Open Letter to Zavee Merchants

by on Friday, June 4th, 2010

My name is Alan Pleskow and I’m the CEO and a co-founder of Zavee. On behalf of everyone here at Zavee I would like to extend my personal thanks to every local business that has joined our company as a merchant. I also want to thank you for your patience in waiting for our shopper base to grow. Below is a brief update of what we are doing now and some of the great things you can expect from us over the rest of this year.

  • Merchants – More than 200 merchants are now members of Zavee, and more are joining every day. We have attracted businesses from a wide variety of categories and from all over our Northern Broward – Southern Palm Beach launch market. Many Zavee merchants are taking advantage of opportunities for increased social media exposure by “liking” Zavee on Facebook and following us on Twitter. Later this year we expect to add new features that will make your marketing even more effective.
  • Shoppers – We have completed development of the shopper portion of the Zavee platform, and have ramped up our consumer marketing accordingly. As every business owner knows, it takes time for consumers to learn about any new business – even one as cool as Zavee. The Zavee site is now fully optimized for search engines and we have an active online advertising program through both Google and Facebook. We will be launching our email marketing program in the beginning of June and already have begun our PR campaign. We expect thousands of shoppers to join in the next few months.
  • You Should Become a Shopper, Too - One way to increase the number of Zavee shoppers is for merchants to activate their shopper accounts at www.zavee.com. That’s right – every Zavee merchant is also a Zavee shopper. So next time you log in, click on the shopping bag icon and set up your shopper account. Your customers are earning cash back rewards, why not you? Another way to add merchants is for you to suggest Zavee to your customers. Almost 80% of consumers trust personal recommendations. Your recommendation of Zavee is almost certain to be effective.
  • Causes and Care Shares – Our team also has completed the portion of our platform that lets causes sign up, communicate with other members and receive Care Share contributions from shoppers. We are beginning our outreach program to causes and have been gratified by the response. If you are a member of an organization that you think would be right for Zavee, please invite them to contact us or let us know and we will take it from there. Since causes earn contributions through shopper transactions, it is in your interest as well as theirs for causes to join Zavee.

In fact, we want you to let us know what you think about the Zavee site and platform. Please do not hesitate to contact me at 561-290-0388 ext. 302, or our COO and co-founder, Ron Stack at 561-290-0388 ext. 301, with any questions, comments or suggestions.

We thank you for joining us, and we thank you for your continued patience and support as we roll out a social shopping platform that will help you grow your business through smarter marketing and a stronger local community. We’re glad you’re part of the Zavee community.

And if you’re a merchant in Broward or Palm Beach Counties and you aren’t a Zavee merchant yet, hit us up online or call Jerry Horowitz at 561-290-0388 ext. 501 and learn how Zavee can get you marketing smarter today.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • We are ramping up marketing to shoppers and causes, so the Zavee community is poised for exceptional growth.
  • You can help the community grow, by becoming a shopper, by recommending Zavee to your customers and by telling Zavee about your favorite cause.
  • Thanks, Zavee merchants – you’re the best!

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The Positive Side of Negative Reviews

by on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Actor, author, shortstop or chef, no one likes a negative review. But when we were developing the Zavee business model we decided early on that we would have to include negative as well as positive reviews. The goal we set for ourselves was to create a framework for reviews that were accurate, timely and fair – and that meant including negative reviews.

Our commitment to getting reviews right stemmed from our insight that reviews were another form of Social Media and, as such, were going to be a vital component of the Zavee experience and value proposition. We also learned, based on research with merchants, that many business owners who expressed concern about potential harm from fraudulent, malicious or even accurate negative reviews also intuitively understood the benefit of hearing about issues directly from the customer affected.

As marketers are learning, people will say whatever they want to whomever they want, and merchants don’t have the power to control their customers’ conversations. They can, however, do two important things.

First, they can listen, learn and respond. Thanks to Social Media, including reviews, merchants can make necessary adjustments to their business almost in real time. This is something that every business should be doing, all the time, through every available channel. Twitter and Facebook are great listening posts, but reviews are a channel that exists solely to provide feedback about the customer experience.

Second, merchants can participate in the conversation. By actively engaging with their customers merchants can address problems quickly and publicly; they can provide perspective that helps customers evaluate reviews; and they can favorably shape perceptions about the business.

  • Responding quickly is important because unresolved issues tend to fester. Responding publicly is important because it gives the merchant the chance to address at one time a concern that may be shared by many customers.
  • Actively participating is the only sure way to get the merchant’s perspective into the conversation. Both the manner and the substance of the merchant’s response can help customers determine how much weight to give a negative review, while the absence of a response does nothing but add credence to the reviewer’s complaints. A measured, factual response may not erase the impact of a negative review, but at a minimum the merchant will have extended the relationship with the customer and demonstrated both interest and respect.
  • Simply committing the time and effort to engage customers in conversation sends a positive message to all customers and can go a long way toward shaping perceptions of the customer experience. This can reinforce the positive experiences of current customers and build loyalty, but it also can lead non-customers to have a favorable impression of what it would be like to be a customer. In other words, an impressive response to a negative review can actually bring in new business.
Creative Commons 2.0

Reviews (via fengergold)

In benchmarking Zavee against other sites that feature reviews we observed a wide disparity in the treatment of key issues. Some sites filter reviews while others list them all chronologically. At least one site that uses filtering algorithms has had to defend itself against allegations that it improperly manipulated the placement of reviews. We decided not to filter or change the placement of reviews, because we believed that the less we intervened in the substance of reviews, the more confidence shoppers would have in them and, ultimately, in the Zavee brand.

We also observed that some sites permitted reviews (both positive and negative) that described experiences that had occurred long before the review was written. We thought reviews that were dated were so likely to be inaccurate that it would be unfair to both merchants and shoppers to have them on our site. We also were concerned, as many merchants seemed to be, that on some review sites there there were insufficient safeguards against fake reviews or even fake merchants.

We addressed these problems by requiring that any shopper who wanted to review a merchant had to have made a purchase from that merchant within the previous 30 days and by permitting only one review per purchase. Zavee solicits a review after every transaction, and the shopper’s My Zavee page lists recent transactions and the time remaining to submit a review. Zavee automatically rejects reviews that do not meet these rules.

We also were concerned about reviews that, while perhaps not fraudulent, seemed hostile or malicious. We initially considered moderating reviews, the way we moderate comments on Zavee Thinking, but we decided not to. There is nothing wrong with having editorial standards for reviews – we are, after all, responsible for the content on our site – but we thought the better way to deal with potential problems was to let shoppers and merchants have their say but remove reviews that violated our Terms of Use.

Because we passionately believe that reviews should be a dialogue, we also made it easy for merchants to post responses to shopper reviews. Merchants are automatically notified whenever they are reviewed and have 7 days to post a response. Responses appear with the original reviews and always show up together in a search. Shoppers can respond the the merchant’s response, and the entire conversation is threaded so it can be seen by everyone who sees the original review.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • You can’t control what your customers say, but you can listen, learn and respond to concerns – almost in real time.
  • Use negative reviews as a conversation-starter, not a relationship-ender.
  • How you handle unfavorable reviews can shape perceptions about your business, for future as well as current customers. Treat reviews as an opportunity to be impressive – you may be surprised by the results.

Update (4/14/10): MediaPost’s Marketing Daily reports that S.C. Johnson has been receiving substantial negative feedback, including reviews, about a new pet care product – and tells Marketing Daily that it is bringing the feedback to its product development team for consideration.

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Juliet Was Wrong

by on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a frustrated, frightened and ultimately doomed Juliet wonders aloud, “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Why, she pleads, must her beloved bear the one name – Montague – forbidden to any of her Capulet clan.

Juliet argues to her unseen Romeo that names themselves have no meaning:

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet ….

Romeo and Juliet via HL42

Romeo and Juliet (via HL42)

But Juliet was mistaken. Montague and Capulet are brands, as surely as if they were Coke and Pepsi. And like Coke and Pepsi they have brand equities, which are the attributes (values, personality, meaning, etc.) that are the essence of the brand, and brand promises, which is what the brand will do for its audience. (Part of the tragedy of the play is that both families have the same brand equities – pointless jealousy and excessive self-regard – and the same brand promise – the destruction of the other).

Brands communicate their equities and promises in many ways, from their logo to their tag line. Their names can have branding value, too. Many brands have names that describe their business. This naming strategy has several advantages, not least that it makes it easy for consumers to understand what the brand is and does. It also frees up marketing resources to communicate brand messages rather than focus on the basics of the business.

The problem with descriptive names, however, is that similar businesses can use similarly descriptive names. At best descriptive names risk diluting a brand’s uniqueness (unless it has a unique description) and at worst they can lead to consumer confusion. Also, descriptive names tend not to be memorable and, inherently, they do not do much to convey brand messages. We should not forget, however, that many of the world’s strongest and best-known brand names, from IBM to UPS, are (or began as) descriptive.

The other end of the naming spectrum is often referred to as “evocative” names. As the term suggests, these names are meant to evoke a response that relates to the brand’s positioning. There are many ways to do this, which makes naming something of a black art. Names can consist of real or invented words, with real or invented spelling; words from modern or classical languages; single or compound words; and so on. Some names try to embody the entire brand while others focus on one key aspect of the positioning, such as the consumer experience. In addition to their messaging component, names have to be easy to read and say and have a look and sound that is appropriate to the brand.

Evocative names are the flip side of descriptive names: they are unique and can be memorable, but it takes more resources to communicate what the brand is and does as well as the essential brand messages. However, once that is accomplished the name is more likely to remain in the audience’s consciousness and be associated with the desired brand positioning. Many newer brands, from Amazon to Google to Yahoo, have evocative names, but this naming strategy is far from an online-only phenomenon. Several companies have used evocative names as part of a re-branding strategy, such as Altria (ex-Phillip Morris), Tenet (ex-National Medical Enterprises) and Accenture (ex-Andersen Consulting).

Why did we choose an evocative rather than a descriptive naming strategy? And how did we come up with Zavee? Our company was originally called Charge Rewards, which is still the name of our holding company. That name accurately describes one important element of our business – a rewards program that uses registered credit/debit cards – but was unsatisfactory for several reasons. First, it says nothing about social shopping, online marketing or social giving, all of which are elements of our business that are both very significant and highly differentiating. Second, it might be difficult to protect against another registered-card loyalty program that wanted to use a similar name. Third, it simply isn’t very memorable or exciting.

We wanted our new name to be unusual and memorable, and suggest in some way what we were trying to accomplish. We weren’t convinced that any descriptive name could easily encompass our business, and we didn’t want our name either to limit us (like Charge Rewards did) or confuse our audiences. We worked with two agencies to develop a new name, briefing their teams with both a description of our business and a statement of our brand positioning. They came up with literally scores of possibilities, which we discussed and analyzed before coming up with three finalists. We ultimately decided on Zavee. One of the things that sold us on the name was the way it embodies a key brand promise. Our platform helps merchants market smarter; helps consumers shop smarter; and helps causes raise funds smarter. That focus on making communities smarter led one of our agencies to the notion of “savvy”, which they transformed into the more unique, interesting and memorable “Zavee”.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Juliet’s wrong. Names matter.
  • Descriptive names are generally more intuitive for the consumer and less expensive to market, but less memorable, harder to protect and less valuable to the brand.
  • Evocative names are generally less intuitive for the consumer and more expensive to market, but more memorable, easier to protect and more valuable to the brand.

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