Power of connection Decker, chief marketing officer for Bazaarvoice, says there is a clear trend of shoppers seeking the advice of their peers. “We’ve seen many large brands take notice that the most powerful help they can provide customers is connecting them with other customers,” he says.

Studies by Forrester and Jupiter Research indicate that more than 70 percent of shoppers seek out reviews when purchasing products online, Decker says, and additional research from Evoc Insights shows that half of online shoppers “aren’t going to buy without first reading a review.”

Outside of appending the reviews to the product page and a few targeted e-mail blasts, Bath & Body Works has not marketed its customer review service. Under consideration, however, are plans for “using the reviews to help us enhance customer navigation within the site and, in the long run, improve our search engine visibility,” Glass says. “And we will be looking at more significant marketing efforts like incorporating the reviews into our print and in-store marketing.”

Measuring sales impact
Bath & Body Works is currently measuring the sales impact of providing customer reviews. It is leveraging merchandising insights by reading reviews and monitoring the solution’s Workbench module to understand what customers are saying about the products, how products are rated and when the number of stars fluctuates.

“As the ratings change, Bazaarvoice sends an alert to us,” Glass says. “That allows us to focus on understanding and using the informational feedback, rather than focus on just publishing the information.”

Since launching the customer review program, BathandBodyWorks.com has seen its traffic and conversion rates increase.

Bath & Body Works recently sent an e-mail that incorporated customer ratings and reviews to a portion of its eight-million-customer database to promote FitFlop, fitness shoes designed to absorb shock and reduce joint pain. Compared with campaigns that didn’t include ratings or reviews, it achieved 10 percent higher conversion and 12 percent higher sales per visitor and FitFlop sold out.

Footwear is not “a place that Bath & Body Works has typically been in,” Glass says, “so introducing a nearly $50 price-point product … necessitated a lot of our customers to take a leap of faith and buy it online.

“What we were able to do with the reviews and with customers buying the shoes — loving them, swearing by them – [was to] help persuade other customers to try the product,” she says.