June 06 2007

Customer reviews for Early Learning Centre

Early Learning Centre is adding customer reviews to its site to increase confidence among shoppers and drive purchases. The multi-channel retailer has appointed Bazaarvoice to implement and manage the service.

Press release follows:

Early Learning Centre is launching customer reviews on its web site to increase trust in the brand among online shoppers.

The high street chain of children's toy and gift shops has appointed Bazaarvoice, the hosted social commerce ratings and reviews technology provider which helps online brands drive sales, to implement and manage a service that will enable customers to read other shoppers' opinions and experiences of products before they make a purchase.

"Due to the increase in social networking and the focus on user generated content, it's become increasingly important to effectively engage with our customers and give them a way of contributing towards the site. Adding a ratings and review function is an ideal way of enabling this," said Matthew Legge, e-Commerce Manager at Early Learning Centre. "Peer reviews are so much more effective than the brand reviewing its own products - Mums value and trust what other Mums think."

Legge added that customer reviews are expected to have an impact on Internet sales - currently Early Learning Centre's fastest growing sales channel. "We think that by letting shoppers voice their opinions on the site, we'll also drive higher conversion rates," he said.

Bazaarvoice will provide Early Learning Centre with a dedicated Community Manager to help drive review volume, SearchVoice landing pages to deliver maximum natural search traffic and a reporting tool - Bazaarvoice Workbench - to track review volume, measure responses to the service, sort data and support review management.

"Bazaarvoice is helping Early Learning Centre tap into the power of customer-generated content to improve merchandising and increase multi-channel sales," said Sam Decker, VP of Marketing and Products at Bazaarvoice. "The ratings and reviews service will also attract new customers and improve satisfaction and loyalty."

Early Learning Centre's own research shows that a large number of its online customers are multi-channel - most go to the site to buy items for planned events such as birthdays or Christmas, but will buy last minute treats in-store.

The company has 215 shops in the UK.

Emma Herrod