Unify & Amplify the Voice of the Consumer - Position Paper

©PowerReviews. All Rights Reserved 2015 Retail Revolution | 1©PowerReviews. All Rights Reserved 2015 Amplify and Unify the Voice of the Consumer| 1

Unify and Amplify the Voice of the ConsumerImproving products, services, and shopping experiences


Vision: The Transparency Economy


PowerReviews believes in the transformative power of authentic feedback to benefit both consumers and businesses.

In the long history of commerce, the radical idea of asking customers for feedback and then displaying that feedback for all shoppers to read at the moment of purchase is a new and disruptive idea. Amazon introduced customer reviews and helped to popularize them nearly 20 years ago, and every consumer marketer has been racing to catch up ever since.

Today people review nearly everything: recipes, hotels, restaurants, movies, books, mobile apps, music, experiences, and web sites, and in the future consumer demand will drive educational institutions, healthcare organizations and government agencies to collect and display reviews on their sites. Consumers expect to see star ratings, questions and answers, and increasingly images and videos—before making purchase decisions.

As B2B marketers increasingly adopt B2C techniques and technologies, reviews will transform the purchase journey for businesses as well. Transparency is transforming our economy and our lives.

Breaking down barriersConsumers use smart devices to shop online and to enhance the in-store experience, blurring the lines between digital and real-world shopping. They bring their online expectations into the store, where they seek promotions, product information, and reviews to inform their purchase decisions while shopping in-store. Stores that don’t bridge the online and in-store experience with reviews and other relevant content drive consumers to competitor sites, where they often complete their purchases.


Hyper-personalized selling across channelsSmart sellers focus on generating the right content and making it easily accessible to shoppers online and in-store. Innovative sellers push hyper-relevant content to the consumer at the moment of purchase. And they use a consumer’s purchase and browsing data, along with feedback on their online experience, to personalize a shopper’s in-store experience and vice versa.

Personalized content has come a long way from an email that included the shopper’s first name. Data and technology now make it possible to understand a shopper’s habits and desires based not only on demographics and cross-channel purchase history, but also on rating and review history, web browsing, email and social media interaction, location proximity to specific stores and products, and even mood information from wearable technology. Armed with this data, sellers and brand manufacturers can push hyper-personalized offers to

shoppers to guide their purchase decisions, online or in-store, delivering a seamless shopping experience across channels.

Insights to improve products, services, and the bottom lineConsumers are giving increasingly visual and detailed feedback about brands, sellers, services, locations and experiences, creating a universe of data for providers to shape into actionable insights. What’s more, user-generated content provides real-time feedback that focus groups and traditional surveys can’t match. For example, product defects can be identified and corrected before launch thanks to product sampling and reviews. The data can also offer retailers the opportunity to optimize their merchandise mix, minimize returns and even address location-specific requirements. The Transparency Economy is a hugely valuable and lucrative opportunity for retailers and brands, as it helps them understand their customers and act strategically based on proven data.


Redefining the “Review”The role and concept of a review is changing. We think of them as star ratings, keywords, descriptions, images and more, but as the industry grows, reviews are becoming an ongoing discussion between businesses and consumers. The latter are asking businesses specific questions about their products, and speaking to other consumers about their experiences. With reviews, retailers and brands can listen and adjust their offerings to ensure their customer’s needs are met with better products, services and shopping experiences. Reviews are becoming the primary tool that consumers and businesses use to listen and learn.

Reviews Create the BrandThe transparency economy – where reviews exist as an ongoing discussion between brand and consumer - is a reality. For example, your airline won’t send you a survey about your flight experience and then only share that feedback

internally. In the Transparency Economy, you and your fellow passengers will publically rate the ticket buying, gate and flight experience, plus the snacks and wine selection, or even the inflight magazine, seat and reading light. The jokes of the flight attendants may even come under scrutiny.

These public reviews help the airline improve its service to passengers and helps passengers choose the right airline, flight, and seat based on their needs and preferences. This feedback also shapes public perception of the airline. With reviews, airlines have the potential to differentiate themselves in many ways beyond price. Companies don’t create the brand; reviews create the brand.

Reviews are becoming the primary tool that consumers and businesses

use to listen and learn.


The PowerReviews Mission:Unify and Amplify the Voice of the Consumer



The PowerReviews mission is to unify and amplify the voice of the consumer throughout their journey, across all channels to help consumers make better purchase decisions and to help businesses drive sales and improve products and services.

Unify. Unifying the voice of the consumer in an integrated platform and database, PowerReviews delivers a streamlined, mobile-friendly experience for consumers as they provide feedback throughout their shopping journey and a product’s lifecycle.

Consumers can read and provide feedback on products, sellers, services, locations and experiences before, during, and

after their purchase. And businesses can mine that feedback for insights to improve their offerings, while optimizing and personalizing the consumer journey, online and in-store.

Amplify. PowerReviews amplifies the voice of the consumer by distributing reviews to its Open Syndication Network of more than 2,500 retailers on more than 5,000 websites. Consumer ratings also appear in Google Search results, Product Listing Ads, and Seller Ratings and are leveraged in media, social, and digital marketing campaigns. Advanced fraud detection and moderation ensure the authenticity of consumer feedback, extending not only the reach, but also the power of reviews.


The Future of Reviews TodayOur heroine has set a threshold in her banking account that says if she saves more than her goal for a month, she can spend half of the excess on a treat. She loves handbags, and likes to spend her hard-earned money on them. Black and bright colors are her favorite; she never buys brown. She reviews each one she buys, and shares a photo of her with her handbag. If she has bad experience with the handbag, she posts that too. She’s purchased two bags with chain straps that have broken after wear. The faulty bags had no reviews when she purchased them. She rated both bags one star and shared the reviews on social media. She no longer buys any product that has less than 10 reviews.

She’s been thrifty this month so her banking app alerts her smartwatch that she’s earned a shopping spree. Taking a break at work to look at handbags online, she narrows her search to those that fit within her splurge budget. At the end of the day, she opens an email from her favorite retailer highlighting black and bright bags within her price range, rated 4.2-4.5. She isn’t presented with any bags that don’t have reviews. Individual bags are selected based on her browsing, buying, and feedback history. There are no brown bags and no bags with chains.

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As she leaves her office and walks toward the train, she gets a push notification on her mobile phone from her favorite retailer, letting her know that they have these bags in stock just 2 blocks from her current location. She takes a detour and goes to the store and looks at the bags and some wallets. While trying on one of the handbags with her new jacket, she receives another push notification with links to reviews on the bag and offering her a discount on a matching wallet if she purchases a bag today. She buys the bag. And the wallet.

After admiring how her bag complements her favorite dress as she gets ready for work the following Monday, she opens an email on her mobile requesting a review. She snaps a pic

with her and her new bag, selects 5 stars, writes a review and shares it. Her friend in the next city sees the post and goes bag shopping online. Meanwhile, the brand changes manufacturers of the chain for handbags and replies to her negative reviews of these bags, thanking her for her feedback and letting her know of the change.

The brand improved its product. The retailer sold more merchandise. And the increasingly loyal consumer is thrilled with her purchase and the attention from the brand.


Unify and Amplify the Voice of the Consumerthroughout the consumer journey, across all channels


Delivering on the Mission Today with Advanced Technology



A Unified Platform Drives InnovationAll of our software products are built on a single multi-tenant SaaS platform. What does that mean? Faster Innovation. Because we have only one platform to support, we can focus on delivering new capabilities, rather than devoting our resources to multiple platforms. And the PowerReviews unified platform makes it easy for our clients to enhance their implementation; when we release a new feature, it’s available to everyone simply by turning the new feature on.

A Unified Database Drives Amplification, Insights. A unified product catalog and advanced matching technology means consumer feedback can be distributed to retailers and Google Search and Shopping faster and with greater

accuracy, extending the reach of that content. And a unified database of consumer feedback across the PowerReviews network enables advanced analytics and actionable insights to improve the consumer journey.

Mobile-OptimizedWhether purchasing online or using a mobile device to assist in-store shopping, consumers are increasingly reading and writing reviews on mobile devices. PowerReviews delivers a mobile-optimized user experience for contributing and reading feedback. With the industry’s smallest mobile footprint for speedy page loads, PowerReviews ensures an optimal consumer experience across all devices and channels.


Focus: More Reviews. Better Insights. Easy.



More ReviewsMore reviews mean more traffic and more sales. PowerReviews delivers Review Acceleration, Product Sampling and Social Loyalty solutions to generate more of the user generated content that turns browsers into buyers.

Better InsightsReporting and analytics make it easy to measure impressions, users, and clicks for ratings and reviews and Q&A as well as the impact of content and engagement on conversions. Innovative brands and retailers also use review data and insights to improve their products, services, and operations.

EasySoftware providers should make things easier. At PowerReviews, we’re committed to delivering software solutions that are beautiful, intuitive for users, and easy to implement, configure, and update with new capabilities. The result is more consumer content, in less time, with less effort. And from the first conversation to continued, personalized support, you’ll see that we’re really easy to work with.

Unify & Amplify the Voice of the Consumer - Position Paper

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