Product reviews on bol.com: service for sales

Almost every Dutch person has heard of it, and millions have bought something: bol.com. The webshop, founded in 1999 as an online bookstore, has been the largest e-tailer in the Netherlands (and Flanders) for many years. Bol.com has also won dozens of prizes over the years, including prestigious ones Web Store Awards. In addition to winning sales and professional prices, bol.com is also doing remarkably well in terms of customer satisfaction and customer service. A good example of this is how the webshop knows how to sell more: not only with discount codes, but also with product reviews.

Reviews as a service 

Too many webshops see product reviews as a perfect way to sell extra products. In such cases, a review is used as a sales tool. Products with many positive assessments are more likely to be purchased by other customers than products with few or negative assessments.

The review is invaluable. We are all immensely sensitive to it. Would you dare to book a stay in a hotel that has virtually no reviews? Or even negative reviews? (our article about remove review on Bol.com is eagerly read!) For most online consumers, the ratings of peers (peers) may be the main reason for purchasing or not purchasing a product. We believe the opinion of the neighbor rather than the opinion of the seller, even if we don't know the neighbor at all. After all, the seller has an interest: the wearing of his goods.

Bol.com does it explicitly differently: reviews are used structurally as a service. The company sees reviews as a tool to help visitors find the right product, not primarily to generate more revenue - although it is likely that product reviews also contribute to sales at bol.com. This is how it works: reviews are ranked by relevance rather than by content or chronology. The most useful review is offered first. That degree of usefulness is again determined on the basis of votes on the relevant review (a kind of review of the review). A solid, truthful assessment will therefore probably end up at the top of the list. Not because that review now directly helps with sales, but because that review helps you as a customer best choose.

Mobile first: the chatbot

A good, reliable system of product reviews only works with the grace of numbers. A lot needs to be assessed if you want to be able to compare products fairly. That is why bol.com tested the chatbot for mobile devices: a chat robot that can trigger a product review while typing on your smartphone.

We are also increasingly doing mobile shopping and bol.com is responding to this in a handy way. During the test, some time after their order, customers received an invitation to give their opinion about the product. As a kind of WhatsApp conversation, simple questions could be answered. The chatbot is able to 'understand' answers and process them in a response or follow-up question. This creates a review that you can then have posted. A bit more fun and customer-friendly than a long survey!

Save Continuously and other tools

And further? Bol.com continues to focus on tricks and tools to lure customers and offer service. The webshop naturally also focuses on promotions with a bol.com discount code and on daily offers. Many online shoppers always look for that one coupon bol.com when they see the action field in their shopping cart. With the recently introduced 'Save Continu' you can also agree on a fixed low price for certain products - such as detergent - on condition that you systematically purchase them. And of course you prefer to leave a product review afterwards. You can see bol.com in that respect as the other blue Ahold-Delhaize daughter AH. Not always the cheapest, but the best.