Miles Kimball uses reviews to improve their customers' buying experience

Since beginning in 1934 as a catalogue business, Miles Kimball has prided themselves on excellent customer service and retaining a happy and loyal customer base. In recent years, Miles Kimball began shifting their focus to online sales to grow their share of the market.

Maintaining a loyal customer base in the online world isn’t easy. Consumers have more businesses to choose from online and companies have less opportunities to engage with their customers in a meaningful way. Data shows that 96% of dissatisfied customers never voice their complaints to businesses. 91% simply take their business elsewhere, giving Miles Kimball little room for error.

Miles Kimball decided to partner with Trustpilot to give their customers a forum where they could voice their opinions. This proactive approach to getting honest feedback provides Miles Kimball with the necessary insights to understand their new target market’s needs and adapt accordingly.

As it turned out, this partnership was critical. Last March, Miles Kimball realized they had a 3.9 (out of 5) average star rating on Trustpilot, the lowest it had been in over a year. Miles Kimball knew they had to figure out what was going on, or risk losing their newly acquired online customers.

Goals

Analyze over 2,500 reviews that Miles Kimball collected through Trustpilot in Q1 and find actionable insights to improve their customer’s buying experience.

Work

Identify trends

Using Trustpilot’s customized trend reports and statistical analysis, Miles Kimball identified the top five themes driving Miles Kimball’s poor ratings. They realized 13% of their reviews commented on a dissatisfying delivery service, and 8% commented on a poor customer service.

Analyze the root cause

To learn more about the root causes of these reviews, Miles Kimball worked with Trustpilot’s Customer Success team to do a more thorough analysis of the review content. They learned the cause of these 1 and 2 star reviews was poor communications around delivery and setting expectations, rather than late delivery or delivery costs.

Use insights to improve your business

These insights led Miles Kimball to change the way they communicate shipping options on their website to better set expectations at the moment of purchase. Instead of giving the options: Economy, Standard, Expedited, and Next Day, they opted for more exact terms: Economy (4-8 business days), Standard (3-6 business days), Premium (3 business days), and Next Business Day (if ordered by 1pm CST).

Results

This small change in wording led to a better overall customer experience, and consequently Miles Kimball saw a significant decline in bad reviews related to delivery and customer service.

By utilizing Trustpilot’s reporting tools and Customer Success team, Miles Kimball was able to improve their business, which led to a boost in their overall review score from a 4.0 to a 4.3.