By: Unknown
From: Business Wire
Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced that Zales, a leading specialty retailer of fine jewelry in North America, is using Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews to help shoppers connect with each other and the Zales and Gordon's Jewelers brands. Zales and Gordon's Jewelers customers can provide their product feedback and honest opinions at www.zales.com, and ratings and review content is immediately available to help guide purchase decisions online and in the store.
"Zales and Gordon's Jewelers have made customers the focus of our business for over 100 years," said Steve Larkin, senior vice president at Zale Corporation, a $2.1 billion company with 2,200 retail outlets across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. "Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews allows us to strengthen that deep connection by bringing the customer conversation into our brand -- and by enabling us to take action on the insight our customers provide."
Zales selected Bazaarvoice for its superior technology, strategic services and cutting-edge analytics. The customized implementation, which includes diamonds in place of the usual star rating icon, allowed Zales to quickly amass over 3,000 reviews with an average product rating of 4.4 out of 5.0 diamonds.
Bazaarvoice's advanced word-of-mouth analytics tools allow Zales to tune into this archive of customer opinions in order to bring marketing and merchandising strategies in line with customer tastes and preferences. Recent research from Bazaarvoice and Keller Fay Group shows that 79% of reviewers write reviews in order to reward a company and 70% want to help a company improve the products they build and carry, and Zales' use of customer feedback to drive customer-centric decisions aligns exceptionally well with their reviewers' intentions.
"Our research shows that reviewers are overwhelmingly motivated by the desire to help others make the best possible purchase decision," said Brett Hurt, CEO of Bazaarvoice. "This not only benefits other shoppers, it also benefits the brand as shoppers buy more and return less. We look forward to continuing to work together with Zales to tap the positive sentiment of their customers and incorporate user-generated content into all aspects of the multichannel shopping experience."
About Zale Corporation
Zale Corporation is a leading specialty retailer of fine jewelry in North America, operating 2,200 retail locations throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, as well as online. Zale Corporation's brands include Zales Jewelers, Zales Outlet, Gordon's Jewelers, Peoples Jewellers, Mappins Jewellers and Piercing Pagoda. Zale also operates online at www.zales.com and www.gordonsjewelers.com. Additional information on Zale Corporation and its brands is available at www.zalecorp.com.
About Bazaarvoice
Bazaarvoice offers outsourced technology, services, analytics, and expertise to help companies enhance the online shopping experience with social commerce applications that drive sales. Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews™ and Ask & Answer™ deliver immediate success by minimizing implementation risk and maximizing the strategic impact of user-generated review content through complete customization, deep integration, community management, advanced analytics, search engine optimization, and syndication across the Web and to offline channels.
Bazaarvoice was named to the 2007 Red Herring Global 100 and 2006 Red Herring Top 100 lists and received the 2006 ClickZ Marketing Innovation of the Year award. Bazaarvoice currently serves over 180 eCommerce leaders including Bass Pro Shops, Dell, Macy's, Office Depot, Inc., Overstock.com, PETCO, QVC, Sears, and ZipRealty. The company has headquarters in Austin, TX and offices in London, UK. For more information, please visit the company's Web site at www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at www.bazaarblog.com, or email info@bazaarvoice.com.
