The numbers are in and WOW! Bizrate Insights’ U.S. and Canadian customer feedback program, with 5,000+ active retailers, saw double digit growth in Point-of-Sale survey volume for the entire Thanksgiving-Cyber Monday period this year as compared to the same period in 2010. Bizrate Insights’ Point-of-Sale survey is only offered on the order confirmation page post online order submission, and is therefore a proxy for online order volume.

“Survey seen” is the number of times that a consumer saw page 1 of the survey. “Survey submission” is the number of times that the final page of the survey was submitted.

For this year as with last year, Cyber Monday topped Black Friday’s Point-of-Sale survey volume with 29.0% more surveys seen and 52.3% more survey submissions.

In record numbers, customers are ordering online and providing feedback to retailers with the goal of improving ecommerce. The year over year growth in our survey seen and submission numbers for Thanksgiving week, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday is a huge testament to the:

• Importance of ecommerce in the retail spectrum;
• Desire for consumers to give feedback through a simple process and actively participate in the development of ecommerce; and
• Interest level of retailers in getting closer to the consumer, their wants and needs, via Bizrate Insights survey solutions.

Further demonstrative of these points is a closer look at the top 5 retailers who were also collecting customer feedback using our program in 2010– Cyber Monday same-store surveys seen grew by 26.7%!

Congratulations and Thank You to our participating retailers!

Please look for highlights on consumer sentiment regarding online shopping over Thanksgiving week, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Cyber Week through our joint study with Forrester Research’s Sucharita Mulpuru.

Here at Bizrate Insights we pride ourselves in not only gathering customer feedback for online retailers, but also in gathering retailers’ feedback on how to improve our tools and services. Based on this feedback and an update to our branding, the Customer Certified Medal is getting an upgrade!

What this means to you

Based on client feedback, we believe that the Customer Certified Medal will be even more widely adopted (beyond the thousands who already use it), increasing the recognition and the value of Bizrate Customer Certification to bolster consumer confidence in your website and brand. This is the first phase of our upgrades, so to take full advantage of the new medal, please use our most up-to-date medal code on your site.

How does the medal work?

Google noted on its blog on November 3, 2011 that it is changing its algorithm to increase the value of fresh and recent (yet still relevant) content in SEO. This means that two weeks before the holiday season kick-off, retailers are left to figure out how to include fresh, recent and relevant content without jeopardizing everything that they have already put in place.

Bizrate Insights to the rescue.

Retailers can gather ratings and reviews from verified customers on the purchase experience and products for FREE with Bizrate Insights. Plus, Bizrate Insights can invite customers to share their new purchases on Facebook (for free, of course).

Tips for retailers already using our Buyer Surveys:

• Post new customer ratings and reviews to your site daily, weekly, or as often as needed to maintain SEO rankings.

• Use Comment Classifier files to gain access to reviews.
• Use AccuRate Core to calculate ratings for any time period within 16 months.
• Follow our simple Publishing Guidelines to protect consumer privacy and allow for verification of ratings and reviews.

• Add products purchased to your survey invitation code on the order confirmation page so that we can collect product reviews that you can publish and/or invite customers to share their products purchased on Facebook.

• If you haven’t updated your POS code in a while, then do it now.

Tips for retailers not yet using our Buyer Surveys:

• Using our standard code to collect ratings and reviews on the purchase experience is as simple as copy/paste. Open an account, grab the code from the interface, and paste it into the top of the body section of your order confirmation page.
• Sign up for reports in the Subscription Management Center to gain access to ratings and reviews for publication.
• Utilize the SKU fields in the order confirmation page survey invitation code to be able to collect product reviews and share purchases on Facebook.

In addition to providing retailers with easy-to-implement-and-collect fresh content that can be used for Google’s bots, Bizrate Insights also already provides Google’s Seller Rating’s feature with order fulfillment ratings and reviews from verified buyers. Bizrate Insights’ has two ways to help retailers get the most from retail searches on Google.

Questions? Email us at bizrateinsights@bizrate.com or via our Contact Us form.