With 135 shops in France, KparK, the home joinery renovation specialist, was regularly asking its customers for their opinions, but was struggling to get their satisfaction heard. From 2021, the company has decided to use the innovative solution offered by Custplace, a platform specialising in collecting and analysing customer feedback. By soliciting customers better and less often, and taking their opinions into account more effectively, the chain has significantly optimised its e-reputation. The result: requests for appointments from customers have jumped by 40%, and customer referrals have increased by 8%.
How can we make our satisfied customers' voices heard, without over-soliciting them? This is the question facing a growing number of brands: in total, the number of requests for customer reviews has increased by a factor of 1.5 in 3 years [1], leading to a certain weariness. On average, only 25% of consumers respond to this type of request [2], despite the fact that retailers have an ever-growing need for customer reviews to help them better understand their customers' expectations!
Making the voice of the silent (and satisfied) majority heard
To solve this problem, KparK, a specialist in door-to-door sales of joinery, has decided to change the way it collects customer reviews.
Until 2021, we called customers by phone after each service to collect their opinions," explains François Banse, Digital Director at KparK. We were getting very positive satisfaction rates, but they weren't showing up online: only unhappy customers were expressing themselves on social networks and forums. So we had to make the 'silent majority', who appreciated our service, heard, but without over-soliciting them," explains François Banse.
With this in mind, KparK chose to work with Custplace, a platform specialising in the collection and analysis of certified customer reviews. "The fact that each Custplace review has NF "Online Reviews" certification, validated by Afnor, was a major factor in our choice. Transparency towards our customers is one of our fundamental principles, so it was essential for us to work in complete confidence.
The partnership between Custplace and KparK began with the introduction of a new, effective and non-intrusive method of collecting reviews. "We have an innovative proprietary tool for this. With a single request, this tool allows us to distribute each customer's review on a range of platforms: on custplace.com, on the K par K website, but also on a series of partner sites: pagesjaunes.fr, mappy, not forgetting Google Business Profile, with which we have a strategic partnership. This multi-distribution, locally and nationally, enables us to act on two key points: the proximity of points of sale to customers, and the e-reputation of the brand", explains Nicolas Marette, CEO of Custplace.
The task of soliciting these customer opinions has been entrusted to the teams in the field: after each intervention, KparK's 500 technical advisers present the customer with a QR code via a tablet. This gives access to a short questionnaire that allows the customer to rate the service, but also to formulate an opinion in natural language. Our tool then analyses these reviews from a semantic point of view," explains Nicolas Marette. Thanks to our AI, we are able to identify ambassadors, i.e. very satisfied customers, but also to determine, for each shop, the precise points on which to capitalise, and those that need to be improved".
Requests for customer appointments up by 40
This action quickly enabled each of the 135 shops to show a clear increase in customer satisfaction, and to have a constant flow of recent opinions, an essential element in optimising this satisfaction on an ongoing basis. Above all, this initiative has generated a sharp rise in requests for customer appointments: the number has risen by 40% in the space of 1 year! It has also improved the customer recommendation rate, with the number of referrals up by 8%.
To take this approach even further, KparK has introduced an e-reputation indicator for each outlet, combining customer ratings with the number of reviews collected. This dual indicator enables each shop to compare itself with the rest of the network. As a result, the brand is now organising challenges between field teams, to help each shop achieve the best possible customer satisfaction. We're delighted to finally be able to make our satisfied customers' voices heard," says François Banse. These results enable us to consolidate our position, reassure our prospective customers, and recognise the value of the work done by our staff on a daily basis. This approach allows us to adopt a long-term perspective of continuous, measured and useful progress.
[1] Source: e-marketer
[2] Source: Custplace