Scottsdale Golf is an online golf retailer selling premium brand clothing and equipment. Established in 1999, the company has grown from small beginnings to being one of the UK’s leading online golf stores. Scottsdale Golf has one of the widest product ranges in the golf industry and offers a massive choice of high quality golf clothing, as well as golf clubs and accessories at discounted
Scottsdale Golf delivers the best service in the golf industry, and was recently ranked number 1 (as of Nov 6th 2017) in their category on Trustpilot. We spoke to Kevin Sadler-Kean, Customer Service Manager at Scottsdale Golf, to learn how reviews have helped them boost their digital presence.
Scottsdale Golf has a strong customer service department and a year ago, the business decided to start using customer feedback to showcase their great customer service. Identifying the need to collect and leverage customer feedback, they opted for a free trial with Trustpilot. A year later, Scottsdale still uses Trustpilot throughout their customer journey. Kevin explains:
“Trustpilot has helped us get an increase in new customers as on-site reviews boost customer confidence in our brand.”
Building trust throughout the customer journey with Trustpilot
It was essential for Scottsdale Golf to choose a third-party review platform that would boost the company’s visibility and clickability on Google. After a free trial with Trustpilot, the business d*ecided to opt for a Pro plan in order to make the most of Trustpilot’s tools and collect more authentic reviews, faster.
Thanks to Trustpilot’s strong SEO presence as a review management platform, Scottsdale Golf can easily showcase their online reviews on their own website whilst standing out from the competition on some of the biggest search engines. Including reviews earlier in the customer journey helps build trust and confidence while considerably boosting click-through rates.
“We use Trustpilot reviews at checkout in order to reduce cart abandonment. We also mention our amazing TrustScore on Google Ads to boost click-through rates.”
— Kevin Sadler-Kean, Customer Service Manager at Scottsdale Golf
Whilst being on the Trustpilot trial, Scottsdale sent out over 5,000 review invitations and received over 750 reviews, a 14.2% response rate. 92% of the reviews they collected during the trial were 5-star reviews, bringing their TrustScore from a good 7.4 to an amazing 9.8! Since the end of their trial, Scottsdale has collected another 850 reviews thanks to the Trustpilot Pro plan. The company also makes the most of their Trustpilot widgets by sharing online reviews on their Facebook account.
With 78% of people admitting that social media posts massively impact their purchase decisions, the Trustpilot Image Generator tool helps consumers learn more about your business and helps them build trust with your brand before visiting your eCommerce site.
In addition to sharing their customer satisfaction on social media, Scottsdale also uses their TrustScore in their email signatures to advertise their amazing reputation.
“We use the email signature tool as a constant reminder of our great service when emailing customers. It embeds the logo into Microsoft Outlook, which is just perfect for us.”
The signature widget is just one of the many tools Scottsdale Golf uses on a daily basis to collect and manage customer reviews. Kevin also noted how he used the dashboard, analytics, review invitations and service review sections the most. Trustpilot's features allowed him to easily send email and analyse all of the feedback they were getting from different areas of the business. He was also happy at how operator-friendly the platform was, a big plus point for those that aren't overly technically minded.
“The Trustpilot platform is a must for any serious online retailer. It’s extremely easy to use and understand. On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a 10!” - Kevin Sadler-Kean
Creating customer and employee loyalty
“We’ve renamed our tagline ‘The best service in the golf industry’. Working with Trustpilot has been extremely helpful as it allows us to back this bold claim up.”
Scottsdale Golf’s main challenge is to give golfers a reason to shop on their eCommerce website when there are plenty of other retailers out there.
The golf industry is very competitive, and with much of the competition offering similar products, Scottsdale realised that the foundation necessary for their business to succeed long-term would be to build up a loyal customer base and separate themselves from the competition by providing the best possible customer service out there. After a trial with Trustpilot, the company realised how much authentic and trustworthy online reviews could help them:
Kevin explained that everything can and ultimately will be copied by competitors so whilst it’s important to offer great products on a nice looking website, it's not something that will make a company stand out. Successful companies will be the ones offering the best service and building a great customer base, and Kevin found that Trustpilot was helpful on those fronts.
“The trial showed us that Trustpilot was going to help not only provide new customers with the confidence that they were going to receive good service from us, but also helps the business from an SEO perspective in driving more traffic to our website. It also definitely gives you a morale boost every time a 5-star review comes in!” - Kevin Sadler-Kean
In addition to providing the best possible service to their customers, Scottsdale Golf also shares reviews internally to boost employee morale and reward staff. Great customer feedback is forwarded to the shipping team and the customer service department for recognition. Scottsdale strongly believes that their commitment to their customers and employees, represented by their authentic Trustpilot reviews and their ability to reward staff, will help them improve their customer service and stand out from the other golf retailers on the market.
The final word
When asked how satisfied Scottsdale Golf was with the whole Trustpilot experience, Kevin replied…
“Nimit, our technical account manager, was very helpful throughout the process and made the whole integrating as easy as possible. It was also nice to deal with a human being who could enjoy a joke rather than a robot reading from a script! So many people in business are too serious and have no fun, which stifles any creativity and enjoyment. If you enjoy what you do, you are likely to do it well, and Nimit is the perfect example of this.”
To learn more about how Trustpilot reviews and trust can impact your business’s customer journey too, request a demo below and get a personalised look into our review management platform, or give our free trial a go!
