Problem
Operating in a competitive market with other established brands meant that proving trustworthiness, transparency and great customer feedback would be the keys to differentiation.
Solution
A recognised name like Trustpilot provided additional third-party validation that Stand4 Socks was a reputable, loved brand.
Result
Overall, learning from customer reviews has allowed Stand4 Socks to stay ahead of the curve and keep innovating regularly.
About Stand4 Socks
It’s funny what priorities we can have as consumers and shoppers. We’ll happily upgrade our perfectly working phones to the latest model, but we’ll let some items that desperately need an upgrade fall to the wayside. Yes, we’re talking holey socks. So in 2015, Stand4 Socks decided enough was enough. It was time for socks to step out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
Their idea was simple — make great socks that served a great cause. And the idea took off. For every pair of socks they sell, Stand4 Socks donates another hard-wearing, antibacterial pair to a person impacted by homelessness. With dozens of different designs and materials and support from Stephen Fry and Louis Theroux, it’s no wonder they’ve been able to donate over 250,000 pairs of socks so far. But getting the public excited about their brand (and socks, in general) wasn’t a small task.
We spoke with Stand4 Socks’ founder, Josh Turner, who explained how his personal experience with Trustpilot proved to him that we were the right partner to help spread Stand4 Socks’ story.
+15%
Increase in click-through rates thanks to ads.
6326+
Trustpilot reviews.
4.8
Excellent TrustScore.
“First and foremost when I see an ad on the tube, on TV or on social media with Trustpilot’s logo, I respect and trust it so much more. As a brand owner, I know how hard they have worked for those reviews, I know they are independently verified and not faked, and it gives me a sense of connection with a brand I might not know yet.”
Josh Turner
Stand4 Socks Founder
Why Trustpilot?
There were a few key reasons why Stand4 Socks chose to partner with Trustpilot to cultivate reviews and customer feedback.
Firstly, operating in a competitive market with other established brands meant that proving trustworthiness, transparency and great customer feedback would be the keys to differentiation. A recognised name like Trustpilot provided additional third-party validation that Stand4 Socks was a reputable, loved brand.
Secondly, social proof was crucial for boosting the reputation of a relatively ‘ignored’ product like socks. We’ve all been guilty of wearing socks long past their heyday, so Stand4 Socks needed a way to ensure that customers would start to see the whole category a bit differently. The easiest way to do so? Show them real, excited feedback from previous customers that emphasised why they were a product worth buying.
Making the most of customer feedback
So, with clear goals and a partnership with Trustpilot up and running, it was time to get down to brass tacks.
The first port of call was for Stand4 Socks to populate their website with Trustpilot star ratings and reviews, getting real customer experiences up on their homepage and beyond.
This rollout was carefully structured, with the use of review widgets being strategically placed throughout the site. So if customers were at the checkout stage — they’d see reviews that would highlight excellent delivery service. And reviews concerning their donations to those impacted by homelessness were featured early in the purchase pathway on the site, reinforcing their brand ethics and trustworthiness.
Social media ads and organic posts also featured Trustpilot customer reviews and star ratings. With an emphasis on social proof powering their push for brand awareness, their ads saw a general uptick of ~15% in click-throughs to the site.
But, as explained in their own words, repeat customers is an enormous target market focus for Stand4 Socks. Socks are a classic ‘repeat purchase item’ — everyone needs new ones eventually! And so email outreach to previous purchasers featured reviews that focused on important repeat business themes such as quality, customer service, delivery times and reliability.
Boosting business goals
Stand4 Socks also made it clear that they didn’t want to limit their customer feedback and reviews to just use within marketing and PR teams – as important as that is.
Instead, our information and customer feedback took on many different forms throughout the business.
For service teams, bottlenecks, best practices and common issues could be identified and sorted.
For product teams, recurring feedback (good or bad) on the socks themselves was carefully considered so that tweaks and design changes could be made accordingly.
For the wider business, there was an important reminder of the work's emotional impact. Josh told us that there was little more motivating than hearing about someone getting the ideal gift or the impact that their sock donations had on those who needed them most.
Taking stock outside the company
The final piece of the Stand4 Socks / Trustpilot puzzle was the sock experts using our data to look beyond their own company’s feedback.
A cornerstone of our approach is transparency; reviews and ratings can be seen by everyone, including businesses in the same field.
Alongside benchmarking and analysis, Stand4 Socks also finds it interesting and insightful to examine competitor pages, noting their weaknesses and strengths via customer feedback. Overall, learning from customer reviews has allowed Stand4 Socks to stay ahead of the curve and keep innovating regularly.
