ExpertVoice commissioned a study earlier this year to learn what has the largest impact on an individual’s likelihood to recommend a brand. The study spanned three quarters with input from a random sampling of 8,000 retail sales associates (RSAs) and industry professionals across 60 different brand surveys on the ExpertVoice platform. The goal? To understand the number of recommendations experts make after learning about a product, experiencing it firsthand or learning AND experiencing it. The results validate the return on investment of product education and seeding.
We surveyed brands of different sizes and tenure across a variety of industries:
ExpertVoice provides educational lessons about brands and their products. After passing quizzes on the subject of these lessons (we call them Edu-Games) an RSA or professional has the opportunity to purchase a discounted product(s). We thus asked questions to assess the impact that education and product experience have on their: 1) Product recommendations and 2) Knowledge and expertise.
The Effect of Product Education
Experts were asked to provide the number of favorable recommendations they make about a brand each week. Then, we assessed whether they had completed educational lessons and Edu-Games. As the results below demonstrate, product education leads to large increases in recommendations.
The average lift is 75.70%. That is a near-doubling in recommendations. Woah!
The Effect of Product Experience
And what is the impact of experiencing a product firsthand? As it turns out, the effect is even larger than education. On average, product experience leads to a doubling in the number of weekly recommendations about a brand. Imagine the impact on your full-price consumer sales if the people consumers look to for advice on what to buy are now recommending your brand twice as often.
Finally, we asked our experts whether their ExpertVoice education and product experience had left them feeling more informed and knowledgeable about a brand (and thus more willing to recommend that brand’s products).
The results are highly encouraging. Ninety-six percent of experts who learned about a brand and purchased products from it said that ExpertVoice had increased their knowledge about the brand. No matter which way you slice the data, product education and experience leads to substantial increases in recommendations. Curious about how ExpertVoice can help you and your brand? Don’t hesitate to reach out here.
