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What Amazon Does
Well, Amazon needs no introduction to most of us. Founded in 1994, Amazon's E-Commerce website has revolutionised what it means to shop. Amazon introduced online reviews of the products it sold by letting customers post reviews of products they had purchased on Amazon, a move which many critics predicted will be the downfall of the company. Fast forward 26 years and the idea of not seeing reviews next to a product sounds absurd. A whole new industry was created as a result of this move, some more credible than others, and this is the subject of this post.
Whilst written reviews have flourished over the years, majority of shoppers (>90%) still do not leave reviews and the purpose of this post is to propose a different review format, one that could change how reviews are consumed and start actual conversations around products on Amazon's website.
AUDIO REVIEWS: For Amazon shoppers and prime users, who either can’t be bothered to read a lot of reviews, particularly long ones, or leave reviews, or are unable to do so due to either time or physical constraints.
Summary:
The audio review feature is both a general (anyone that shops on Amazon) and an accessible (physically impaired people) feature that will give people the option of delivering their reviews either in a written format or by voice. This could increase the number of customers that leave reviews, thereby increasing conversion rates since shoppers are 15% more likely to purchase a product when there are verified reviews (Source: Spiegel) and reviews make customers 71% more comfortable purchasing a product (Source: 3D Cart).
Problem:
Have you ever you ever bought an item online, and even though you’ve thoroughly enjoyed using it, you keep forgetting to leave a review or get put off by the amount of time it could potentially take to type out those reviews?
Customer reviews can increase conversions by 270% (Source: Spiegel Research Center). Yet only about 5%–10% of consumers (10% -20% for Amazon customers) write reviews, influencing around $400 billion of the total e-commerce sales revenue. As the first company to introduce customer reviews online, reviews play a major role in Amazon’s overall customer-centric strategy and must evolve. Imagine how much more convincing a raving customer will sound when verbally delivering a positive review and how much more context can be included in a negative review?
Solution:
An audio recording feature on the review page will help customers leave reviews more seamlessly and contextually. My hypothesis is therefore that audio reviews could be easier to complete and easier to listen to.
In order to test this hypothesis, I designed a survey which was completed by > 100 Amazon customers. 5 key takeaways from the survey are as follows:
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Apart from written reviews (56%), more respondents are willing to leave audio reviews (23%) than video reviews (21%).
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Apart from written reviews (58%), more respondents find video reviews (24%) more helpful than audio reviews (18%)
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Apart from knowing that their reviews have helped other customers (31%) and receiving reminder emails (30%), the third most popular reason a customer could be encouraged to leave reviews is “being able to hear other people's reviews rather than just reading them” (10%).
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The top reasons why respondents don’t leave reviews are because they either “find the process boring” or “hate typing anything at all”. This is closely followed by people that “intend to leave a review but get busy” and people that think they “have no incentive to leave a review”
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Of all the respondents, two-thirds leave reviews either half the time or less than half the time not at all.
Whilst I think this survey is inconclusive due to the sample size in comparison to the volume of Amazon customers, there still appears to be an appetite for audio and video reviews, with more people willing to leave audio reviews than video reviews. I certainly think it is worth testing this feature on Amazon’s E-Commerce website.
Getting Started:
Customers can start using this product immediately if a feature is deployed unto the review pages. Just as customers have the option to upload videos, they will also be given the option to record their reviews.
In addition to this, customers should be made aware of the option to leave audio reviews through their “order delivered” emails once their items get delivered. A similar reminder email should also be sent to ask for a review after the customer must have had some time to experience the product. There should however be no more than 2 clicks before getting to the recording button as the customer could be lost in the process if there are too many clicks.
Most customers are already familiar with delivering voice commands via Siri and Alexa, as well as having audio meetings on platforms such as clubhouse, so this shouldn’t be a very steep learning curve for customers.
Internal Quote:
So how might Amazon employees feel about this new feature? Here is my prediction:
"Since the launch of the audio review feature last year, our conversions have increased by 38% and people are spending more time on the platform too. People that have listened to audio reviews are also twice as likely to leave reviews on the product purchases that have been influenced audio reviews, almost as if in conversation with other reviews. This new feature is helping us start product-focussed conversations on our platform and I think we can also find use cases in other parts of Amazon’s business such as prime video and Alexa.
Customer Quotes:
Here are some customer quotes stating what they like about the new product/feature. Some of these are real quotes from the survey completed, and others are hypothetical quotes.
“I generally can’t be bothered to leave reviews as I find the process quite boring. I however find audio reviews a bit more like giving feedback to a friend and I just speak like I’m talking to a real person, which definitely feels more natural”
“I hate typing. You can’t get me to post on my Facebook page, so why would I want to leave a written review? Audio reviews, however, have changed the game for me. “
“I’ve just bought the nutri-bullet blender and I literally got so excited during my first use that I just had to leave a raving review. In the past, I would have retreated from writing a review altogether once I realise that my hands were still wet and I couldn’t be bothered to coordinate my thoughts into text. With Audio reviews, I can share my raw emotions and you can even hear the excitement in my voice.”
Shoppers can have access to this feature as soon as it’s deployed on Amazon’s website.
Potential unintended benefits of this new feature:
The Amazon platform is regularly criticised for the percentage of fake reviews present on the platform compared to other platforms. Only two days ago, the BBC published a report about “Fake Amazon reviews being sold in bulk online” and this view was echoed by several other media companies including Sky and Which.
According to Wikipedia, “the sound of each individual's voice is entirely unique” and whilst this cannot be detected by the naked human ears, Artificial Intelligence is more than able to make these distinctions. Unlike email addresses that are cheap and easy to clone, thereby making bulk written reviews more accessible, it could be harder and more expensive to reproduce unique audio reviews at the scale at which written reviews are being written.
Other areas of the business including Alexa and Prime video can also benefit from this technology / feature if developed in-house by Amazon.
SOME CUSTOMER FAQs
Why should I care about audio reviews?
Most people are aware of the benefits of reviews when it comes to shopping online and how crucial it has become in helping with purchase decisions online. A lot of customers intend to leave reviews but don't have time or consider written reviews too much of a formal process. If there are more options available to you as a customer for leaving reviews and the process could be as easy as providing instant verbal feedback to a friend or colleague, it is more likely that you would leave a review. The more reviews available, the more likely you are to trust your purchases.
How will my voice be protected from people that potentially want to replicate my voice and use it for deep-fake applications?
Listening to your voice does not mean people have access to your full profile identifiers including your name and email address. This is definitely one for Amazon engineers to dive deep into
INTERNAL FAQs
What changes will be made to the existing review pages?
Existing review pages would look as shown below. Shoppers will be able to toggle between written reviews and audio reviews.
Once toggled, the audio page could look like this. Here's an example of what the audio review for the book "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" could look like. This review is taken from an actual review that was written for this book. The reviewer is able to upload images along with their review and if they don't, the image position will default to the product image.
I clearly have had some fun with this so how about we listen to more audio review samples?
Wouldn't you rather listen to your reviews than read them?