Set up in Lancashire, UK in 1959, Hotter designs, makes and sells stylish, comfortable footwear. Focused on product innovation, world class production facilities and continual reinvestment in the business, the brand is well-respected and growing fast.
Hotter is a multi-channel retailer with over 70 high street stores in the UK, an international call center and international websites providing an expert, supportive service to its target customers. As it began to expand into new EU and US markets, the brand began to look for ways to better support its online customers, using eCommerce software tools that would make it easy to find products, choose popular trends, navigate style and color, and buy in as few steps as possible.
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Social proof messaging boosts revenue by 5%. How Hotter uses Taggstar to improve online customer experience
Key KPIs delivered by Taggstar
The Challenge
As with all eCommerce sites, Hotter shoppers move through a series of steps in their online journey, from product list page, to product description page, to cart and checkout. Hotter wanted to test how Taggstar’s SaaS social proof messaging platform could deliver a more helpful, supportive customer experience, using real-time, factual product trend messages.
Hotter started talking to Taggstar in 2016, to understand how real-time social proof product messaging could assist customers.
The Solution
The first experiments began in mid-2017, displaying social proof messages on the product detail pages of Hotter’s UK website.
Between starting experiments in August 2017 and March 2018, 6.2 million product trend messages were shown across all categories spanning Women, Men, Wide-Fit, GORE-TEXⓇ footwear, Originals, Accessories and Outlet.
To deliver the brand experience that customers expect, the social proof messages are customized to Hotter’s brand and tone of voice.
The retailer reported that since some customers struggle with small text sizes, Taggstar’s messages must be both readable, yet not obscure its products. To meet this accessibility and usability criteria, the messages now have less opacity (allowing the product to be seen), feature bold numbers and a smaller message balloon (with less padding). Content, font, font size and message positions on the product page, have also been carefully chosen to improve the customer experience.
“Since launching social proofing, our revenue and conversion has increased sizeably, and we’re also seeing positive engagement metrics and interactions with our organic social platforms.”
Victoria Betts, Global Omni Channel Director
The Results
Hotter’s first Taggstar experiments showed exceptional results.
Where Taggstar messages were shown, the improved customer experience was highlighted by customers’ behavior. They were more likely to add to cart, less likely to churn, and more likely to checkout. The results for the brand, were a 5% revenue uplift.
In July 2018, Taggstar messaging was added to Hotter’s EU, German and US sites.
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