Bergzeit: Saving 50% time with the Smart Review Assistant
An international mountaineering brand that sells over 40,000 products.
URL: bergzeit.de
Market: B2C
Founded: 1999
Trusted Shops membership: 2019
Want to learn how Trusted Shops can help your online business?
In this Success Facts story, we speak to Ute Lehner, Shop Reputation Manager at Bergzeit to learn about their experience with Trusted Shops and the Smart Review Assistant:
Bergzeit: For mountain-lovers
It has never been just about selling products for Bergzeit. When the company was founded in Germany in 1999, it began as a touring portal, bringing people closer to the mountains.
In 2001, the online shop was created. This was followed by a physical shop in 2003 (Holzkirchen) and another one opened its doors in 2008 (Gmund). In 2017, they opened their new headquarters in Otterfing and one year later, they expanded back to their roots with "Bergzeit Experience", creating courses and guided tours for mountain lovers.
Being the nature lovers that they are, in 2022, Bergzeit even started producing and sharing solar energy to share with their locality.
Bergzeit has seen success and incredible growth and this is reflected in their 4.87 shop rating! With over 2 million customers buying more than 40,000 products from over 500 brands, Bergzeit see hundreds of reviews per week.
Climbing across borders with Trusted Shops
Bergzeit has been a Trusted Shops partner for a number of years, implementing the Google-certified customer reviews as well as the Trustmark with Buyer Protection in multiple markets throughout Europe.
This includes Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland!
As Bergzeit continues its incredible growth, they receive a constant stream of customer reviews. With a 4.87 rating from nearly 50,000 reviews, you can gather that the majority of reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Naturally, many brands focus their attention on negative reviews, which is very important.
Nonetheless, even positive reviews afford brands like Bergzeit the opportunity to showcase what their brand is about. According to Ute Lehner, Shop Reputation Manager at Bergzeit,
"If you answer the positive reviews, it simply makes a good impression on the clientele. It creates the feeling that the shop cares, is interested in what someone writes, and that the review was not written in vain. So I think the customers are happy about that."
How is it possible to keep up with hundreds of reviews per week? That's where the Trusted Shops Smart Review Assistant comes in.
Conquering a mountain of reviews
Replying to so many reviews, both positive and negative, can be a daunting task. The Smart Review Assistant makes it a breeze.
The Smart Review Assistant contains two components:
The Intelligent Summary automatically reduces long review texts to a few key points. This makes it easier for shop operators to view reviews in the eTrusted Control Centre with a clearer overview of the users’ message.
The Smart Review Replies function uses artificial intelligence to generate a unique reply for any customer review whether positive or negative. Merchants simply confirm the publication of the response with a mouse click. If a reply doesn’t fit, it’s possible to edit it manually. All responses appear in the online shop's rating profile after publication.
"When answering the reviews, it is simply fun to work with the assistant. I find that the answers to the reviews become more varied. It looks more professional than before."
In the two examples here, you can see that the AI-generated reply addressed the main points of both customer reviews, whether the comment refers to the delivery speed, return service, refunds or employee expertise.
Despite the fact that the first customer returned a product, they were very satisfied with how the shop handled the issue. They even gave the shop 5 stars! This can give any potential customers reading this review some peace of mind. They know that the shop will do the right thing, even when things might not work out.
*Translated from Bergzeit's .de domain.
Making molehills out of mountains
The Smart Review Assistant passed the practical test at Berzeit.de. The tool was reported to be easy and "quite fun" to use. However, the best metric to see its effectiveness is to analyse how much time was saved on this time-consuming yet important task for the Bergzeit brand. According to Ute Lehner,
"The Smart Review Assistant makes it much easier for me to answer customer reviews for Bergzeit.de. I’ve saved over 50% on the time I normally spend on this task."
On top of the timesaving benefits, the Smart Review Assistant brings many advantages to any company that uses it:
- Unique and relevant review responses with the click of a button
- A more professional appearance on their review profile
- More engagement with their customers
With all that in mind, the last question is simple: Is the Smart Review Assistant useful for businesses? Ute is enthusiastic:
"I would definitely recommend the Smart Review Assistant. The task of answering reviews becomes a delight."
If you want to read the full version of the Bergzeit case study, click below to access the PDF:
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