Buhl: Significantly improved ratings within half a year
Buhl Data Service GmbH is one of the leading independent software manufacturers in Germany.
URL: buhl.de
Market: B2C
Founded: 1986
Trusted Shops Membership: 2012
Want to learn how Trusted Shops can help your online business?
For this customer story, we talked to Thomas Matena, Marketing Manager at Buhl Data Service GmbH, about his experiences with Trusted Shops and the Reputation Manager.
Table of contents:
Innovative software solutions from Buhl
The Buhl Group, based in Neunkirchen, is one of Germany's leading independent software manufacturers. The company has been developing innovative software solutions for PCs, Macs, the web, and mobile devices since 1986.
Buhl is particularly well-known for its award-winning "WISO Software", which is a leader in tax and financial software. "WISO tax: Sparbuch" is Germany's best-selling software for private income tax returns.
Buhl is also successful in the B2B segment with well-known software providers such as cobra, deltra, microtech, Thinking Networks and WSCAD.
As a family-run company, Buhl focuses on the highest quality and customer satisfaction. With over 500 employees at locations in Germany and Switzerland, Buhl enjoys an outstanding reputation in the industry.
Innovative, flexible and customer-oriented. Buhl will clearly remain a pioneer in software development for many years to come.
Excellent user experience: Always keeping the customer in mind
This excellent reputation is no coincidence. The company relies on trust and is willing to back this up with independent reviews.
Buhl is not only concerned with the purchase process, but with the entire customer experience . The company is transparent and strives to provide as complete a picture as possible.
"Reviews often reflect not only the purchasing process, but also the customer's product experience and are therefore an important tool for us to act in a customer-oriented manner."
-Thomas Matena, Marketing Manager
With a 4.53 star rating from over 30,000 reviews, you can see that the majority of reviews are overwhelmingly positive.
*Excerpt from Buhl's review profile.
(Translated from German)
In this example, we see how important it is to respond to all reviews.
This shows that the shop is solution-oriented and appreciates its existing customers.
Furthermore, it contributes to more trust among potential customers.
Customer reviews optimised for all platforms
(Translated from German)
Customer reviews are clearly a fundamental part of the company strategy:
"Customer reviews are essential for us to continuously improve our product and service offerings as well as the shop's purchase process.
We appreciate any praise and are happy to accept justified criticism in order to then find a joint solution in the interests of the customer."
-Thomas Matena, Marketing Manager
Reputation management, however, does not happen on its own. With the numerous platforms circulating on the internet, it's important to take your online reputation into your own hands and not leave it to chance.
This is where Trusted Shops Reputation Manager comes into play.
Trusted Shops has the all-in-one solution for reputation management
When Buhl decided to use the Reputation Manager, the company had a 1.4 star rating on Trustpilot.
However, Buhl had earned a 4.53 rating on their Trusted Shops profile.
The gap between the two platforms shows that Trustpilot does not provide a realistic picture to potential customers.
Within half a year, the company managed to improve its rating to 3.5 stars (and today it is well above 4-stars!). They are very enthusiastic about how the Reputation Manager has worked. According to Thomas Matena:
"The tool is designed clearly and it is very easy to use. Perfect for quickly keeping an eye on the ratings of the different platforms. It's also great that you can adjust the share of review invites being sent out for each platform easily."
By controlling the proportion of reviews being displayed on the individual platforms, the company has also managed to achieve a significant improvement with their Google Business Profile and continues to maintain the high standards expected at Trusted Shops.
Buhl delivered these results after just a few months of working with Trusted Shops. But that’s not where the story ends.
The Trustbadge and the Trusted Shops Trustmark are also important parts of Buhl's trust strategy. Thomas Matena is enthusiastic:
"The Trustbadge and the widget enjoy an enormously high level of awareness and acceptance. It shows customers that they are buying from a reputable provider with a quick glance. In our view, integrating Trusted Shops is a central building block for every successful online shop."