Customer Story
How Fairphone uses Trustpilot reviews for product innovation and higher CTRs
Fairphone is a trailblazer in ethical electronics. Focusing on smartphones and headphones, Fairphone emphasizes affordability and accessibility alongside environmental and social responsibility.
Transparency serves as a cornerstone of Fairphone's core values, underscored by its longstanding partnership with Trustpilot. Fairphone has successfully addressed past challenges and enhanced its TrustScore from 2.3 to a whopping 4.4.
“On our Trustpilot page, it immediately indicates a short transparent overview of the relation between Trustpilot and Fairphone, we immediately show that we pay for products and are actively responding to reviews.”
- Max Seabrooke, Customer Experience Lead at Fairphone
Additionally, proactive responsiveness to customer feedback, particularly through addressing one and two-star reviews, underscores Fairphone's dedication to continuous improvement and accountability.
Customer insights and product innovation
Fairphone's strong customer-centric approach extends beyond product design to encompass customer engagement and feedback integration. By leveraging insights from Trustpilot service and product reviews, Fairphone continuously refines its products and services, striving to meet evolving consumer needs and preferences.
One such optimization was creating an app that allows the user to fully tune the headphones to their liking. Reviewers often mentioned this as something they would like to see.
Moreover, these insights have also informed strategic decisions, driving continuous improvement across the entire customer journey. Fairphone has completely adjusted its Useful Guides section on its website based on feedback from customers. This is then fully integrated into the onboarding journey via email nurtures, etc.
Higher customer engagement
Besides getting learnings from the reviews, Fairphone started showcasing their reviews in all their marketing channels to drive higher engagement with their customers. They saw great results in digital channels, such as email and paid advertisements.
“We have seen that when we include our TrustScore in our customer communications, it has a positive effect on the data. For example, when we add the Trustpilot logo and stars to our emails, we see higher engagement from our customers. In fact, there are 8.39% more clicks on emails with Trustpilot content.”
- Max Seabrooke, Customer Experience Lead at Fairphone
On top of that, Fairphone started showcasing their transparent independent reviews on their website, to fully match their brand strategy. They now very clearly showcase exactly which reviews are being showcased, for example on their homepage, they mention that they are only showing the 4 and 5-star reviews.
“As Fairphone is a Dutch company originally, we are always looking for key components to help us grow our product share and awareness abroad. We have found that Trust is really one of these important components. In fact, in a recent test that we did in France, we saw that different types of review content can really drive impact. Highly recommend testing Trustpilot social proof in different stages of the funnel.”
- Max Seabrooke, Customer Experience Lead at Fairphone
Product reviews for all products
Fairphone uses product reviews as an early indication on the success of their products. With their latest phone, the Fairphone 5, they immediately received a lot of positive feedback, which was a good indication that they were ready to promote their product further.
“Besides Fairphone mainly being a mission driven brand, we encompass a family of products. To really highlight our product, sell more and also receive product specific feedback, we took on the Product Reviews-Module with our Enterprise package. We showcase the Trustpilot reviews in a way where it is still very visibly Trustpilot, but also matches our brand.”
- Max Seabrooke, Customer Experience Lead at Fairphone
A higher number of reviews showcases the worth of a product
Fairphone has long used its TrustScore as an internal measure to keep high standards of its product and fully become customer-centric. Internally, they used it to celebrate milestones, such as how many reviews they hit, and high ratings for products.
But they also used their TrustScore for Product Reviews as a proof point for mobile operators, such as Vodafone and KPN, as the number of reviews and the TrustScore immediately shows the popularity of their product.
“Our Trustpilot Scores are now part of training materials for our partners, like the mobile operators Vodafone or KPN. We use it in training materials with people that work in the shops and to highlight the fact that we have quality products and that our customers really care about them.”
- Max Seabrooke, Customer Experience Lead at Fairphone
Higher trust = higher CTR when expanding abroad
Despite operating primarily in Europe, Fairphone aims to expand its global footprint while maintaining a strong presence in key markets such as Germany, France, the UK, and the Netherlands. To ensure growth, they test quite a bunch in regard to review content. In a recent promotion of the Fairphone 4 in France, for example, they tested two ads. One with all Trustpilot content (TrustScore, number of reviews, stars and logo) and a customer review. In the second option, they only highlighted the Trustpilot content and noticed a +40% CTR on these ads.
As Fairphone looks to the future, its dedication to ethical innovation remains steadfast, shaping a more sustainable and equitable electronics industry with transparency and Trust at its core.
