Vend and Trustpilot align in Slack to deliver best-in-class customer service

“Slack channels give us constant, unfiltered streams of Trustpilot insight into what customers are saying. As a global company, it’s so powerful to have access to and act on that knowledge.”

Anne DrogeDirector of Product Management, Vend

Whether you’re buying a shirt or building a website, today’s consumers expect a high level of personalization at every stage of their user journey. “They also look for social proof, for which online reviews are essential,” says Cameron Buckley, country manager for Trustpilot in Australia and New Zealand. Founded in Denmark in 2007, the consumer-review website now has offices across eight countries. Customers are invited to share their experiences with brands, which, in turn, can engage with customers, continuously learning and improving business. Trustpilot has more than 120 million reviews, with a new review submitted every second*.

Trustpilot is fundamental for companies like Vend, the cloud-based point-of-sale and inventory-management platform. “We help retailers make smart inventory decisions: what to buy, what to clear, which price and where to place stocks to increase sell-through rate,” says the director of product management, Anne Droge. In short, Vend helps retailers acquire new customers, retain current ones and deliver a best-in-class experience, online and in person. 

Both companies are unified by customer-first values. They’re also connected by Slack, the secure channel-based messaging platform. “Slack is the centerpiece of our internal communications,” Buckley says. “We also use Slack to connect with key external stakeholders like Vend.”

Before Slack, Droge’s team managed Trustpilot collaboration via email, a manual process that was tedious and time intensive. Now it uses the Trustpilot integration in Slack channels to increase visibility, eliminate silos and focus on the voice of the customer. “Slack and Trustpilot have transformed how we work,” Droge says. “The constant stream of insight is fast and transparent.”

Droge and her team are empowered not just to respond in real time to reviews but to determine what and how to improve and to put those ideas in motion. “With the three companies working harmoniously together, Vend can view insights and assess both their products and services,” Buckley says. “It’s essential to shape future product and service roadmaps, and deliver a best-in-class customer experience to every client.”

“In Slack, the right person can respond in the fastest amount of time. We’ve gone from a three-day turnaround to a one-day turnaround, sometimes even hours.”

Anne DrogeDirector of Product Management, Vend

Assessing reviews in hours, not days

Led by Droge, Vend’s product managers interact with retailers and customer-facing teams to fully understand their problems and find solutions. Trustpilot reviews are key to their workflow—and before Slack, they were sent via email. A majority of the time, they had to forward reviews to customer support or another team for assistance. Emails came through at off times, meaning reviews wouldn’t even start to get addressed until hours after they were sent. 

“If you’re on the client-facing side of the business, you don’t want to wait for an email,” Buckley says. “With the Trustpilot Slack integration, you can see everything immediately in a Slack channel.”

The integration feeds Trustpilot insights directly into Vend’s public Slack channels, like #reviews, where Droge’s team can sort and manage everything as it comes in. “Slack channels give us constant, unfiltered streams of insight into what customers are saying,” Droge says. “As a global company, it’s so powerful to have access to and act on that knowledge.”

Product managers can collaborate on responses directly in Slack, pulling in help from other departments as necessary and ensuring all stakeholders have visibility. “There are optics in terms of responding, but also resolving reviews for the future and making sure there’s a satisfactory outcome,” Buckley says. 

The speed at which reviews can be handled is a far cry from emails and outdated online surveys. “In this very digital world, we can’t wait days, weeks or months for answers. We need real-time feedback,” Buckley says. “The Trustpilot integration with Slack allows you to make business decisions without having to wait.” In fact, Vend has cut its resolution time down significantly. “In Slack, the right person can respond in the fastest amount of time,” Droge says. “We’ve gone from a three-day turnaround to a one-day turnaround, sometimes even hours.” 

The wealth of knowledge positively affects every department at Vend. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re the CEO, founder or intern,” Buckley says. “Everyone has visibility on consumer insights and a balanced perspective of how they’re performing on any given day, month and year.” For example, by prioritizing and clarifying problems in Slack, Droge and her team can give designers and engineers the information they need to drive innovation and create a better customer experience from start to finish. 

“In this very digital world, we can’t wait days, weeks or months for answers. We need real-time feedback. The Trustpilot integration with Slack allows you to make business decisions without having to wait.”

Cameron BuckleyCountry Manager, Trustpilot, Australia and New Zealand

Every negative review is an opportunity for a positive outcome

It’s challenging for any company to maintain continuous discovery, but with the customer service trio of Slack, Vend and Trustpilot, Droge’s team keeps the conversation going. “The Slack Trustpilot integration was the mechanism that completely unleashed continuous discovery because there’s a consistent stream of feedback,” she says. “That massive source of insight is the cornerstone of all of our qualitative research.” 

Plus, Slack provides full context. Whoever picks up the review can see everything that’s already happened, then dig deeper about the wider service. “Because they’ve worked to resolve it, they could even ask the customer to review them again,” Buckley says, “and turn a negative review into a positive one.”

This applies to every stage of the customer journey, whether they’re searching Google, about to make a purchase or reviewing once they’ve used the product. “That Slack integration allows all departments to see the reviews, respond to them collaboratively and understand what customers are saying at every stage of their journey,” says Buckley.

“The Slack Trustpilot integration was the mechanism that completely unleashed continuous discovery because there’s a consistent stream of feedback. That massive source of insight is the cornerstone of all of our qualitative research.”

Anne DrogeDirector of Product Management, Vend

Building a review-driven, customer-obsessed culture

True to its name, Trustpilot knows reviews are a two-way street. “We make sure we always have a balance between both sides of the platform in terms of promoting trust for businesses and consumers,” Buckley says. Customers are honest and open in their reviews, giving businesses the opportunity to improve not just their products and services but their internal culture.

“If any of your values are customer-led, customer-focused or customer-obsessed, this gives you the ability to live that value and embed it in your employees’ everyday workflow,” Buckley says. “You can build that internal ethos around customer experience.”

This is especially valuable for Vend, which was recently acquired by Lightspeed and is bringing Slack and Trustpilot along for the ride. “Everything here is done in Slack, and we’re seeing the power of that, especially as we transition with Lightspeed,” Droge says. “We can all interact and cross-collaborate with the data to continue to deliver the best experience possible at all levels to each and every customer.”