Michael Tully, Customer Experience Manager for Sage, has one primary focus: keeping customers at the heart of the business.
Once a small business in the UK, Sage has grown to become a FTSE 100 company and the market leader for integrated accounting, payroll, and payment systems, supporting the ambitions of the world’s entrepreneurs.
The customer is king
Sage’s knowledge and expertise, built over 30 years since its launch, is what differentiates it as a company. It enables them to be customer-centric in its approach to developing products and solutions and it is what has enabled them to be a trusted provider of software solutions since its launch in 1981.
Like most companies, Sage’s reputation is of critical importance if customers and prospects are to understand it as a company they can count on.
To maintain and publicize the company’s sterling reputation, Sage partnered with Trustpilot to collect, manage, and leverage customer reviews.
Supporting a customer-centric approach
The regular collection of verified customer reviews helps multiple departments at Sage meet and exceed key objectives. The Customer Service division tracks feedback to document the general sentiment of customers whether it’s good or bad. By collecting content-rich reviews, the company can identify development areas in a timely way and unlock areas of improvement.
Sage strives to evolve its customer experience on a regular basis by adapting to changing customer needs. Carrying out deep dives into reviews gives the company insights and tools to succeed. Reviews act as an early indicator system, allowing Sage to catch any customers who have encountered problems, and immediately take action to rectify the issue. By allocating resources to manage online reviews, Sage can continually improve the customer experience, which in turn boosts customer retention and improves the lifetime value of a customer.
“Trustpilot is open to the customer so they can talk about any point in the customer journey; they can leave some feedback completely unsolicited and that’s gold dust to us. We get that full spectrum of what a customer feels about Sage as a brand through this facility.” - Michael Tully, Customer Experience Manager.
Collecting reviews in a single place, in real time, is particularly important for Sage as Kay Buxton, Customer Relations Advisor explains, “it’s very helpful to be able to get the raw information from our customers of what they think at that time and then we can then act on it straightaway. This enables us to be responsive to needs and agile as a business.”
Reviews support and strengthen the impact of marketing
The Marketing team embeds reviews and ratings into the content they create, as well as on Sage’s website, to promote it to new and existing customers. The reviews, branded to signify they are third-party verified, add further credibility to Sage’s reputation as trustworthy, reliable, and dependable.
When shoppers see hundreds of other verified customers sharing their positive experience, they know they can trust Sage. Furthermore, real reviews written by real customers resonate strongly with prospective buyers as it employs the voice of the customer (not the company) to tell the story of the Sage experience.
That’s the power of social proof.
Measuring success with Trustpilot
Sage’s TrustScore, the cumulative rating Sage has achieved with Trustpilot, is closely monitored throughout the company. The rating is used as a business-wide KPI, alongside other critical metrics, like an NPS score.
Every morning when Sage colleagues arrive into work, they see the latest reviews on a live TV screen in the main atrium, offering transparency and motivation to all teams at the beginning of their work day. Any increases in TrustScore and outstanding reviews are also shared internally via the Intranet. The company lives and breathes its Trustpilot reviews and the company’s customer-centric culture reflects this focus.
Mastering online reputation
When consumers have the opportunity to choose a solution, whether it’s accounting, payroll, or payment software, Sage believes it’s the Trustpilot verification that gives customers the extra confidence customers they need to choose them over the competition. As the Head of Customer Service, Colin Mould, puts it: “Word of mouth and referrals are huge influencers in people’s buying cycles and having an independent review out there does actually help people in choosing Sage.”
When potential new customers search the internet for Sage reviews and find an independent and transparent rating, backed up by verified reviews, shoppers know what to expect with Sage - a positive, thoughtful, customer-first experience.
As Sage moves forward, the business will continue to focus on providing a superior customer experience and instilling the brand with trust. By capturing unbiased insights with Trustpilot, helps Sage achieve its business goals while keeping its workforce motivated and connected to the voice of the customer.
See how Sage uses Trustpilot in the video case study below:
