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Website
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VerticalFashion
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EcommerceShopify
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Nominal Customer Story
3,800 extra
Customer Reviews
10.37% increase
in Review Rate (Emails)
1,731 extra
UGC Submissions
Nominal is more than a jewelry brand. Yes, its bracelets, necklaces, and rings are stunning, but the brand wants its products to mean something to its customers. Founders Akram Abdallah and Lena Sarsour recognized that consumers desired a way to express their beliefs, values, and culture through the items they wear, so they launched what is now a leading brand in the Arabic and meaningful accessories industries.
Nominal has always acknowledged the importance of social proof for customer acquisition and retention. However, it was difficult to ask shoppers for testimonials because its previous reviews provider lacked effective incentivization methods. As an Arabic-inspired brand in the jewelry space, Nominal also belongs to an underrepresented sector, so it wanted a way to boost customer confidence and assure shoppers that real consumers find meaning in its products, not just models. Nominal needed a reviews provider capable of incentivizing reviews and UGC and prominently displaying them on its website in an on-brand style to overcome these challenges. The brand soon migrated to Okendo to take advantage of its review incentivization features, wide variety of display options, and ability to syndicate reviews across international markets.
Demystifying Meaningful Accessories with UGC
Nominal specifically wanted to incentivize testimonials with coupons. Not only do discounts motivate customers to share their feedback, they create goodwill and encourage customers to make repeat purchases. The brand needed a reviews provider capable of both hosting a loyalty program and distributing rewards, such as through integrations with tools like Klaviyo and a native coupon feature.
Nominal was also aware of how meaningful accessories differ from the rest of the jewelry industry and entail more customer selectivity. Shoppers exhibit more caution when buying products that reflect their cultures, so Nominal knew UGC was essential for boosting customer confidence.
“UGC is imperative to our brand because consumers are rightfully concerned that there’s too much ‘magic’ going on behind the scenes to make our products and models look good onsite. Seeing actual customers rocking jewelry makes the items more attainable and relatable. Plus, collecting UGC assures customers that their content matters,” says Ahmad Abdallah, Creative Content Manager at Nominal.
Nominal’s new goal was to find a reviews provider capable of facilitating its business objectives. After learning of Okendo from a friend, Ahmad migrated to the platform and immediately began taking advantage of the features they had been most excited for. Nominal now uses Okendo to offer past customers $5 off their next order if they include a photo or video with a review, which has generated over 3,100 rich-content testimonials since installation. Ahmad also applauds how the coupon feature was “easy-to-set-up,” and the reviews carousel “looks convincingly on-brand and was easy for the Okendo team to install for us.”
Showcasing Testimonials Across Storefronts to Grow Community
Once the reviews started rolling in, Nominal leveraged its influx of UGC to continue “demystifying” its products in the eyes of consumers, at home and abroad. Shoppers who connect with Arabic-inspired products live everywhere, but they still might require convincing that meaningful accessories are something they can invest in.
“It’s challenging to tap into international markets when your intended audience feels like you’re too far away, you’re not from their home, don’t speak their language, charge in their currency, etc.,” Ahmad elaborates. “Content-rich reviews, however, create common ground. Once you see another human, just like you, rocking a brand, you immediately feel more secure shopping on its site. A sense of familiarity takes over, so you forget what country the company is based in and focus on how excited you are to look like that.”
UGC does wonders for enhancing customer confidence, but Nominal sought to take it a step further. The brand wanted shoppers browsing its site never to have to look far for social proof, so it decided to implement a dedicated reviews page to compliment testimonials on individual product pages. Ahmad notes:
“Our dedicated reviews page is crafted in such a way that you can sort by category to see overall star ratings, or you can browse all reviews in one place. It benefits our brand because of our sheer number of SKUs. Reviews on product pages are essential because they’re more focused — you know what item you want and are looking for specific feedback about it.”
Not only does having a dedicated reviews page allow shoppers to view all testimonials at once, it’s strategic for SEO purposes. When a shopper searches “Nominal reviews” in Google, the results immediately take them to a collection of testimonials instead of individual product pages.
Nominal also does something bold with its social proof: it doesn’t shy away from publishing negative reviews.
“Two and three-star reviews pose levelheaded feedback that allows us to improve our product or customer experience. Though five-star reviews are our primary goal, it’s important for us to keep an eye out for where we’re falling short. Every company in the world has something to improve, and if we never got a healthy dose of critical feedback, we would be stuck hunting for five-star reviews while still proceeding with unaddressed issues,” Ahmad explains.
Nominal’s commitment to honesty is one of the reasons the brand has earned the status it enjoys today. On the rare occasion Nominal does receive a negative review (it currently has an impressive aggregate rating of 4.8), it takes advantage of Okendo’s Gorgias integration to send the issue to the correct department, such as Product Design, Customer Service, or Website Development. Handling the problem as soon as possible satisfies the complaining customer and demonstrates to browsing shoppers that the brand cares about their comments. Ahmad mentions that as customers scroll through reviews, they always stop when they see Nominal has replied.
Nominal already understood how to apply the power of UGC; it just needed a tool capable of facilitating its vision. Leveraging Okendo’s native features and integrations, Nominal has a 10.37% successful review rate from email solicitations and has collected 1,731 testimonials with UGC out of 13,059 since launching its US storefront.
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