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Crunchyroll’s consumer product range is vast, which made it challenging to keep up with customer feedback and provide dedicated customer service. The brand also dealt with a high volume of “troll” reviews, and shoppers leaving questions in the review section because they lacked a distinct space to do so. It already used Zendesk to manage support tickets and Klaviyo for email marketing, but it needed a reviews platform that could integrate with its existing tech stack and verify customers’ legitimacy. Crunchyroll selected Okendo as its reviews provider to improve the quality of its reviews, help optimize its customer support, and increase post-purchase engagement with shoppers.

Every anime and manga fan knows of Crunchyroll. Not only is it a world-leading streaming platform, Crunchyroll connects anime lovers with unique fan experiences, including events, games, and manga publishing. The brand is also home to a well-known ecommerce store that serves as fans’ go-to source for anime-related apparel, accessories, figurines, plushies, and so much more. If a fan wants to engage with their favorite media beyond the story itself, Crunchyroll facilitates a wealth of community engagement.

Improving the Quality of Reviews

Installing Okendo dramatically reduced Crunchyroll’s irrelevant reviews because Okendo’s Review Request Email (RRE) sequences capture customers’ email addresses when they place an order. If a customer writes a testimonial through the email link, their comment marks them as a Verified Buyer, which automatically authenticates the validity of their review and assures other shoppers that their opinion is genuine. Riley notes that this feature “was a big help in removing unwanted content and elevating valid feedback to help guide our customers.”

Okendo’s RRE sequence simplifies soliciting genuine reviews. Crunchyroll boasts an impressive open rate of 50.2%, indicating a high number of customers are interested in post-purchase interaction. The brand notes that since implementing a RRE sequence, it’s received thousands of orders from customers who received the email, re-visited the site, and made another purchase in that same session.

Addressing customer complaints became much more manageable too, thanks to Okendo’s integration with Zendesk:

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Verifying Reviews and Serving Customers Faster

Fans are passionate, so it was common for some of Crunchyroll’s customers to leave unnecessary or derogatory comments on merchandise related to characters or series they didn’t like. This habit made product pages’ reviews section unhelpful — shoppers were looking for information regarding quality and customer experiences; instead, they saw arguments and spam.

Crunchyroll’s previous review widget also didn’t offer a separate section for questions. Shoppers curious about a product’s size, material, variants, or other aspects could only get a customer service representative’s attention by leaving a review, which further congested the testimonial section on each product page.

“The process was manual and time-consuming,” Riley Boulger, Crunchyroll's Ecommerce Site Merchandiser, says. “Any site visitor was able to leave a review, which resulted in a great deal of irrelevant content. By setting up the Review Request Email sequence through Klaviyo, we were able to reserve testimonials only for people who had purchased and received a product. We also created a separate Q&A widget to provide customers a place to ask questions and get quick answers.”

Because Crunchyroll’s customer service staff used product reviews to determine which customers needed assistance, its website’s unorganized review displays made it challenging to identify valid complaints. The brand wanted a way to address problems immediately, so it sought a reviews platform integrated with Zendesk to automate the customer service process.

After reading reviews of other providers, Crunchyroll decided Okendo included all the features it was looking for: the ability to eliminate spam, an integration with Zendesk, and a Q&A feature — not to mention the ability to collect UGC and meld it with the organization’s onsite brand elements.

“We want our site experience to be seamless. From landing on the site to browsing and purchasing, we want our customers to realize that we put a lot of thought and care into the shopping experience. Not only does this level of consideration build trust with our customers, but it’s also important to us because much of our merchandise is officially licensed from different vendors. We want our site to communicate that everything is legitimate and properly sourced from manufacturers,” Riley explains.

“Now, with the Zendesk integration through Okendo, any review that comes through with a rating of three stars or fewer will automatically create a support ticket in Zendesk. Our Customer Service Team can immediately respond to the review with a follow-up email, which saves everyone time and ensures customers are satisfied.”

Satisfied customers leave more positive reviews — and they’re more amenable to sharing different kinds of content. Anime is a visual-heavy industry, so photos and videos of how customers use, display, or wear their purchases go a long way toward building shopper confidence. Crunchyroll has been able to generate as many as 4,712 reviews in 2021 with Okendo, many of which include some form of UGC.

In addition, Crunchyroll’s review widget collects and displays feedback regarding specific product and customer attributes, such as quality, size, and age range. This data informs the brand about its most successful merchandise and what customers want to see more of.

“We look at feedback about quality to identify highly-praised products and inform our buying decisions. If customers really like a certain hoodie, we’ll reorder that same hoodie with a new design on it. Similarly, we’ll adjust sizing information if enough people say a garment runs big or small, and we measure age ranges to understand our customers’ demographics better and determine what price point we should aim for,” Riley notes.

By filtering spam, enabling shoppers to ask questions, and collecting Attribute data, Crunchyroll has unprecedented insight into what its customers want. Furthermore, by automating the customer service process, the brand has been able to optimize its onsite customer experience and continue connecting anime fans to the merchandise that means the most to them.