Should Yelp scream for help? Rival customer review service provider Trustpilot just completed a €10 million funding round led by Index Ventures. Joining previous investors SEED Capital Denmark and Northzone, the financial boost aims to help Trustpilot make inroads into the boisterous US market among others.
As customers turn more and more to reviews to help make sense of the expanding online shopping universe, business owners are working double-time to keep up with customer activity and capitalize on opportunities. Competition to be THE review source remains equally energetic.
Trustpilot sources reviews in two ways: through review invitations sent directly to online customers by Trustpilot and through end user contributions. Businesses can backtrack customer reviews to the transaction that prompts a review. Doing so helps businesses zero in on how and where they might improve customer satisfaction.
Consumer reviews are widely recognized as an important means for businesses to build relationships with customers, and as an effective advertising tool. People have more faith in fellow consumers’ accounts of dealing with businesses. Trustpilot studies indicate that displaying reviews may increase customer conversion rates by more than 20%.
Astute merchants recognize the power of reviews to highlight service and to quickly both identify and remedy complaints. Customers of course enjoy finding the best service providers. Trustpilot is far from the only company supplying trusted company reviews, but apparently the team has learned a thing or two about how to stand apart from the competition through its own business. Ben Holmes, a partner at Index Ventures, said this of Trustpilot, “The company has executed the vision excellently and established a strong position in multiple geographies.”
The Trustpilot community has grown quickly. Already the website has established itself in more than 18 countries including the USA, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Nordic countries, and the Netherlands. Nearly 7 million reviews have been posted covering a variety of well over 100,000 merchants.
Gregers Kronberg, a partner at Northzone, added, “Trustpilot continuously shows strong results in terms of both growth, revenue, consumer traffic and the building and maintenance of trust. The team’s ability to drill down to what is really important to its users, and focus on just that, is second to none.”
Today the company employs a team of 100 in its Copenhagen headquarters. SEED Capital Denmark and Northzone led the closing of a €5 million Series A round in September, 2011.
Peter Mühlmann, CEO of Trustpilot, founded the business in 2007. He had this to say about his company’s momentum, “We want to create the best, most trustworthy web site for consumers to share their online shopping experiences and make it the global standard in customer reviews.” Follow Trustpilot on Facebook or Twitter. For more information, visit here.
