E187: Victoria Locking

Richard Hill [00:00:04]:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eCom@One, and welcome to yet another episode of 187. Now in this episode, I speak with Victoria Locking, UK Agency Partnership Manager at Reviews.io. Now working at the industry's most respected tech companies, Victoria has a wealth of experience working with merchants and the ever evolving tech stack, now heading up partnerships in the UK for reviews dot io. Now it's no secret that reviews play a critical part in any successful business, but in ecommerce, they can, if done right, be the center flywheel for content retention and the wider marketing mix. In this episode, Victoria covers UGC and the importance of developing rich media, building out loyalty programs within your review platform, where most companies set and forget their review platform, simple actions to really embrace your reviews and build a positive culture around learning from your customer's experience. We taught women in business and eCommerce.

Richard Hill [00:00:58]:
And what's next were reviews and, of course, so much more with this one. If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening to this podcast so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode. How are we doing?

Victoria Locking [00:01:15]:
Good. How are you today?

Richard Hill [00:01:16]:
I am very well. I'm very well. Been looking forward to this. I've had a nice sort of three and a half weeks off.

Victoria Locking [00:01:21]:
Yes.

Richard Hill [00:01:22]:
And I've come back to what I know will be a fantastic episode of eComOne 1.

Victoria Locking [00:01:26]:
Yeah. Hopefully. Very excited.

Richard Hill [00:01:29]:
So welcome to the podcast, Victoria. Thank you. I think first things first, introduce yourself to our listeners and how you got into the world of eCommerce.

Victoria Locking [00:01:37]:
Yeah. Thanks. So I'm Victoria Locking. I am the UK partnerships manager at reviews.io, and I work predominantly with agencies, across the ecommerce industry. How did I come into ecommerce? I fell into it. That cliche. I just happened to get a job at another eCom tech provider, but I used to always work with horses outside until I was, like, 25. So I just happened to move into an office job, and then it kind of just went from there, moved into from, like, an admin role into customer support, customer success, and then into partnerships.

Richard Hill [00:02:11]:
So horses to reviews.

Victoria Locking [00:02:12]:
Horses to reviews.

Richard Hill [00:02:14]:
Yeah. I'm sure there's some serious connection I can come up with there.

Victoria Locking [00:02:16]:
Yeah. There's some tenuous link maybe,

Richard Hill [00:02:19]:
but yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:02:20]:
Oh, yeah.

Richard Hill [00:02:20]:
So from horse so as a youngster and a teenager and

Victoria Locking [00:02:24]:
a young adult Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:02:26]:
Horses, horses, horses, horses that started.

Victoria Locking [00:02:28]:
Still got my own horse as well in the background, so still doing that very much as a hobby. Oh, lovely. And that's where most of my money goes. Yeah. Thank you, reviews. That's what you're funding.

Richard Hill [00:02:38]:
My best friend, see, we we joke his daughter's 15, I think. Yeah. Well, for no. She's not. She's 13, I think. And, we went over, like, 3 years ago and 2 years ago. And every year is like, you will get your horse next year, darling. We'll get your horse next year, darling.

Richard Hill [00:02:53]:
We'll get your horse next year.

Victoria Locking [00:02:54]:
Don't make the mistake.

Richard Hill [00:02:55]:
He's like, I'm hoping she might sort of It might drop off. Into something else, but it seems like she's really, really, really, really into it now. So I think his the time is is nigh. It's gonna have to,

Victoria Locking [00:03:04]:
It's happening.

Richard Hill [00:03:05]:
It's gonna have to spend some money.

Victoria Locking [00:03:07]:
So Exactly.

Richard Hill [00:03:08]:
So reviews and reviews dot io. I think, obviously, we had Callum on the podcast, the founder of, of, reviews dot io. Maybe, like, three and a half years, one of the very, very early episodes and, obviously, fantastic journey. You know? And I know, Calum I met Calum probably the week that he set up reviews. Io Yeah. Way back, probably, what, 12, 13 years ago, somewhere there. Yeah. But obviously now, you know, it's it's it's been built into, you know, a huge organization.

Richard Hill [00:03:34]:
I know it was recently acquired or 6 months or so acquired an investment, etcetera, in multi locations around the world and different offices. So it's, you know, it's a whole different beast to what it was 3 years ago. Obviously, know the story right from the beginning, sort of 12, 13 years ago. But I think, you know, there's a lot of review platforms out there. A lot. You know? I think anybody listening, it's obvious you need reviews. Everything every you know, we'll be on that sort of do you, do you, of course, you do. You know? But then picking and choosing what platform to use, you know, why reviews dot io?

Victoria Locking [00:04:05]:
Yeah. So I truly believe so I, I remember Callum and reviews kind of coming out onto the market as well. Where I started previously was a a competitor review platform, and can remember thinking, like, there's this guy who is so loud on LinkedIn, and you see him. And, I was thinking like, wow. This guy's really disrupting the market. So I've I've known about Callum since I started in ecommerce. But then, moving across I've I've worked at reviews platforms, loyalty platforms, and now I'm here, and we're we've just started to combine the 2 together Yeah. Which is a nice place to be.

Victoria Locking [00:04:46]:
But the difference between us, I guess, and some of the other providers out there, ultimately, is we are very customer centric, and we try to live by what we're advising our customers to do in terms of getting feedback in and working with it, using it responsibly. So we listen to the customers who are on board with us and using the platform. We get a lot of, feedback and suggestions from them on what they're wanting from different features, and we really do listen to them. And we also pride ourselves on our customer support as well. It's something that makes us stand out. And on other platforms like there's g two, which obviously is comparing tech across the board, whether it's reviews, whether it's email service providers, whoever. I mean, you go through some of our reviews on there, and and our customers are saying, like, it comes to a point where they are they ask questions around, you know, what issues have you had with them so far? Is there any negatives? And going through that list, there's so many on there. There's nothing so far.

Victoria Locking [00:05:47]:
Really happy with the support. Like, if anything has come up, it's been dealt with really quickly, and and they're so helpful. And, like, we pride ourselves on that. So it's not

Richard Hill [00:05:55]:
Reviewing a review platform, you would think you would, know a few things about

Victoria Locking [00:05:59]:
reviews, wouldn't you, and then you know

Richard Hill [00:06:00]:
how to deal with them. Yeah. I think, you know, that is absolutely evident. Just just anybody listening, go look at, you know, the the senior leadership team's social, the LinkedIn, obviously, reviews own, social channels. You know? I had it the other day. You know, I was, was asked about reviews, you know, on LinkedIn, eCommerce, you know, obviously, we've you guys and Calum for, I think I said, 5 years on the comment, but it was there's obviously more like 10, actually. So, but I think, obviously, the the evolution of of reviews, you know, it was you may I'm going back way back, you know, when you were probably just getting your horse back in Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:06:36]:
Yeah. Maybe.

Richard Hill [00:06:38]:
When you were, like, 14. And I blah blah. I'll release. You know, it's very much, you know, text. You know, you you jump online. You do a Google review, you know, and that sort of it's basic form. You know, you've you've had an experience with a co with a co with a company, you know, whether that's so we're talking more on ecommerce, but with a company or you bought something from a company. You know, back in the day, you know, the options really were to go to maybe Google reviews, Facebook reviews, jump on, go, yeah.

Richard Hill [00:07:04]:
I just got this, whatever it is, widget, fantastic, great service, great delivery, well packaged, speedy product as described. Boom. You know? And that's in its probably simplest form. That's what a review was, still is, in some some extent. Yep. But, obviously, now, there was so much more to it. Mhmm. You know? So what are some of some of the maybe the the fundamental elements to reviews dot io that made you stand out in terms of the actual functionality of reviews dot io?

Victoria Locking [00:07:32]:
Yeah. So you you've hit the nail on the head, like, all review platforms, the bread and butter is that rating and review collection, getting that that fairly generalistic sort of, I guess, collection of feedback from customer, whether it's on a service or product level. With our feature set, we try to, ultimately encourage brands to collect even more data, as much data as they can from their customers, whether that is that rating, that review, any sort of custom attributes as well. So we've got some really good brands on board. So whether it's in fashion or skincare who use attributes so that then when a a new visitor is coming to the site, they're looking at the reviews. It's not just these generalistic, this was a nice product, 5 stars, thank you very much. They're giving additional data points so you can compare, you know, am I like this customer who says it's really great for them? That's sweet. Or am I yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:08:26]:
Exactly. It's the is this me, and is this gonna work for me? So, a really great example is an under web brand that we work with, and, they'd coped that, you know, they they are predominantly an ecommerce brand. But how do you then get over, sort of the the sizing discrepancies and and reduce sort of return rates and things like that when you're an online brand? But this is such a personal, you know, personal item to buy. So they actually use attributes in that way where they'll build out, customer attributes and these additional data points that people can fill out at the point of leaving their feedback where they can say, you know, what what size bra do they wear typically, you know, and, you know, have they been fitted? Have they used that BrandsFit tape or whatever it is? Yeah. And then they can also when they've got the product, they can then like, on a rating scale, the product attribute is, you know, is it does it fit perfectly? Is it

Richard Hill [00:09:20]:
too big?

Victoria Locking [00:09:20]:
Is it too small?

Richard Hill [00:09:21]:
Slightly bigger than normal or smaller like certain brands do. Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:09:25]:
Yeah. So then when you go to this brand to buy from them, you can you can, as a new customer, see where you fit like for like with what people are saying. Yeah. If it is a bigger chested person, then and and that's you are a bigger chested person, you're gonna follow what they're saying, aren't you? Whereas then, like Yeah. Smaller and, like and so on. So yeah. Yeah. But just that

Richard Hill [00:09:46]:
I that resonates, not so much the the bras, but the size, you know, the size. I'm a big chap for those that remember me. I'm 647. Yeah. One of the first things you do, go to the reviews, you know, on clothing, you know, but certain brands I know are bigger sizes, you know, at this top. I know this brand these brand a lot of the American brands are bigger sizes. Yeah. But if it's a new brand, I think, well, it's a bit of a risk, isn't it? You don't know don't know.

Richard Hill [00:10:07]:
It's a big small. My for me, personally, a lot of brands are too small for me. You know, the the the normal size that I would take. So they're straight down to the reviews. Oh. Oh. No. I'm a I'm a 6 foot 5 male.

Richard Hill [00:10:18]:
Oh, that's nearly me. You know? Yeah. That resonates. He's talking about me. Oh, I bought it. Actually, I thought it would be too small, but it's actually perfect. Oh, that's my concern.

Victoria Locking [00:10:26]:
Exactly.

Richard Hill [00:10:27]:
So you're building out those FAQs, aren't you? Building that into some sort of search criteria, whether that's used you know, actually in a in a in a program and and you're using that to then rewrite descriptions and things like that. Yeah. But it's also there. It can be taken out into your customer services, can be put into your FAQs, but the big one for me is, you know, that search content that you're creating for SEO. Yeah. You know, that very real, rich media. You know, obviously, it's not just text, which will come through. There's other forms of reviews, isn't it?

Victoria Locking [00:10:58]:
Yep.

Richard Hill [00:10:58]:
But creating that real content, sort of unique on the fly, maybe daily for that product or that company, you know, that's literally the SEO fuel is getting Exactly. Getting created via your customers, building building a fan base. You know, it's it's, it's obviously a no brainer. You know? But so UGC, you know, this is, this is what I think we I think still a lot of eCom stores still not doing it. No. But why are they not doing it?

Victoria Locking [00:11:28]:
It's it's really interesting because, yeah, we have we have brands who have actually they've they've got started, and in their infancy, they've gone straight for wanting those influencer deals, wanting celebrity endorsement. But then they come and they go, this isn't gonna be sustainable going forward. It's so expensive Yeah. Depending on who is wearing your product or if you're sending stuff out for free just so that you can get them pictured in it Yeah. And use that. And UTC really is a no brainer. So with us, you can collect, obviously, the product and company level feedback as standard, but You can also collect that additional photo and video content as well. If I'm honest, I don't know why they're not doing it.

Victoria Locking [00:12:06]:
I think it's it's a just a complete miss. And but I do think it is one of those trends that is coming. There's a lot more people talking about user generated content. There's a lot more, getting built out off of the back of, obviously, these influencer sort of, like, deals previously, and you see a lot of that on social media as well. So whether that's, you know, affiliates or ambassadors sort of showing off, and then they've got a code to, you

Richard Hill [00:12:30]:
know Is there a way or an advice you would give to merchants to encourage customers to give or create UGC for Absolutely.

Victoria Locking [00:12:40]:
Yeah. So, whether it's linking up with our loyalty program. So Reviews has now also got our second platform, influence dot io, which is loyalty programs, And you can reward people for taking those actions with you. So whether it's rewarding them for engaging with your brand on social media or for, leaving you feedback. And there's specific rules with the reviews to influence link which say, like, you can reward specifically for leaving photo or video content.

Richard Hill [00:13:07]:
So more points.

Victoria Locking [00:13:08]:
More points Yeah. When points mean prizes. Of course. Exactly. So, but no. And then there's other strategies that, brands can take as well in terms of building out sort of, like, UGC specific campaigns and but, like, really making sure that they have a goal in mind, what they want to achieve. Are they looking to get more video content, more just some more photo content that whether that's gonna sit on their widgets alongside the reviews Yeah. Or they're gonna take it out and use it as another sort of source of social proof.

Richard Hill [00:13:38]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:13:39]:
And it's all so easy for them to do within the platform, but I I genuinely think that some brands, it's just a miss for them.

Richard Hill [00:13:46]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:13:47]:
But they can be running these campaigns whether they're they're doing it through email or even just through, how they're collecting their feedback with us just straight out of the platform, out of the box. Yeah. They can be rewarding them, but they can also one of the best things they can do is really sort of engineer for the customer, make it as as easy as possible for them to do it. So tell them what you're looking for. Tell them, you know, we wanna see you using our skincare, like, make sure you're in good lighting. This and give them a bit of a tutorial for it because, actually, there's so much around social media and sort of, like, the younger generations now, and they are all copying what influencers do. The amount of, just for one example, the amount of young girls who are really into skin care, really into, like, watching the YouTube channels, the influences on on Instagram and stuff, and they want to copy that.

Richard Hill [00:14:41]:
Yeah. So encourage.

Victoria Locking [00:14:43]:
So it's just, yeah, encouraging people to and making it as easy as possible

Richard Hill [00:14:47]:
to see if they can so. Listening to you there, I think it like, you say it's such a miss or it's such a you know, people are merchants looking for that little jump or big jump, you know, when they hit the plateau. And it's like, woah. Hang on a minute. So you're doing x amount of thousands of orders a month. You're asking for normal reviews. So tie that into a launch program where you're encouraging people to leave for the types of content, which is great. Then you you're creating content that you can use on the page.

Richard Hill [00:15:16]:
You can use in your social media. You can use in your emails. You can use in all your marketing. Yeah. But, also, you'll then encourage them to buy again, which is the big one, isn't it? You know, ultimately, that lifetime value. Yeah. You know, you you know, cost of acquisition, we could talk about that, you know, depending on who we're time of year and where we are. Things are not getting cheaper ish depending on, you know, industry, but pretty much.

Richard Hill [00:15:37]:
So, obviously, cost of acquisition, loyalty, retention, time that in with your email. You know? This is a big big bit

Victoria Locking [00:15:44]:
Yes. Absolutely.

Richard Hill [00:15:46]:
Very much, you know, when we're saying we're talking to merchants, they're like, oh, I'm stuck at stuck at 5 mil. I'm stuck at 10 mil. I said, well, what what are you doing for your loyalty? Loyalty? Come on. You're just doing the built in thing where it's like, oh, here's checkout reminder, and that's more, woah, woah, woah. There's so much more, you know. So, obviously, that's quite a soft touch, isn't it? You're saying, basically, you know, here's here's, you know, send us a nice little video review about this product, and this is how other people have interacted with this product. Oh, yeah. Cool.

Richard Hill [00:16:16]:
You know, I wanna be part of that crew.

Victoria Locking [00:16:17]:
Right.

Richard Hill [00:16:18]:
And then, ultimately, then they've they've got another point or 2. There may be one point off of 5% or a unlock a, you know, a certain set of products that only our VIP members get, especially with skincare and things like that. They're like a certain drop that only our VIP or our 2nd tier membership get. Oh, oh, I'm now part of this group, and then you're in a different group, and you're building through the tiers. Obviously, there's a lot more to that to it than that, but it's quite a simple thing to literally unlock. I mean, obviously, on your platform, it's all built in.

Victoria Locking [00:16:45]:
Yeah. Exactly. It's all out the box, and it's just a case of going through it. It's already simple to set up as well. So, yeah, it is. And you mentioned there about, you know, having exclusive elements. Like, you get people onto the loyalty program, and then they are incentivized or they have sort of, like, more aspirational steps to kind of get them to rewards that they really, really want. Or if they are true sort of, like like, solid advocates of the brand, those are the people who want to get to that that top level gold tier, platinum tier, and they want to have those experiences with the brands.

Victoria Locking [00:17:20]:
I know a lot of, you know, focusing on skincare again. I know a lot of girls who, like, are obsessed with skin care and, you know, maybe have moved away from, like, packing our faces with makeup, where now, like, our poor skin needs to be looked after at this point in time, whether it's SPFs and things like that. And there's so many stores and things out there. One brand that does it really, really well, Space NK. And I know a lot of people will love Space NK, but they have a really good loyalty program. And what they do on it, you can, like, get when it's your birthday, like, you can go into store at any time of month, of of your birthday month, that is, and they'll give you a free gift.

Richard Hill [00:18:01]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:18:01]:
And it's because they've got your birthday tracking system. And they could be doing that

Richard Hill [00:18:04]:
I'm a say for that.

Victoria Locking [00:18:05]:
Yeah. But you could be doing that with influence dot I o Yeah. As well. Brands could be doing that. It's just a case of putting it, you know, putting it out there, making the loyalty side of things visible.

Richard Hill [00:18:15]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:18:15]:
But it doesn't have to be, like, a loyalty first approach. And I think sometimes brands maybe get a bit put off by that, and they think that, okay. Of course, running a loyalty program, like, well, you know, have I got the time in the day to be doing, like, loyalty first campaign over here, this, that, the other? You could just be going on, like, more of a soft touch approach and including in your, you know, other email communications, whether it's your newsletter or other mailings post purchase, if they are a member of your loyalty program, just keeping a little hint or reminders having, their their points. Yeah. How many points have they got? And it's this little reminder that's maybe in top corner of that email Yeah. And it's not front and center, like, screaming, this is a loyalty program. Use your points. Do this.

Victoria Locking [00:18:59]:
Do that. Of course, you can send point reminder emails and so on.

Richard Hill [00:19:02]:
Absolutely. So I could afford certain

Victoria Locking [00:19:04]:
Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:19:04]:
Brands I buy 2 or 3 and birthday it's my birthday month. And I know in my birthday month, I can go to the ace the store

Victoria Locking [00:19:12]:
Yep.

Richard Hill [00:19:12]:
And get, I think, is 10% off. Yep. So I you quite often, most years, I'll and that haven't done it yet. So I know it's either side of my birthday. So I'm alright, I think.

Victoria Locking [00:19:22]:
And I

Richard Hill [00:19:23]:
can go and I quite have to bring about I've got 2 sort of older teenagers, and then they're, like, into their gear as well. So we'll go and do a bit of a bit of a drop.

Victoria Locking [00:19:30]:
They do a shop. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:19:31]:
And then we layer in other discounts, you you know, that we know we could get. We had the we'd have quite a nice sort of maybe a 30% ish discount Yeah. From that particular brand once a year, and it's a bit of a family thing will go rise. Yeah. Exactly. But, obviously, then I also get when you spend x amount, you get this as well. And then they do, like, a I think it's £20 off if you spend x. You stack it all up like, you know, obviously, certain brands don't sort of stack the different deals.

Richard Hill [00:19:56]:
But so I think we're all sold. Reviews. Yeah. You know, reviews, reviews. You know? If we sat here 10 years ago, you need reviews. You know? I think it it just comes back to good old fashioned at the end of the day, when somebody recommends somebody or something, you you you sort of listen, don't you? Where you should start looking. There's no reviews. Or, you know, it's just like going back to our business.

Richard Hill [00:20:16]:
Somebody's looking for an SEO business to go to Google. We're gonna say we're great. You know? Yep. We think we're pretty good at what we do. We are. Yep. But so what? You know? Everyone no. What's it gonna say? They're not.

Richard Hill [00:20:26]:
Yep. When they see a review or they see somebody on camera saying, do you know what? We used eCom 1 5 years ago. We weren't sure because we'd used an agency before. We had some challenges and but they did this, this, this, this, this, and this. And now you know? So there's nothing better than an actual review and a personal recommendation. I'd like to say, you know, obviously, absolutely, you know, you know, buying a product. Especially some of those more complicated products, like, talk about clothing, sizing, colors, sizing specifically would be an eye make on it. So in apparel, you know, it's it's literally see, it goes without saying.

Richard Hill [00:21:04]:
But I think, still, companies and merchants fail to get, you know, a fair percentage. You know, they're doing, let's say, 10,000, orders is a round number a month or a day or whatever it may be. A day would be nice. Yeah. That's a big stop. How can merchants get more reviews? How can they encourage their, customers to give more reviews?

Victoria Locking [00:21:26]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I think the worst thing they can do is set up their account and do a whole set and forget.

Richard Hill [00:21:33]:
Mhmm.

Victoria Locking [00:21:33]:
It's it's just so why why why would you pay Yeah. As part of your text out to set something up and then just Yep. By always, if it's an automated process and it does just run-in the background, which there are elements of the platform that do that, so, obviously, it connects to the Shopify store. We get the order information in, the reviews go out, so on and so forth on a very basic level. But, in terms of actually upping the response rate, it's making sure that the account is set up to succeed, ultimately. So making sure that you have got those automations in place. You haven't got someone manually going in and trying to upload stuff, and then it's all going out of funny times. Making sure that the timing is right for the customer as well.

Victoria Locking [00:22:17]:
So, you know, they've just bought from you online. Sending them a product review request at that point in time is not right. Later. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:22:26]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:22:27]:
So they're straight away,

Richard Hill [00:22:28]:
and they use your post office order to come from it. I haven't even took

Victoria Locking [00:22:31]:
it out

Richard Hill [00:22:31]:
of the box yet.

Victoria Locking [00:22:32]:
Yeah. How is it? And then you're the the Yeah. You know? Okay. You sent the lovely request out. Exactly. Very famous. Slow down.

Richard Hill [00:22:40]:
Slow down.

Victoria Locking [00:22:40]:
Oh, wow.

Richard Hill [00:22:41]:
Worst first date in the world.

Victoria Locking [00:22:42]:
Yeah. But it's completely the wrong timing and, you know, okay. So they've then got that set in their inbox. They can come back to it later, but chances are they're not. They're not gonna go back later unless there's something really wrong. Yeah. You've really messed up that that that time frame. So it's really making sure that you understand, you know, the the lead times on whatever the product is you're delivering or the right time even if you are a service provider because we do work obviously, we work mainly in the ecommerce space, but we do have I like, I like to remind people that we do also have things like garage door specialists on our looks or, you know, lawyers or consultancy firms.

Victoria Locking [00:23:19]:
They're using Reducer. Yeah. Everyone who, needs or wants reviews can gather reviews on the platform. But it's making sure that timing is right so that then you are hitting them at the sweet point. It's the same as sort of, like, email marketing and and with personalization as well. Sending the right messages at the right time, you're gonna get better results. Aside from, you know, those sorts of elements in the setup, there are ways to encourage more feedback. So we've talked already a little bit around incorporating with the loyalty program.

Victoria Locking [00:23:50]:
So awarding points, it's, perfectly acceptable to ethically incentivize feedback. Where that can fall down, and obviously that can get open to sort of abuse in a way, is if you're offering, like, a financial incentive typically, I don't really like to encourage anyone to do a financial incentive because it can look a bit yet as a consumer, you can say, okay. We'll give you a £20 discount You

Richard Hill [00:24:15]:
say we're good.

Victoria Locking [00:24:15]:
Gift card if you yeah. And and it depends on what the messaging is as well.

Richard Hill [00:24:20]:
If you are backfire that, I think.

Victoria Locking [00:24:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. If you are incentivizing for feedback, if you are, you know, using the loyalty program, similar to that underwear brand we were talking about earlier, then it has to be that the reward is available to everyone. So regardless so you are ultimately rewarding them going to the effort for giving their opinion. So it's not just, okay, 5 star people, you get to have Yeah. Extra 50 points. It's actually a thank you

Richard Hill [00:24:47]:
So they review

Victoria Locking [00:24:47]:
the effort.

Richard Hill [00:24:48]:
Of whatever. Yeah. The time Yes. The effort, regardless of what there is

Victoria Locking [00:24:51]:
for 5 star. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the fact that you are then gathering feedback, you are getting feedback in, you can actually identify at that point, like, you've got quite an engaged customer base. They are willing to leave that feedback. And, obviously, there you know, there's elements that other elements that feed into that, whether it's been a negative experience and they're trying to get your attention and, or if they are, you know, absolutely raving about what they've received and really enjoying their experience with you. But, yeah, I think, ethical. Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:25:21]:
Incentivization, points on the loyalty program, really, really easy way to do it. Yeah. And like this other brand was doing, you can break that down so you can give additional points for additional UGC as well. So really sort of hamming it up for what you want to collect in.

Richard Hill [00:25:36]:
Now you might be looking for an SEO boost, a down to earth digital PR campaign to share your story, or maybe just some straightforward technical help to amp up your performance. Now that's where eCom Now comes in, a partner that's all about making things easier for your online store. Our services cover everything from creating professional content for your ecommerce categories to refining your product descriptions. Now whether you're just starting out or been in it for a while, we're here to deliver real impactful results that add to your bottom line without unnecessary commitments. You can order one off or multiple projects with a quick turnaround. Simply choose what you need. You touched on negative reviews, and I think a lot of people are like, oh, okay. Negative review.

Richard Hill [00:26:21]:
I think theirs have been doing it a while. Well, no. You'll always get the odd one. Something will go wrong or it might not, but customer, you know, you might they might have just gone out and missed the delivery, and that is your fault. Exactly. So negative reviews. You know, what what's sort of the best strategy dealing with negative reviews?

Victoria Locking [00:26:39]:
Negative reviews. What I always if I'm put in front of a brand and they ask that kind of a question is you just gotta spin it as a positive for the for the business. Negative reviews can be some of the strongest collateral that you can gather in as part of the feedback strategy because, a, it's giving you that insight into where stuff's gone wrong along the way. Has it been that the delivery's been a bit tough? You know? Okay. Do we need to reconsider who we're using on, like, the logistics front?

Richard Hill [00:27:06]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:27:07]:
Has it been that they've had really poor customer service? Right? Who did they interact with? Where's that ticket? What's gone on there? Let's investigate. Is it a case that your products arrived or, you know, or it's it's the wrong product? So what's happened on at the picking line? The product's not great. It was poor quality than they expected, or it's eCom and it's got holes in it, or it's not what it was supposed to be. You know? So you're then gathering all that insight in, and then you can then, as a brand, adapt what on and sort of, like, work on Mhmm. The improvements. And then you're gonna you know, you're basically bypassing that in the future.

Richard Hill [00:27:41]:
Yeah. Yeah. I guess it's almost like it's an opportunity

Victoria Locking [00:27:46]:
Yeah. If you get

Richard Hill [00:27:46]:
a negative review. Mhmm. Also, well, negative review. Right.

Victoria Locking [00:27:50]:
What are

Richard Hill [00:27:50]:
you gonna

Victoria Locking [00:27:51]:
do? And there is. There's that.

Richard Hill [00:27:52]:
With it.

Victoria Locking [00:27:53]:
See you.

Richard Hill [00:27:53]:
Learn from it. Yeah. Obviously, all those areas you said, customer services, delivery, 3rd party partners you're using for delivery, logistics, you know, whether you're, you know, you're doing drop ship. Well, who okay. The the 4 days, you should have been 2. Mean, this this I didn't know this was going on. Hang on. Or we would have had another 20 of negative reviews if our review rates were up

Victoria Locking [00:28:12]:
Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:28:12]:
Using it. And I've seen firms like, you know, it's very difficult to do a scale, but when somebody turn in those, well, obviously, you're potentially quite a disgruntled customer, Nothing better than taking a disgruntled customer to literally, like, your biggest fan, super fan x. Like, wow. As a business owner, I would well, I know I have in the past. Like, right. Somebody's not happy. We are gonna turn this into right. Let's let's sort it.

Richard Hill [00:28:37]:
Let's absolutely sort it. And I've seen eCom store owners go and, like, say, right. I'll have another one another one with you and look how far the house is from the office, and they jump in their car 2 hours away, and they'll drive as the owner of the ecom store and go, hey. Sorry about that. Yeah. Let them keep the other one if, obviously, it depends what it is. Obviously, if it's a, you know, hot tub or something, it's tricky. We sold hot tubs online.

Richard Hill [00:29:00]:
Yeah. 30 k is tricky. But, yeah, you can turn and then they're like, oh my god. You know? I left a review, and 2 hours later, I've got a a replacement. They go back on, oh, thank you. They sorted it out. There's, people reading that response to that review. And, obviously, the merchant responding, and then the customer responding again.

Richard Hill [00:29:18]:
As you do see, obviously, it's still quite comical. There's, like, you know, there's quite a few, like, Instagram reels doing the rounds, isn't there, where, like like, certain, say, restaurants and takeaways where people go in and say, our worst experience ever.

Victoria Locking [00:29:28]:
Mhmm.

Richard Hill [00:29:29]:
Or have to wait 4 hours or something. The the the owner comes jumps back in and go, don't be ridiculous.

Victoria Locking [00:29:34]:
Yeah. You wait 5 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. I was there myself and I You were.

Richard Hill [00:29:38]:
Yeah. There you were. You like 40 seven broke records.

Victoria Locking [00:29:42]:
You brought back your empty containers.

Richard Hill [00:29:44]:
It's like, what? Yeah. You were putting it in a bag. You

Victoria Locking [00:29:46]:
Yeah. Exactly. And I think, yeah, with the negative stuff as well, it's so important that, brands are responding to their feedback.

Richard Hill [00:29:55]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:29:55]:
And you are. You're heading it off for the past. And whether that is direct, like, you know, you can be notified when, you know, whatever level feedback you wanna be notified to, you can get that notification eCom through on email and so on. But you can also connect it directly into your customer support help desk as well. So that's another really important feature with all of the partnerships that we have with reviews, on the tech side and on the agency side, but being able to have all of your tech connected, talking to each other so that you can then

Richard Hill [00:30:26]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:30:26]:
You can head these things off. It's not just about it all being siloed off in one platform.

Richard Hill [00:30:30]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:30:30]:
The fact that we connect with help desks like Gorgias Yep. Where the notification eCom through straight into the support inbox

Richard Hill [00:30:38]:
Yep.

Victoria Locking [00:30:39]:
That support team can jump on it straight away. You're not then having to get an email notification, go into the platform, go over here, think, oh, you know, I'm not the right person to be answering this, so we need to go here. Your support team can just pick that up straight away, and it's, you know, then it's just the internal training on, like, okay. How do we manage, you know, when it's a delivery failure or when it is a tough product? Like, what are we gonna do? And that's, again, where the loyalty side of stuff can play in is using that to help, ultimately, like, appease customers if something's gone wrong.

Richard Hill [00:31:10]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:31:11]:
So, you know, okay. Really sorry your delivery is late. We've had another 100 points to your cart. So next time you come shop with us, you can get free delivery.

Richard Hill [00:31:17]:
Yeah. Embrace the negative reviews. Yeah. You know? It's, feedback. You can improve. You know? And I think in any scale business, there's always room for improvement, obviously. Yeah. You know? And as a as a busy business owner or a busy busy manager looking after, say, delivery, and and you might be you'll miss stuff, you know, or, you know, depending on what industry you're in, and you're gonna possibly be scaling at such a speed.

Richard Hill [00:31:40]:
And hang on a minute. Actually, just get in there a little bit late or actually, we're not packing properly. We ran out of we ran out of squidgy stuff for the boxes and we actually rattled them. We broke hang on a minute. That order's not a simple simple simple thing maybe. Yeah. It just needs to get caught. So I think we've covered reviews.

Richard Hill [00:31:57]:
We're convinced. We're in reviews.io.

Victoria Locking [00:32:00]:
Yes, please. So, obviously,

Richard Hill [00:32:03]:
I know you're, you go to a lot of events Yes. As as we do and that and we, you know, we cross paths at a lot of different events. You know? What are some of the trends you're seeing in ecommerce right now sort of out there talking to a lot of merchants?

Victoria Locking [00:32:14]:
Yeah. So, I mean, we touched upon it already, the rise of UGC

Richard Hill [00:32:18]:
Yep.

Victoria Locking [00:32:19]:
And repurposing Yep. Content that, you know, you can get without, you know, super heavy budgets, or having to do a lot in a studio and having those more real life experiences on display to help encourage, sales and and conversions and so on. So definitely the the the rise of more UGC, more of the AI as well. AI in general. So the AI, like AI in general. Yeah. Yeah. It's like some sort of the great unknown, the AI.

Victoria Locking [00:32:58]:
But AI in customer support

Richard Hill [00:33:00]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:33:01]:
And really trimming down, like, how many people do you need on a customer support team, if you can get automated responses or links to articles and so on, AI within the platforms that you're using as part of your tech stack as well. So Yeah. As soon as Chat GPT came out last year or those or the Hyper, obviously, didn't just come out then, but, like Yeah. The hype around it last year, you know, how how can brands use that? How can technology businesses use that? And everyone's kinda jumping on it, like, you know, where's where's the merits to this? And, one of the first things that we kind of jumped in on was actually adding an element of AI responses and to responding to feedback. So when you're in the system, reviews coming in, you need to start, you know, the importance of responding to feedback, and actually being able to generate responses to that and then the system learning, you know, what the tone is here and and things like that and the intelligence behind that.

Richard Hill [00:33:55]:
So so that you're getting an element of speed that you might not get if somebody's on a dinner break. Or

Victoria Locking [00:34:02]:
Yeah. Exactly. Or if you've had an influx of feedback, maybe reviews to respond to. Friday. You know, you're thinking like, oh gosh. How are we gonna manage it? Do we need to staff extra people on board? Or actually Yeah. Again, with those customer support desk, you know, can we, automate parts of this to speed that up so then we are we are keeping the people open to those more complex issues that are coming

Richard Hill [00:34:23]:
thinking you need a bit of AI. When is your birthday on social media? Mhmm. Which was my birthday

Victoria Locking [00:34:28]:
yesterday. Oh, happy birthday, Livius.

Richard Hill [00:34:31]:
You don't you log on thank you very much.

Victoria Locking [00:34:32]:
You log

Richard Hill [00:34:32]:
on to Facebook, and it's like, I don't I don't remember all these people. And I logged on to LinkedIn. It's like, oh my god. I was like, oh, 250 happy birthdays. Yeah. I thought I wasn't that actually that popular.

Victoria Locking [00:34:44]:
Yeah. So

Richard Hill [00:34:44]:
you're like, do I actually respond to them all?

Victoria Locking [00:34:46]:
Respond all. Thanks.

Richard Hill [00:34:47]:
With an AI happy birthday widget.

Victoria Locking [00:34:50]:
Yeah. I've gotta put that gotta put that out there. Yeah. Abby, responses to occasions. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:34:56]:
But then, oh, I don't really want you know, I thought I'd you'd forgotten me over there. So

Victoria Locking [00:35:01]:
Yeah. Exactly.

Richard Hill [00:35:02]:
Yeah. I mean, AI. You know, I think, I think, covering all aspects of ecommerce now is that, obviously, the platforms are building in in or they have built it into create the metadata, the descriptions, you know, a lot of the word side of things, the imagery, the old text, a lot of the SEO pieces, customer services, you know, responding, whether that's review plat different platforms, you know, the elements where, you know, manual process is needed for text. Obviously, it can do a very good first version, if not a complete version that it gets used, responding to things, using it to analyze, stock, you know, warehouse. Yeah. It's, yeah. I think, we're gonna do a lot of episodes on AI. We've got a couple of big plans coming up.

Victoria Locking [00:35:45]:
I think it's gonna come up a lot. I think a lot of, whether it's tech partners or it's, yeah, whoever, brands, agencies, whoever. AI is moving in, and it's, yeah, and it's ultimately you know, there are there is some fear mongering around AI as well, but, you know, it it's got its place, and I think it's people harnessing where it fits in for them and, you know, how does how can we make this work for us?

Richard Hill [00:36:11]:
Yeah. So

Victoria Locking [00:36:12]:
yeah.

Richard Hill [00:36:12]:
Yeah. So we're gonna change direction a little bit.

Victoria Locking [00:36:16]:
Okay.

Richard Hill [00:36:16]:
And we're gonna talk about women equality and women in ecommerce. Yes. You know, I think, obviously, I've been in this industry for a long time. 25 years, I think. And, you know, through the years, you know, go to various events. And even even a couple of years ago, I remember going to a a very well known partner event, and there was, like, a 100 chaps there.

Victoria Locking [00:36:40]:
I was like, oh

Richard Hill [00:36:40]:
my gosh. This is this is the industry Yep. Ish. You know? It's not it's not a broad statement, but

Victoria Locking [00:36:46]:
Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:36:46]:
You know, you're very passionate about women and equality. You know, why and where does that drive come from?

Victoria Locking [00:36:53]:
I sort of when I I was sort of thinking about this, and I think, because I'm a woman, it's important to me. Yeah. But I think it is just generally a really important topic. Like Yeah. In general, like, there's been so much work over the years to raise women's equality across the board, not just in the workplace, but in life in general. I am actually very fortunate in that the environment I've been brought up in and the people that I've, you know, been brought up around any like, that's at home, home life, school life, work life Yeah. Actually have been around people who ultimately foster that, like, the relationship between my parents. Like, my eCom predominantly was to stay at home.

Victoria Locking [00:37:43]:
She had 3 kids. We were all, like, raging age levels. So we I'm and I think that's about 7 years between my brother and I, and I'm the youngest. And dad went out went out to work. But they ultimately worked as a team, and they recognized that, okay, mom's over here doing this. Mhmm. Dad's over here doing that. And there was never any, like, well, I'm winning all the money, and you stay at home.

Victoria Locking [00:38:05]:
And Yeah. None of that going on at all. They absolutely recognized each other's each other's merits Yeah. And worked as a team. Recognized each other's each other's merits

Richard Hill [00:38:10]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:38:11]:
And worked as a team. And that's what I got brought up with. So there was never any, like, oh, when I grow up, I'm just gonna become a stay at home eCom or anything like that.

Richard Hill [00:38:19]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:38:20]:
We were encouraged. So I said, I've got a an older sister too. And we were encouraged to go for whatever it was we wanted to do. So there were my sister, when she was at school, she got an army scholarship. And Wow. And it was her and 2 boys.

Richard Hill [00:38:35]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:38:35]:
And, she got that scholarship, and then it was, you know, gonna help her get through uni and whatever she wanted to go do. She ended up not actually going into the armed forces at the end, but then she did think about maybe a career in the police or Yeah. She then she's now moved into accounts and accountancy and works for a big payment processing. Everyone knows, the brand. But, like, we were encouraged to do that. That's what's what I've been brought up with, and I'm very fortunate to have been brought up with that. So as I've then moved into my professional career, that's actually when it started to come into play a little bit from when I started to recognize that, okay. Not everything is quite a level playing field here.

Victoria Locking [00:39:15]:
And it is it's a difficult it's a difficult thing to then come across because I think possibly through how it's kind of been embedded maybe sort of society or is is kind of just sort of sort of like this insidious thing that's kind of happened over time, We are there is a lot going on to sort of start breaking down barriers. It's just happening very slowly.

Richard Hill [00:39:36]:
Mhmm.

Victoria Locking [00:39:38]:
And I think, you know, when I started my career and I, you know, was ultimately in an admin role to start with, there are elements of my job, and, actually, elements has happened before in in sort of partnership roles too where when I started out, I was positioned near the front desk because I was a young female, and it looks nice to have a smartly dressed young female. I'm not here to toot my own horn and be like, look how nice I look or anything like that, but it that was it.

Richard Hill [00:40:08]:
Yeah. That was it. You you could see that happening.

Victoria Locking [00:40:11]:
Yeah. And I was. So when I started out, I mean, I've, in a way, I I've come into the game a little bit later than people. I haven't come straight in from uni or, like, job from college or anything. I I came into eCommerce ultimately when I was, like, 25. Yeah. And, yeah, straightaway, I coped that. I wasn't like, okay.

Victoria Locking [00:40:29]:
This is how it works forever. I was like, well, I see what's happening here. And also where I was, you know, there was an element where I was the admin girl. Our CEO would walk in, and I was expected to know his coffee order as soon as he saw his car pull up outside. Hop to the kitchen, make the coffee order, and it would be there as he sat down at the desk. It'd be like, thanks, love. And then I was like, oh, fantastic. That's what I'm here for, isn't it? You know? But then so that was that's maybe playing a little bit more into sort of those old school Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:40:56]:
Ways conversations. Of the old school.

Victoria Locking [00:40:58]:
Of the generation. Yeah. Like, how it's it's come to be across generations. The other thing was, when I moved into more of a support and onboarding role, how much how many of the roles and support, sort of roles up we had, like, an upstairs area, which was our customer success team. And upstairs, there's a lot more females in those support roles and customer facing roles in that sort of regard. You walk down the stairs to the sales team, a room full of men.

Richard Hill [00:41:27]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:41:28]:
And there was, like, 30 odd men. Yeah. And it wasn't necessarily anything so stark as to, you know, you walk down then, and it's cheering and lads, lads, and all of this kinda thing. There was stuff like that going on, and, of course, I think you could walk through and you might hear, like, oh, yeah, whatever, a bit about some female counterpart or someone a celebrity on TV or whatever. But, again, still not really experience any sort of real direct you are a woman, you are lesser than someone else. But it is just this almost like this institutionalized Yeah. Almost like habit that's formed over time. And as I say, it is being broken down, and it's being talked about more, which I think is where it's really positive is we're talking about it now.

Richard Hill [00:42:11]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:42:12]:
It's it's, a topic that is it's got a seat at the table. And I don't necessarily think that the solution is you could go completely one end of the scale with this and over egg it, and you could say, we need to give women all of the opportunities. And Yeah. Here, Vic. Tomorrow, we're gonna make you the CEO of reviews because then it looks good and and all of that. Everyone's gonna see through that straight away. What we're talking about is

Richard Hill [00:42:36]:
You're talking about though.

Victoria Locking [00:42:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Am I? If the price was right, no. But, is that that that equality? We wanna be on the same level and have the same level of opportunities. And if there's something for more of, like, you know, more of the equity side of it so, you know, that we're all on the same step or we're on the same level.

Richard Hill [00:42:58]:
The commercial side.

Victoria Locking [00:42:59]:
Yeah. So whether it's to do with the gender pay gap as well Yeah. Or, you know, I asked the question at, so you mentioned the event we went to last week, and Karen Brady was the keynote speaker. And, of course, there were questions flying around. I found it really, really funny that, not to bash men, but a lot of the men who asked the questions were straight were like, I support x football club Karen and la la la. And then they were either asking football questions first and things like that and which suits can go on. And that's great because, obviously, she's got where she is in male dominant, like, world, football. But then any females in the room who are asking questions, like, what do you think about the percentage of women in business, and how can we drop the, you know, the barriers to us getting there and things like that.

Victoria Locking [00:43:46]:
My question was actually more around, there has been a survey done recently in ecommerce about how women make up the majority of the workforce in ecommerce. But then when you look at senior level positions, we only account for about 30% of that, around 30%. Mhmm. And I sort of put that to to Karen as part of my question. I said, what what do you perceive the barriers to actually be? Because we can all sit here and say, like, I really struggle with this, whether it's, you know, people planning to have a family in the future or maybe it's just a case of some level of imposter syndrome or you are in a more male dominated team and you don't know how to push through that without, you know, any perceptions falling on you. Do I look like I'm being demanding if I'm asking for something, or am I expected to be this sort of, like, weaker, meeker, like, oh, you know, oh, yeah. Of course. Yes, sir.

Victoria Locking [00:44:37]:
No surgery. Bags full, sir. Let me get your coffee, and it'll be there on your desk kind of reactions. And it's I think there's a part where women need to be empowered to have that confidence to go for things Yeah. To go for those opportunities when they open up and push for them. And I think there's a level of, allyship, and I think that happens quite well within our industry. Like, I I get on so well with so many of my male counterparts, and there's so much that I've, like, aspired to be or in like, improve and ultimately,

Richard Hill [00:45:14]:
like,

Victoria Locking [00:45:17]:
we're not asking of ultimately, like, we're not asking for full compensation over all time and, you know, I mean, you know, maybe I'm talking maybe a bit generously from my perspective. I don't want to see women suddenly be given the earth

Richard Hill [00:45:34]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:45:34]:
As, like, some sort of, like, payoff for

Richard Hill [00:45:36]:
Oh, we've got to be better to

Victoria Locking [00:45:38]:
do. Time. Yeah. It needs to be we are all on the same level, and we all recognize that. I want to see those, those numbers improve. I want to see more women in leadership positions. And, you know, even now, I look at, you know, any tech business out there. You're looking on LinkedIn.

Victoria Locking [00:45:56]:
You're seeing who are the CEOs of this business. Okay. Maybe they were the the brainchild of, you know, bringing it together, but why is that? There's so many questions to ask. Why are there so men in the

Richard Hill [00:46:07]:
could do a whole episode.

Victoria Locking [00:46:09]:
Well, this is the thing. It's Yeah. You know, you open up the door, and it could go Yeah. On and on and on and on and on. But Yeah. Ultimately yeah. To sort of summarize on that is we just want to have a level playing field. Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:46:21]:
And we don't want siloing of women versus men or, you know, any anything like that going on. We we just need the help to get there.

Richard Hill [00:46:31]:
Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Yeah. Let's, think, the industry that we're in, I think it is, you know, it's getting better. Yeah. You know, I do see that. I do think, certain leaders need to have a little look at what they're doing. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:46:48]:
Should we leave it at that?

Victoria Locking [00:46:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:46:50]:
So it's been an absolute pleasure having you on, Victoria.

Victoria Locking [00:46:54]:
Thank you very much.

Richard Hill [00:46:55]:
Last couple of questions. Yeah. Obviously, knowing that you're obviously on the cold face with the reviews that I own reviews every day.

Victoria Locking [00:47:03]:
Mhmm. Is there

Richard Hill [00:47:04]:
anything you can share about what's maybe coming down the pipeline on the road map for the next sort of 12 months or so with reviews that I own reviews?

Victoria Locking [00:47:11]:
Yeah. Sure. So like I sort of alluded to at the start was we are constantly, innovating. It's really it's a really nice place to be working for a tech company where we do move quick, and an idea comes in, we build it out. So and that's what happened with the loyalty side of the platform. Yeah. And then all the features that have come since then and listening to customer feedback. So that's something we're definitely, we'll keep doing.

Victoria Locking [00:47:38]:
That's what we want to keep doing. You mentioned earlier as well and and touched upon the, the AppHub acquisition, and we in the background, we have been, ultimately mapping out how we're gonna bring that to find and go to market with that. So that's gonna be coming further down the line, so I can't talk too much on it at this point in time, but, yeah, there's other apps in the mix that we will then be working closer with as part of that suite. So there's reviews and there's influence. There was also the acquisition of Boost last last year. Yeah. And then there's other apps on the roster like Address Validator.

Richard Hill [00:48:13]:
Yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:48:14]:
Viral Sweep, and,

Richard Hill [00:48:17]:
Richard That's what I love about

Victoria Locking [00:48:18]:
reviews. Yeah. So many. So that's all to eCom, and that's a really exciting place to be as well is going to market as more of like an an app pub group Yeah. Yeah. To speak. Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:48:30]:
So I'd like to finish every episode with a book recommendation, Victoria. Do you have a book that you recommend to our listeners?

Victoria Locking [00:48:37]:
Yes. I actually have 2 books. So because I've finished 2 books in conjunction with each other very random, like, completely different as I say on a non fiction basis, there's a book called The Advice Trap by Michael Banga Stanier, I think, is is his final name, is his surname. And the advice chap is one of those books which it's it catches you out a little bit. It's a bit like doing I don't know if you've ever done, like, 16 personalities tests or, like, those color personality tests. It almost is a bit like that where you suddenly are like, oh my goodness. I I do that. And it's all about yeah.

Victoria Locking [00:49:15]:
Exactly. It's all about when someone is coming to you and, you know, they've got a bit of a problem or they they might just be venting or whatever. It's that human need to jump in and help or provide advice, but that's not always what's needed. Some people just need event or it's or it's, it it can ultimately end up sort of breaking that other person's concept because they're like, oh, you've jumped in, and I wasn't actually looking for advice on that. It's a really good book in terms of helping with communications. It's helped me with managing when, you know, if I'm talking directly with a brand and trying to actually Yeah. Have more of that active listening. Go on.

Victoria Locking [00:49:50]:
It's really hard. Active listening is actually a really difficult skill to build up, and that's really helped on that front. So that's a really good book. And it's not a massive book either. Sometimes it's sort of business ebooks or

Richard Hill [00:50:01]:
Sounds great for all the the leaders and aspiring leaders that are listening in.

Victoria Locking [00:50:04]:
Yeah.

Richard Hill [00:50:04]:
Yep.

Victoria Locking [00:50:05]:
The second one, just for pure enjoyment, and I've read it over and over again, is The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey, J. R. R. Tolkien. Just absolute magic. One of those books that you're in it and you are just you're in that world.

Richard Hill [00:50:18]:
Yeah. And it's funny. Few Hobbit fans in the in the office. I know we do.

Victoria Locking [00:50:22]:
Is oh, as well. That's the reason it's so well loved. So yeah.

Richard Hill [00:50:25]:
I Fantastic. We'll link them both up and see which ones then get the most clicks. So we do interesting.

Victoria Locking [00:50:29]:
Absolutely. Let's do a poll. Maybe the hobbits will win.

Richard Hill [00:50:33]:
Well, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you.

Victoria Locking [00:50:34]:
For those

Richard Hill [00:50:35]:
who wanna reach out to you, Victoria, and reach out to reviews.io, what's the best way to do that?

Victoria Locking [00:50:39]:
You do that on my email. So I'm victoria@reviews.io Yep. Or find me on LinkedIn.

Richard Hill [00:50:43]:
Fantastic. Thank you very much. Thanks for

Victoria Locking [00:50:45]:
calling the show. Thank you.

Richard Hill [00:50:51]:
If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast. You're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Have a fantastic day, and I'll see you on the next one.