In order to fulfill this business mission, Sendwave minimizes the costs associated with advertising and branding. Partnering with Trustpilot allows Sendwave to provide its customers with reassurance and trust without additional ad spend.
Any service involving banking and money must be worthy of a high level of trust. For the immigrant community, which is particularly vulnerable to fraud and predatory business practices, sending money can be fraught with anxiety, both for the recipient and the sender.
Since Sendwave works in many global markets and focuses on developing countries, it is not always possible to rely on word-of-mouth referrals, which is the most reliable way to build trust.
Most remittance companies earn profits in two ways: from exchange rates and from fees.
For example, if you send $100 to a friend in a different country, you will likely pay $5 for the transaction, and the company will also earn a profit on the exchange rate. Sendwave eliminates these fees and earns profit only on exchange rates.
“We serve a larger part of the community, so even though we earn very small amounts from each transaction, it adds up.”
Sam Yaniv Herskowitz
Media and Engagement Manager at Sendwave
To many potential customers, this lack of fees seems suspicious or too good to be true. Sendwave’s business model is designed to put customers first, but that position is unfortunately so rare that it can create mistrust among those unfamiliar with the company.
Without the benefit of an established user base and referrals from family and friends to potential customers in new markets, Sendwave faces a challenge to prove that its service is reliable, trustworthy and truly free to users. This is where Trustpilot can help.
Along with the need to establish certainty and loyalty with consumers, Sendwave faced another challenge. Daniel Hernandez, head of Sendwave Media and Engagement for Latin America, says unsolicited reviews are kind of like letters to the editor before the Internet.
“On a scale of mildly angry to nuclear, you had to be crazy enough to take the time to write a letter to the editor, find an envelope and print it and send it.”
Daniel Hernandez
Sendwave’s Media and Engagement Lead for Latin America
Before working with Trustpilot, the reviews Sendwave had were mostly from people closer to the nuclear end of the anger scale, and the team wanted to make the process of writing a review less burdensome in order to “give our many happy users a voice ,” according to Herskowitz.
By working with Trustpilot, Sendwave was able to invite a large number of customers to submit a review and this review process was made much simpler for the customer, making it easier for satisfied users to share how happy they are with Sendwave. Hernandez says Sendwave currently gets about 400 reviews a month.
“You can send prompts all day, but if you don’t do a good job, you’re not going to get a high star rating,” he adds. The combination of a large number of reviews and an above-average 4.5 star rating gives people reviewing different remittance companies more confidence that Sendwave is trustworthy.
One of Trustpilot’s appeals to Sendwave leaders, even before using the platform, was that Trustpilot does a fantastic job of indexing the platform with search engines, increasing visibility for every company that has been reviewed. When a prospect Googled “Sendwave”, Sendwave’s Trustpilot profile was listed in the top results, even before Sendwave started working with the platform.
By partnering, Sendwave has a little more control over what these prospective users see when they read Trustpilot reviews, because they can encourage happy users to leave reviews and provide simple tools to make the review process easier. This means that the reviews are not only or even mainly from people who are angry.
Along with the fact that Trustpilot ranks in searches for companies that have reviews, it also provides important tools and feedback for its customers. The ability to send reminder emails to prompt user reviews, for example, has increased the number of reviews Sendwave has by about 60% and “has helped in that sense how to maximize the kind of reviews we get,” he says Herskowitz.
The strong online presence that Trustpilot brings to Sendwave makes it easy for potential customers to evaluate the service, even in cases where Sendwave is entering a new market.
“It’s important when you type ‘Sendwave’ (into your search engine) and you see Trustpilot,” says Hernandez. “People click on it and see that this company has 4.5 stars and over 10,000 reviews (as of July 2023).”
Likewise, Trustpilot gives Sendwave an avenue to communicate with unhappy customers. When people leave negative reviews, Sendwave publicly responds to the customer, works to fix the problem if possible, and the process improves overall customer service. They also ask if people are happy to consider changing their rating. For a mission-driven and service-driven organization, this is a particularly important tool provided by Trustpilot.
“Trustpilot helps us with the after-sales experience and keeping up with the pulse of our users,” says Hernandez. He says that at some point, the team noticed that reviews were falling across the board in certain markets.
Monitoring weekly and monthly reviews to look for trends gave them some insight. “We paused and analyzed the situation,” says Hernandez, “and were able to identify a change that informed our process and our product.”
Herskowitz and Hernandez both agree that working with Trustpilot gives people a place to say what they think about Sendwave, and that’s largely a positive thing. The vast majority of Sendwave users are happy with the service.
“Our happy users are our brand.”
Sam Yaniv Herskowitz
Media and Engagement Manager at Sendwave
Trustpilot improves online visibility and builds trust in Sendwave for risk-taking customers who trust the organization to move their money safely and reliably.
If you want to find out how Trustpilot can improve online visibility and boost trust like they did for Sendwave, get in touch with one of our experts today.