By listening to its customers, Cosmetics brand, Rollover Reaction, has grown and thrived.

Alavi.ai recently spoke to the company’s Co-founder and CEO, Naya Tinanda Nabila, who explained how she had her team developed a cosmetics brand that focused on the wants and needs of customers to grow online.

What Inspired Rollover Reaction?

‍As a consumer of cosmetics herself, Naya noticed a large gap between Indonesian cosmetics brands and their customers. Companies in this space were selling products that Indonesians could not relate to or enjoy using because more often than not, they did not match the skin, beauty or climatic needs of local consumers.

This gap between product, customer and brand largely existed because customers were not able to communicate with brands and tell them what they wanted. Naya was determined to change that.

“Customers should be able to tell brands what they want”
– Co-founder and CEO, Naya Tinanda Nabila

With this idea in mind, Naya and her team started Rollover Reaction in 2016 as an online cosmetics and beauty brand in Indonesia. By selling cosmetics online, Rollover Reaction was able to use technology and digital tools to minimize the gap between themselves and their customers. This strategy opened up new and easy ways for the company to communicate and engage with its customers as well as ways for customers to communicate with the brand.

New Ways to Get Feedback

Direct Online Communication

Rollover Reaction made it easier to communicate with their customers via their website and social media channels. This allowed for greater interaction with the brand at any time and helped Rollover Reaction learn more about their target audience, particularly in terms of what products they liked, disliked and wanted more of.

By directly communicating with customers, the brand gained full control of its customer feedback. This meant it no longer relied on third-party market research, which often had inaccuracies and generalizations but most importantly, came with a lag between when research was done and when it was shared with Rollover Reaction. This affected how quickly the company could react to feedback and improve its offerings.

With direct communication, Rollover Reaction understood exactly what customers wanted from their products, which was critical to being successful in today’s beauty, cosmetics and skin care industry.

Pop-up Stores

Given that cosmetics have traditionally been sold offline, Naya and her team used pop-up stores to take offline shoppers online. Popup stores helped Rollover Reaction know their customers better right across Indonesia, particularly in terms of their buying behaviors. At popup stores, customers tested and purchased cosmetics with the Rollover Reaction team. This enabled the company to collect more feedback from customers and it was another opportunity for customers to tell the brand what they wanted. Popup stores helped the brand improve its online customer engagement journeys and workflows.

Product = Content

To be a successful online cosmetics brand, Rollover Reaction mastered the art of using their products to create content that could go viral online. This innovation helped make products more appealing to contemporary Indonesians and enabled customers to also use products as content for social media. By doing this, new lines of communication and engagement were opened, and the brand was able to monitor what customers said about their products, how they were used and when they were used.

Innovative Technology

Technology has always been an important component of the Rollover Reaction story and the company has used technology not just to communicate with customers but to also to give their products maximum exposure and maintain top-of-mind awareness. By embedding technology that allowed customers to virtually try on make-up and other products, Rollover Reaction made it convenient and easy for people to see if a shade or color matched their skin tone and facial features.

The company also offered other innovative ways to choose the right shade/color for their skin and look. One example of this was the Shade-o-Meter, which gives individuals the option of sending a selfie to professionals at Rollover Reaction who would recommend products that matched the person’s skin tone and look.

The brand is also rolling out smart vending machines with their products in key locations across Indonesia. These will allow customers to virtually try on and buy the products in the physical world via digital cashless payments.

By implementing new and innovative communication methods and strategies, Rollover Reaction has been able to get customer feedback quickly and action them effectively.

Successfully Addressing Customer Needs and Wants

Everything Under One Brand

Customers told Rollover Reaction that in Indonesia it is very hard to find a brand that caters to all their beauty and skincare needs. They said they wanted this because they do not want to spend a lot of time shopping around. The company saw this as an opportunity and is constantly working to ensure that it has all the products customers want under its brand, so shopping for cosmetics is simple and fast.

Ingredients & Manufacturing Processes

Today, customers are paying more attention to the ingredients and manufacturing processes of their cosmetics brands. This led Rollover Reaction to clearly communicate that it is a brand that uses cruelty-free ingredients and ethical manufacturing processes.

The Right Messaging

To figure out the right messaging for its brand and products, Rollover Reaction uses their open lines of communication with customers to better understand what customers want to know and when or why they want to use a particular product. This knowledge allows the company to craft the right messaging and effectively communicate it at the right time to each audience.

Fuss Free Make Up

One of the most common requests Rollover Reaction received was for “fuss-free makeup.” Customer wanted makeup that could be easily and quickly applied while on the go. This led Rollover Reaction to focus on ensuring its products not only addressed the unique needs of Indonesian skin and the climate of the country, but also came with easy-to-use applicators for greater convenience.

COVID-19 & Cosmetics Industry

‍When asked about the impact of COVID-19 on the cosmetics industry, Naya said they did not see a fall in demand. In fact, the demand for Rollover Reaction makeup increased during the pandemic as the popularity of social media, video streaming and video calling took off. Whether it was TikTok videos, Instagram livestreams, webinars or video calls for work, people needed makeup.

“The need for beauty didn’t change and COVID-19 is forcing brands to be more creative. We need new ways of delivering the message and the product.”
– Co-founder and CEO, Naya Tinanda Nabila

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