Introducing: Labels in the Community Forum!

[TeamBIC]

 

A new feature has made its way to the Beauty Insider Community forum and we’re excited to share the details with you all. Now introducing … labels!

Labels are here to help organize content and make navigating the BIC easier than ever. Each one of our Community groups now has a set of predefined labels that you can choose from when you post a new forum thread. Take our Lip Lovers group for example – if you’re starting a conversation looking for fellow Community members’ favorite clean lip liners, you might want to use the “Lip Advice & Recommendations,” “Clean Lip Beauty Products,” and “Lip Liner” labels.

 

Once labels have been used at least one time, they will appear on the groups page when you visit from your favorite desktop or mobile web browser. If you’re in the Lip Lovers group looking for all topics related to lip balms, you can click on “Lip Balm & Treatment” to see all conversations with that label within the Lip Lovers group.  You can even subscribe to email notifications to alert you of new posts created with that label. Stay tuned for updates on using labels to navigate within the Sephora app!

You may also be wondering: what is the difference between tags and labels?

LABELS	TAGS
Predefined by Sephora.	Allow you to enter your own keywords.
Each Community group has a unique set.	Apply across the entire Community forum, regardless of the group.
Must select at least one (1) and can choose up to five (5).	Totally optional.

Now let’s get organized!

Of course, we had to use labels when starting this thread you’re reading now! Do you see them at the bottom of this post? Click “Reply” below and let us know what they are (hint: there are two)! 😉

[lmaster]

@TeamBIC this is awesome! 

[Titian06]

Thanks, @TeamBIC !  🥳

[PrettyPaint]

This looks awesome @TeamBIC Thanks!

[itsfi]

What a fab new feature @TeamBIC! 👍😁

[niki172]

Ooohh I like how you can click on one of the labels and it will take you to what has been posted on the subject like a search engine. Thanks for the new tool @TeamBIC !

[SportyGirly125]

@TeamBIC I like this new feature but just like when you start a new thread and have to post a group some people are still not grouping/labeling correctly.  For instance, this post below should be labeled customer service but they marked it with 2 other labels not related to the question.  I am not sure how to fix this going forward but know it has been an ongoing problem.

https://community.sephora.com/t5/Acne-Prone-Skin/My-order-is-really-late/td-p/5797141

[TeamBIC]

Appreciate you bringing this to our attention, @SportyGirly125! Typically, when a member posts in Customer Support, they're limited to selecting Customer Support-related labels. However, if a post is moved from one group to another (e.g., Acne-Prone Skin to Customer Support), it currently retains its original labels - and unfortunately, they are not always relevant (like this this instance)! We are working with our vendor partners to address this. 

Thanks again for flagging to us! 

[WinglessOne]

@TeamBIC  I think what @SportyGirly125's talking about isn't the post retaining labels from its original group once it's moved to Customer Support. Rather, the problem is people posting in the wrong group and selecting labels for that wrong group in the first place, even when they can clearly tell the labels have nothing to do with their topic. 

I looked at the New Post page and yeah, I can see why some folks make this mistake. I took a couple screenshots of my laptop view and added comments in red font. 

Here's the Group field dropdown menu: 

I like that this initial list is alphabetized. But since Customer Support's missing, some people choose the very first group just to fill this form field. Not everyone scrolls all the way down and selects "Show All," especially since there's no clue that a customer support group exists. 

Select "Show All" and you get this popup: 

Hooray, Customer Support's on this list! But it's the last option listed. Based on my field of work experience, I can think of reasons why Sephora might not want to advertise the BIC Customer Support group as much as all the others. But my experience also forces me to see everything from customers' perspective(s). In this instance, customers include not just people who want to post customer service issues, but also BIC members who see all these customer service posts in the wrong groups. With those perspectives in mind, Customer Support should appear higher on this list—especially if it can't be added to the initial Group form field's dropdown menu. 

I'd even rather see this popup instead of the initial dropdown menu. But I understand the usability reasons for initially showing a shorter list of options along with a "show all" option: seeing all options upfront can overwhelm some folks. And though this popup is organized in a far less overwhelming way, users must do the cognitive tasks of finding and selecting the right category, then finding and selecting the best-fit group from that category. I still think this popup's better than the initial dropdown menu, though. 

[CookieGirl1]

@WinglessOne those are seriously some great suggestions and observations.  You're right, a lot of people don't notice the "show all" option and it definitely has caused some "mis-labeling".

[TeamBIC]

Hey @WinglessOne! We appreciate all your detailed feedback and helpful suggestions. Thankfully, this was something we could address fairly quickly - we made a couple changes to the New Post dropdown menu and "Show All" popup that we hope will be helpful for the entire Community. 😊 Thanks again for sharing your input! 

[WinglessOne]

Thanks @CookieGirl1 🙂 Heh, I can't seem to turn off my UX design critical eye no matter what site I'm on, though honestly I should stop doing this without getting paid for the work involved. 🤣 

And thank you @TeamBIC for improving the New Post page! Hopefully the tweaks will be helpful. It'd be good to do some usability testing on that and other parts of BIC and Sephora.com on a regular basis, to see if/where further updates are needed. 👍

[CookieGirl1]

@WinglessOne it's good that you have a critical eye AND that you're good at articulating your thoughts and suggestions.  I'm willing to bet that you were very successful in your career because of it 😉. 

[danielledanielle]

Loving the newness @TeamBIC 🙌🏼

[sprocketta]

@TeamBIC i saw a couple of these new labels earlier tonight and was thinking, "What is that? What am I missing?" Now it makes sense! Looking forward to this new tool.

[Sunnysmom]

Very helpful @TeamBIC thank you so much. 

[kaydancechick]

Should I be able to see the labels on your post via the app? I’ve been peeking and I can’t see them anywhere within this post 🧐  I did just try to make a new post and the option comes up at that stage! .....just not visible on this post anywhere. (That or I’m really bad at hide and seek lol)

[TeamBIC]

Hi @kaydancechick! Members can add labels when writing new posts from the Sephora app, but currently labels only display on posts when browsing the Beauty Insider Community from a desktop or mobile web browser. We're working on getting labels to appear in the Sephora app too - stay tuned for updates on this! 😊

[kaydancechick]

Great to hear that's on the roadmap! Thanks for the clarification in the meantime 🙂

[SportyGirly125]

@TeamBIC I love this idea.  I see the two as Community 101 and From TeamBIC.

[CookieGirl1]

@TeamBIC I like the addition of the labels and I can see how it may be a really useful feature!  This WILL provide another way to easily navigate in the BIC, as was stated; thanks for the informative post :).