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Manage Product Reviews

About Product Reviews

ProductCart includes a system that allows customer to rate and review products on your store, and allows you to manage, check, approve, and reject those reviews. You can turn off and on this feature on a storewide basis, or for individual products. You can allow reviews to be immediately posted on your Web store, or set up the system so that each review has to be approved before it is shown in the storefront.
 

Product reviews are shown at the bottom of the product details page, below cross selling items and the detailed product description. A ratings “summary” can be shown at the top of the page, linking to the bottom section where the actual reviews are displayed. You can set the system to show N reviews on the product details page, while the rest of the reviews are shown on a separate page that customers can get to by clicking on Read all product reviews.

A summary of the ratings given to the product is shown at the top of the section, and customer reviews are shown underneath it. Depending on how you configure this feature, customers will be required or not required to post a textual review of the product. They will also be prompted to rate products on any number of things that you define for them. In the example above, customers were ask to say whether they liked the product or not, and to rate its comfort, performance, and value, etc.
 

It's entirely up to you how to set the system. You can assign different rating criteria to different products (e.g. “performance” could be a good rating criteria for a pair of skis, but not “comfort”, which instead could be used for rating ski boots sold on your store).
 

These and a number of other settings can be configured when setting up the Product Reviews feature.
 

WARNINGS: Changing Settings Can Cause Problems

  • If you use the “Rate by 'Feeling'” setting, and then later switch to “Rate by Marks”, the existing ratings will no longer apply
  • If you use the “Rate by Marks” setting, and configure the system to calculate the overall product rating “by averaging sub-ratings”, but then switch to have it be “set on the overall product”, the system will no longer be able to display it based on the reviews that exist in the database.

To avoid issues, when you switch the main Product Reviews Rating Setting, average ratings will be removed from the database. A warning message is shown to the store administrator before the new settings are saved.
 

General Product Review Settings

From the Products menu, select Manage Product Reviews > Product Reviews Settings. At the top of the page you will find an option to turn the feature “on” and “off” on a store-wide basis. If you would like customers to be able to post reviews on at least one of your products, turn the feature on.

Customers will be able to give a general opinion on a product by either saying whether they liked it or not (Rate by Feeling) or by saying now much they liked it (Rate by Marks). Let’s look at these two options in more details.
 
Rate by Feeling
When you enable this feature, customers will be asked to say whether they liked the product or not. It’s a yes/no type of question. The answers given by all of the customers that rate the product will then be taken into account and the product details page will say something like 35% of customers liked this product (46 votes). The language used can be changed using the following fields:
  • Display Rating Text- This is the “liked this product” portion of the “35% of customers liked this product” statement mentioned above. This is shown on the product details page, in the summary section of the product reviews area.
  • Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down- This is the text that is shown next to the two radio buttons that allow customers to rate the product. This text is used only for the general rating question, which is the one shown on the product details page. This is the first question that the customer is asked to answer to rate the product (and the only question unless you set up other fields in the Manage Fields area).
  • Sub-Rating "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down"- This is the text that is shown next to the radio buttons shown for any other yes/no question that you ask your customers to answer when they post a review. This text is used when you create a Rate by Feeling field in the Manage Fields page. If you don’t have any Rate by Feeling custom fields, this text is never shown.
  • Rating Images- Use the default images or upload your own images (e.g. you could upload thumbs up & thumbs down images, or alike).
 
Rate by Marks
When you enable this feature, customers will be asked not only to say whether they liked a product, but also how much they liked it. You can have them rate a product on a 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 scale. You can have the overall score ( Overall Product Rating) be determined:
  • By Automatically Averaging Sub-Ratings - The overall product rating is calculated by averaging the way different product properties are rated. For example, if a customer is asked to rate a product based on “quality”, “comfort”, and “style”, the calculation could be as follows:
    -Customer rates the product:
              Quality:5
              Comfort: 5
              Style: 2
    - The overall product rating is calculated as the average of the sub-rating
            Overall product rating = 5+5+2/3=4.
  • Independently of any sub-ratings - When customers write a review, they are asked for an overall opinion on the product, and that's what defines the product rating, rather than an average of other product properties. You must choose this option unless you have custom fields whose type is Rate by Marks.

Images are used in the storefront to show customers a graphical version of the numeric average of all the product ratings that have been submitted. You can use the default graphics or upload your own.

Note that changing the main rating option described above from Rate by Feeling to Rate by Marks (or vice versa) after customers have submitted product reviews could result in reviews no longer showing meaningful information in the storefront. We recommend that this option is not changed, or that you remove or hide existing reviews if you decide to change it.
 

Write a Review Reminder

You can configure your store so that a reminder to write a review is automatically sent to customers a certain number of days after their order was processed or shipped. An incentive to share their opinion can be given by allowing customers to collect reward points when they submit a review.


ProductCart looks at all orders that were placed in the last 45 days. So the first time you turn this feature on, it will send a reminder to customers that have placed an order in the last 45 days, based on the rest of the settings mentioned below (e.g. to customers whose orders have been shipped 5 or more days before the script is run).


This automated task is run when you first access the Control Panel (or when you load the Control Panel start page).
 
Reminder Options
  • Send a " Write a Review" reminder - Whether the reminder should be sent.
  • When to Send it - When it should be sent. Enter the number of days after an order has either been processed or shipped. If you don't ship orders (e.g. you sell digital goods), make sure to select processed.
  • Format - You can send either a text or HTML message. Use the Preview feature to send a sample message to yourself in order to see how it looks
  • Template - You have two options:
    - Use default template- The default template uses text strings that are defined in the languages file. You can modify what it says, but you cant modify the design.
    -Use custom template- You can upload your own template. This allows you to control the design of the message (e.g. you can design your own HTML message). When you do so, you can take advantage of the following, dynamic fields (dynamic in that they are dynamically replaced with order-specific information when the message is sent). 
    <customer_name>
<number_of_points>
<reward_points_label>
<store_name>
Make sure that your custom template includes the following:
Link to the page that explains the terms for the “Rewards for Reviews” program, if you decide to use this feature (where “any text” is any text you wish to use for the link): 
 <RFR_PAGE>Any text</RFR_PAGE>

Link to post a review (where “any text” is any text you wish to use for the link):

<POST_REVIEW_LINK>Any text</POST_REVIEW_LINK>
Sample Custom Template
As mentioned above, you have the option to use a customized template to send the “Write a Review” reminder. Here is an example (save this code as a TXT file and you can use it “as is” on your store, if you wish to do so). Of course, you could add your store logo, use a more complex HTML design, etc.
  
<div style="border: 1px solid #CCC; margin: 20px; padding: 10px; width: 400px;">
<div style="border: 1px dashed #E1E1E1; padding: 10px; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; color: #333;">
   Dear <CUSTOMER_NAME>,
   <br /><br />
   Thank you for your recent order. We'd love it if you decided to share your thoughts on the product(s) you purchased with other customers. Your opinion can be very useful to other shoppers.
   <br /><br />
   <POST_REVIEW_LINK>Click here to write your review</POST_REVIEW_LINK>
   <br /><br />
   To thank you for writing a review, we will add <NUMBER_OF_POINTS> <REWARD_POINTS_LABEL> to your account if you do so and your review is approved (e.g. don't use offensive language in your review). Please <RFR_PAGE>see our Web site for details</RFR_PAGE> on our "eCommerce Miles for Reviews" program.
   <br /><br />
   Thanks again for shopping with us.
   <br /><br />
   Customer Service
   <br />
   <STORE_NAME>
   <br /><br />
   --------------------------------
   <br />
   If you do not wish to receive &quot;Write a Review&quot; reminders like this one, please <a href="<PRV_UNSUBSCRIBE>">click here to unsubscribe</a>.
   <br />
</div>
</div>

This is how the sample message looks in Outlook:

Customer's Preferences
Customers can opt not to receive the “Write a Review” reminder by unchecking the corresponding setting in their account page. You can do the same in the ProductCart Control Panel when adding or editing a customer.
 
Testing the Feature
To test this feature before messages are sent to (potentially) a large number of customers:
  • Set the number of days after an order has been placed to a high number
  • Set up the rest of the settings
  • Access the order details page for any test order that you have placed
  • Click on Send "Write a Review" Reminder to send the reminder email associated with that order.
 

Manage Fields

The Manage Fields area allows you to add additional questions/fields to the product review submission form. You can ask you customers to answer any number of questions and/or fill out any number of fields. Each question or field can be required or not. You can set the order in which they are shown on the product review submission form, and edit, remove, or add new fields at any time. 

There are 5 field types:
  • One-Line Text Field - A one-line input field. Use it for short, open questions (e.g. on a computer store “Where do you typically use a computer?”)
  • Text Area Field - A multi-line input field. Use it for longer, open questions, including the main comments that the customer will enter to review the product (unless you strictly want them to answer “closed” questions).
  • Drop-down Field - A special field that allows you to pre-define which answers will be available for the customer to choose from. After you create a drop-down field, you will have to specify which values will be shown in the drop-down. You can do so by clicking on View/Edit Values on the Manage Fields page. A new window will be displayed (see image below). Enter one value per row, and then click on the Update Values button to save the list. If you don't specify and values, the drop-down field will not be displayed.
  • 'Feeling' Rating - A yes/no question that uses the Sub-Rating “Thumbs Up” and “Thumbs Down” settings mentioned earlier in this chapter. For example, if you entered “Positive” and “Negative” in those fields, you could have a ‘Feeling’ Rating field entitled “What was your experience with customer service on this product?”. Customers will be able to answer by choosing either “Negative” or “Positive”.
  • 'Mark' Rating - A question that is answered by choosing from a 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 scale. If in the Product Review Settings page you have chosen to calculate the overall product rating by automatically averaging sub-ratings, make sure to create one or more 'Mark' rating custom fields here. Otherwise the overall product rating cannot be calculated.
Two things to pay particular attention to: (a) remember to specify the selections for any drop-down menus you create, and (b) make sure to add two or more 'Mark' Rating fields if you have setup the system to automatically calculate the main product rating based on the average of the sub-ratings.
 

Managing Customer Reviews

As customers begin posting reviews in the storefront, you can use the Control Panel to keep track of them. At any time, you can see a snapshot of how many pending and live reviews have been submitted for any product in your store, and you can view details, edit, make active or inactive, and remove each product review.
  • Pending Reviews - To view a list of reviews that have been posted, but are currently not shown to customers, select Product Reviews > Pending Reviews. If you have set up ProductCart so that reviews always need to be approved before being shown in your storefront, all reviews will always be pending until you manually render them active. You will be automatically notified via e-mail whenever a new review is posted. Click on the link included in the e-mail to check, edit and approve the new review.
  • Live Reviews - To view a list of reviews that are live in your storefront, select Product Reviews > Live Reviews. If you have set up ProductCart so that reviews are immediately shown to customers when they are submitted, there will be no pending reviews in your store unless you manually render any of the live reviews inactive.
 

Trouble Shooting

  • The overall (average) product rating is not shown - This can happen if you recently switched the product reviews settings. For example, if the setting “Overall Product Rating” is switched from “Will be calculated automatically by averaging sub-ratings” to “Will be set on the overall product”, the overall product rating will no longer be shown for a certain product until a customer fills out a review and rates it using the new setting. The opposite is also true.
  • Product reviews are not being shown - Make sure that they have been approved in the Control Panel.