Review requests are automated communications that solicit consumers to submit a review following an online/offline purchase or service interaction.
Bazaarvoice sends these requests to consumers through two primary channels:
Email
Short Message Service (SMS)
Implementing review requests is a key strategy for generating a high volume of user-submitted content. The benefits include increased product review coverage, improved content freshness, and enhanced value for search engine optimization (SEO).
Benefits
Bazaarvoice review requests make it easy for consumers to leave reviews:
One message: Consumers get a single email with a list of all their recent purchases. A single text message contains a link leading the consumer to our multi-product submission form.
One click: Clicking the "Write a review" link takes them straight to the review submission form.
Smart requests: It won't ask a consumer to review a product they have already reviewed.
This benefits your business by:
Getting authentic reviews from verified buyers.
Driving traffic back to your website.
Boosting your number of reviews by getting an average of four moderated and approved reviews for every 100 review requests you send. This conversion rate can be up to 10 percent for specialized retailers when following review request best practices.
Read the following sections to learn how to manage and optimize your review requests:
- Concepts
- Prerequisites
- Workflow and timing of review request
- Enable and configure review request
- Message templates
- Send interaction data for review request emails
- Send interaction data for review request text messages
- Encrypt consumer PII
- Test review request
- Track review request performance
- Manage email subscriptions
- Send multiple review requests for repeated purchase
- Optimize review requests
Concepts
This table introduces essential concepts that help you succeed with Bazaarvoice Review Requests
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Transaction date | The date on which the consumer purchased the product. |
| Review request email (RRE) | The email sent to consumer to collect reviews after a purchase. |
| Review request message (RRM) | The text message sent to consumer to collect reviews after a purchase. |
| Review request reminder (RRR) | A follow-up reminder email/message is sent to consumer after a set wait time from the first review request. |
| Default wait time | The number of days to wait before the first review request is sent. Default wait time is 21 days from the transaction date. |
| Extended wait time | An additional number of days to wait after the default wait time before the first review request is sent. |
| RRR wait time | When a review request is sent to remind the consumer to submit a review. This review request reminder is sent only if the consumer does not take action after the first review request, and it is sent either after the specified delay from the first review request or after the consumer completes another transaction (whichever occurs sooner). |
| Review message sending time | The time of day when Bazaarvoice begins to send review requests. By default, review requests are sent at the original transaction times. However, to improve message open rates, you can control the start time if you want to target message send times or if you need to observe business rules or customs in a specific locale. After Bazaarvoice begins to send review requests, it can take up to 3-4 hours to complete the process (depending on system load)
We recommend configuring daytime or business hours for start sending time for text messages.
|
| Repeat messages | If and when a review request is sent after a consumer repeats a transaction. |
Prerequisites
- To send a review request, a product ID is required, which is the same as the product's
ExternalIdin the product catalog, and it is contained in the interaction feed. Typically, a review request is sent to a consumer after an e-commerce transaction is completed, such as after a product is purchased. If you want to send a review request after a non-e-commerce transaction, the transaction must be associated with a product or service that is included in your product catalog. have a product ID, you cannot send a review request. However, you can use other methods to increase review volume, such as sampling or promotional activities. - Ensure your sender email address is domain authenticated so that Bazaarvoice can send review requests to consumers on your behalf. For detailed instructions, refer to Domain authentication for sender email address.
Workflow and timing of review requests
Here is a typical workflow and timeline for review requests:
- A r completes a transaction, such as a purchase on your site or in your brick-and-mortar store.
- A transaction record is generated within your e-commerce system and then sent to Bazaarvoice in an interaction feed.
- Bazaarvoice determines the following:
- Whether the r has submitted an approved review in the past 180 days for one or more of the products or services in the transaction. If so, the product or service is omitted from the review request. If not, the product or service is included in the review request if the transaction occurred within the last 180 days. Contact Bazaarvoice support if you want to change the number of days that a transaction is eligible to appear in a review request.
- Whether the r had more than one transaction on the same date. When we receive multiple same-day transactions for a r (until 12 AM CST: UTC-6 or CDT: UTC-5), we create a single review request that includes up to five unreviewed products or services. Those transactions can be new, or they can come from an interaction feed containing historical transaction data.
If your transactional feed file contains multiple transactions with the same timestamp (date and time), the system will skip them. However, if the transactions have the same date but different times, the system will merge the orders (products or services) into a single transaction.
To ensure accurate processing:Combine products with the same purchase date and time into a single transaction.
If separate transactions are required for each product, each must have a unique timestamp, although the date can remain the same.
- The review request lists the products or services in this order:
- Highest priced item
- Item with fewest reviews
- Next highest priced item
- Next item with fewest reviews
- Next highest priced item
If price is not included for the product or service in the interaction feed, the products are ordered strictly by the fewest reviews. - We send a review request to the r. You can configure when to send this message, typically 14-21 days after the date and time of the transaction.
- The consumer receives the review request. If the consumer does not submit reviews for all products or services in the message, we send a review request reminder after a set time or when the consumer completes another transaction, whichever occurs first.
The review request reminder includes unreviewed products or services from the initial review request. If fewer than five products or services from the initial review request were not reviewed, and the r has prior unreviewed transactions, the review request reminder will include products or services from prior transactions until the message contains up to five unreviewed products or services. For example, if the initial review request solicits reviews for three products and the r doesn't review any of them, the review request reminder will contain those three products plus two more from previous transactions. We use the same ordering criteria described in step 3 to determine which products and services to include from previous transactions.
- You can configure the delay between the initial review request and reminder messages. A product or service will be included in the review request reminder if the sent date is less than or equal to the sum of 180 days and the configured review request reminder delay.
For example, if a r completed a transaction during the last 180 days, the transaction is eligible to be in the review request reminder for the next 14 days, if the configured review request reminder delay is 14 days.
Review request reminder delay is the number of days to wait before sending the review request reminder after the initial review request. - Reviews approved by the Bazaarvoice moderation team are made available for publishing. Reviews from review requests and reminders follow the same moderation path as reviews collected from pages on your site.