Improvements to the customer reviews system

Updates on our overhaul of the reviews system

We are currently working to improve the customer reviews system on Folksy. This is an ongoing process and we will try to keep you updated with news and developments here.

Earlier this year we asked Folksy sellers in our Facebook Group and in the Talk Folksy forum what improvements they would like to see, flag any concerns and share experiences as online consumers and users. We used this feedback to compile a to-do list of jobs including:

• Implement a new stars-based feedback system to replace the old percentage-based positive/neutral/negative system. DONE
• Move all the old reviews into a new Google-friendly aggregate score. DONE
• Add customer reviews to shop pages. DONE
• Add reviews to individual item pages. DONE
• Improve the way we prompt customers to leave reviews by designing a new email to be sent once they have received their order. DONE
• Prompt customers to leave reviews when they sign into Folksy. DONE
• Make it possible for guest buyers to leave reviews (these are customers who have either bought without signing into their Folksy account or who aren’t registered with Folksy). DONE
• Allow sellers to reply to feedback (under consideration).
• Enable sellers to prompt customers for feedback after a set period, if they haven’t already done so (under consideration).

UPDATE – 20 Sept 2019:

Guest buyers can now leave reviews for items they have purchased on Folksy (YAY!). This means that if a customer doesn’t have a Folksy account – or if they do have an account but weren’t signed in when they placed the order – they can leave feedback for those items.

Guest buyers will receive an email a few days after the allotted shipping time asking them to review their items. It looks the same as the email below (scroll down a couple of pictures).

UPDATE – 12 Sept 2019:

Customers who have items to review will now get a notification on their dashboard when they log into Folksy. The notifications look like this…

The notification only appears after the email has been sent asking them to review the item and only if they haven’t already left a review. Customers will only ever have one notification at a time and they can be dismissed on the page. Once a notification is dismissed, a customer will not see it again. They will then only be notified again when they have a new purchase to review.

UPDATE – 11 Sept 2019:

We have introduced a new email that goes out to buyers a few days after their order should have been posted, according to the shipping period, asking them to review the items they bought. The next big job is to enable guest buyers to review items. The email looks like this (although there are slight variations between different devices and email clients)…

UPDATE – 1 August 2019:

Reviews are now visible on individual item pages too. We have also changed the colour of the stars from black to yellow and made them smaller based on your feedback.

UPDATE – 29 July 2019:

Shop pages now display customer reviews. If you go to a shop page and scroll down past the ‘About’ section, you’ll see the new ‘Reviews’ section at the bottom of the page (if it has received any reviews). This section displays the star rating given by the customer for their order, the items they purchased in that order, an image of the item/s purchased (unless they’ve been deleted*) and a review if they have left one. So now rather than just clicking on the star rating in shop pages banners, customers can read reviews directly on the page.

SELLING TIP: * Some sellers delete their items as a shopkeeping exercise. We would advise against doing that as sold items can still be valuable to your shop, even if that specific piece is no longer available. This is because sold items can still rank on Google and other search engines, potentially bringing new customers to your shop. Additionally if someone has pinned your item on Pinterest, it can still bring customers to you that way too long after it’s been sold – remember pins are what we call “evergreen”, meaning they last forever. As they also show up on your sold items page and on your reviews page and reviews sections, there’s even more reason not to delete sold items from your shop.

Read more tips for selling craft online here – https://blog.folksy.com/how-to-sell-craft-online-folksy-seller-handbook

Credits: Main image Highest of Fives Card by Snappy Crocodile, reviews shown for Sally Ayling‘s Folksy shop