OrderReviews Q&A

This is the fifth Q&A post from our series and this time we will answer your questions for OrderReviews.

If you want to check out all posts from the Q&A series, click here.

OrderReviews is an OpenCart extension, which creates and sends automatic emails to customers asking them to review the products they have bought from you. They can write their reviews directly through the email or in their favorite browser. This is a perfect solution to increase the reviews and the unique content on your store. As a gratitude for that, you can also provide the customers with discount codes which they can later use on your site. To put it short, the module has lots of options and you will have to find out which configuration works best for you.

How does the module decide when to send an email to a given customer?

OrderReviews works mainly with the order statuses of the orders and with the delay set in the templates. Basically, when you change the status of an order, the module is being executed and checks if the order status of the given order matches the status set in one of the added templates in the extension.

If such a template is found, OrderReviews checks the delay set in it.

  • If the delay is set to 0, then the email is sent immediately.
  • However, if the delay is set to 1, 3 or X days, then the module checks how much time has passed since the record for the order was created in the database. For example, if the delay is set to 2 days and the order is exactly 2 days old, then the module sends an email. If either one of the conditions is not met, then no email will be sent.

Additionally, you can use one more filter, called “Customer Groups”. In this field, you can choose exactly which customers will get the email. If they are part from the set group, they will receive it, otherwise, the email will not be sent to them, even if they pass the delay or the order status fields.

IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that if you set the delay to something different than zero days, you have to use a CRON service. If the delay is 0 days, then you do not need to use CRON service, since the checks will be made immediately after the order status change.

How does the module handle the templates and how can I use them?

OrderReviews supports multiple templates, which you can send on different occasions. Here are couple examples:

  • You can create different templates for the orders with statuses “Complete” and “Shipped” with or without the same delay setting.
  • You can also create a couple of templates with the same order status, but with different delays (for example - one and three days). You can make the first one to send only the review form, and in the second one to also add a discount code. This way if the customer does not review the order the first time, you can try to make them do it by providing a small discount which they can use on their next purchase. However, if the customers review the order from the first template, they will not receive the second template, because OrderReviews is tracking which orders have been reviewed.

What does the setting “Review Type” means?

This is a setting in the templates, which changes the design and the logic of the module a bit. “Review Type” has two options - “Per Purchase” and “Per Product”.

If you choose “Per Purchase”, the email there will have only one field for the actual review, which will then  be added to all products in the order. 

If you choose the option “Per Product”, the email will contain different reviewing fields for all the products in the given order. It is up to you to decide which option works best for your store. 

How to set a CRON job?

Setting the CRON job is a relatively easy thing to do. You just have to open the module and click on the “How to set up the CRON job?” button. A new window will open, from which you can see the CRON command, which you have to add in the CRON job settings in your hosting configuration. If your hosting solution does not provide you CRON job support, you can use third-party services, such as setcronjob.com or easycron.com. The URL for them is a bit different, but you can find it in the same window.

IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that if you want to use the CRON job feature, you have to set the delay to be at least one day. The command should also be executed only once a day, otherwise your customers may get more than one email from you with the same content.

I can write a review from the browser form, but it does not work from the email client. Why?

OrderReviews is using a GET request to send the written reviews from the customers to the store. Unfortunately, there are mail clients and services, which do not allow using forms in the email’s content. We did our best to support all popular services, but there are still some of them that do not support form submission. This is why we added a special link in the email contents, which leads the customers to the browser-based form. It works on every browser and it is much more stable.

Here - http://www.sitepoint.com/forms-in-email/ - you can find more about which mail clients and services support forms in emails and which do not. 

Once a client submits a review are these reviews automatically posted to the corresponding products?    

We are using the native OpenCart functionality for reviews so once a review is posted you can find it in Catalog > Reviews.

You can also configure whether reviews get automatically approved, hence posted or should be approved by the administrator first.  This configuration can be set from System > Settings > Your store [edit] > Option> Reviews

 

How can I set the module to send emails to clients who have purchased the product prior to the module installation?

You will need to calculate what kind of a period you want to cover (for instance) purchases 180 days prior to the module installation. This will give you a half an year range. You can set a new ReviewMail, so this does not interfere with your current settings and set message delay to 180. In this way you will cover all purchases who had purchased products 6 months prior to the module installation. In this way the CRON will send x amount of review requests which account to the number of purchases you had on this given day.

Can a customer submit more than 1 review for the same product?

Currently there is not a limitation on the reviews per products. If a client purchases the same product more than once then they will be able to submit more than 1 review as well.

What happens if I set the CRON to 0 days delay?

Just as we mentioned above CRON should be always used with delay greater than or equal to 1. If you set the delay to 0, this basically means that the module should send an email instantly upon an order status change. This essentially eliminates the need for a CRON.

Can clients publish reviews not using their real names?

A review carrying client’s actual name brings more value to fellow purchasers. However, since the reviews are being approved by an admin, you can modify your email template and add a message that your clients anonymity will be preserved. Following, you can just change their names in the admin panel when you approve the reviews.

If I have set my CRON to run every hour is there a chance that my clients get SPAMMED with emails?

Typically clients set CRON jobs to run once a day. This is why the delay in the module is set to be in days and not in hours. However, if you run the CRON multiple times a day, you will NOT be sending multiple emails. (Currently implemented only for OpenCart2.x)

Is there a way I can send order reviews manually?

Yes, you can send manual emails. You just have to set the delay for your template to 0 days and select the order status for the order. Then you just have to open a given order from your store and change the order status to the one that you have set in the module. Right after you change the status, the customer who is associated with this order, should receive your review message.

That’s it!

Jump to OrderReviews Demo

I hope that the post was helpful and now you can get a better idea on how OrderReviews works and what you can accomplish with it. Still, if you have additional questions, feel free to ask us in the comments section below.

Join 11,000+ subscribers receiving actionable E-commerce advice

* Unsubscribe any time

Trending blogs

comments powered by Disqus