Reviews link

I wanted to leave a review for an item I bought, but it wasn’t obvious to me where to do this. My first instinct was to go to my purchases and take it from there. Why isn’t there a button in that section for leaving a review? Why isn’t there a review button next to the actual purchase? If this can’t be fixed, is it possible to please change the ‘reviews’ title to ‘Leave a Review’ or something similar because it’s no wonder new buyers or guest buyers struggle to leave a review. I know it should be obvious to buyers, but it’s not.

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One of my customers emailed a few days ago to say she had received her item, loved it and ordered another for someone else and that she was just…at that minute going to leave me a wonderful review. The review hasn’t been left which could of course mean she got side tracked but i womder whether she couldn’t find where to leave it.
When I purchase on Folksy the review section is in my account section of my shop so I go there to leave mine but I don’t know how buyers who arn’t also sellers find it. Do they also have a similar page for items they have bought previously ?

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If you are logged in to Folksy , then go to your Dashboard and click on reviews. If a buyer doesnt have a Folksy account and therefore no dashboard then I believe they have to wait for an email from Folksy inviting a review . I may be wrong.

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I don’t think they can find it. I know it should be obvious but it baffled me for a few minutes until I remembered. People need things to be crystal clear and it’s not. Which probably accounts for me not getting reviews for quite a few items.

My point is ‘Reviews’ isn’t crystal clear about leaving a review. It probably is to people using this site a lot but not to others. I did ask someone once to leave me a review, (that’s not something I do a lot) and they told me they’d tried but couldn’t find out how. This subject has been brought up before many times but nothing’s been done about it.

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It’s glad to know it’s not just me - was trying to leave a review a few days ago and couldn’t find where to do it, had to come on here and ask!
Hopefully it’ll be added to Folksy’s list of things to fix in the new year…

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I will ask one of my regular customers how they find it next time they message, it would be interesting to know, I must admit when I first bought from other sellers it took me ages to find it, I know where it is now so it’s easy but never thought about where a buyer only would find it.

It was so much better when the email asking gfor a review was sent out only a few days after the salr instead of a ridiculous delayed 2 weeks…
I for one have forgotten what I bought a week ago never mind a fortnight …
and yes i know all about the sellers who don’t post out for a week or more, so it allows for them … but I am pretty sure, judging by my own purchases that vast majority of orders are received within one week not two.
I now give my Google review link on my order acknowledgement email. Had several that way :grin:

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Hi everyone,
I find myself in the same situation as @VioletFlameGlassArt . I have customers who, after receiving their package, contact me asking how they can leave a review.

According to what the support team told me via email, customers are supposed to receive an email a few days after delivery, asking if they’d like to review the purchased item. However, it’s been 3 weeks since my last order was delivered, and the customer still hasn’t received anything. She keeps reaching out to me because she wants to leave a review. In the end, she left a review on my Facebook page instead.

I find this issue really frustrating—reviews are so important for us artisans. Has anyone else experienced the same problem? Have you found any alternative solutions?

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I agree reviews are very important to sellers, if I buy from ebay the review box is in my account next to the ordered item, I also get emails requesting me to leave a review. I always leave a review on folksy the day I receive the item or I would forget.

Not everyone checks their emails every day, or even every week. Or they can get lost in the junk mail. I do hope Folksy sort this out.

I agree. Many of my customers have said they have a problem trying to leave a review. It’s just not good enough because all on line selling platforms have a review system which is quite clear to find any easy to use. Yes, it’s been a subject we have all been banging on about for years, but seems to fall on death ears!

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@marcogiglio Buyers should receive a review email 13 days after purchase, unless they’ve already left a review. If it’s been over this time and they haven’t got anything, contact support and we can check the email has gone out as it should (there can sometimes be issues due to emails bouncing or typos in the email address).

If the buyer contacts support to let us know they want to leave a review, we can send them the review link manually (but we can’t send this link to the seller).

For those that bought while logged in to their Folksy account, they’ll be able to leave a review at any time by going to the reviews page from the dashboard/your account page (buyers have a ‘your account’ page which is similar to the dashboard, but only has the ‘activity’ and ‘your account’ sections that are at the bottom of the dashboard).

If a review hasn’t been left 13 days after purchase, those with an account will also get a notification on their Folksy homepage that they’ve got a review to leave.

It would be nice to improve on the system to make sure it is as clear and easy as possible for buyers, but we do have a very long list of things we’d like to improve on and new features we’d like to develop, I can’t give any guarantees about where this will fit in the priorities and we are limited to how much we can work on at once.

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Who is going to do this, seriously? Most buyers unless they are Folksy sellers, will not do this. They’ll just give up and not leave the review. It’s not a very efficient system and as reviews can drive sales it’s a priority for us sellers.

Do appreciate that there’s lots to do etc.

Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting that we’d expect most buyers to do that, but if a buyer comes to a seller saying they want to leave a review but can’t/haven’t got an email, if you ask them to email support@folksy.co.uk, we’ll sort it out.

And excuse me, but do you really think this solves the problem? If I were a buyer trying to leave a review but couldn’t figure out how, and the seller told me to contact support to sort it out, I’d personally get frustrated and just give up on leaving a review. I believe many other buyers would feel the same way.

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The buyer shouldn’t have to do that though. It should be super easy for the buyer to leave a review not a case of having to hunt it down.

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It doesn’t solve the problem but we’re not saying that buyers are expected to contact support to leave a review. I’m sorry if my response sounded dismissive of the issue.

Buyers are sent an email directly to the email address they used to buy which prompts them to leave a review, and this should be a simple and straight forward process which allows the majority of buyers to review an item even if they aren’t registered with Folksy.
Unfortunately there are some which can miss these (usually due to spam filters), which is why there are also the back up notifications on the site for those that are registered.

Unfortunately it’s harder to have a back up method for those that aren’t registered (which a lot of buyers only aren’t), because we need to make sure they’re a genuine buyer so sellers aren’t left fake reviews.

The suggestion to email support was for those like in your recent buyer’s situation @marcogiglio, where the standard prompts haven’t reached them and the buyer has made contact showing they have a strong desire to want to leave a review, so letting them know they’ve contacted the wrong person to get the link again hopefully won’t put them off.

However the most common reason we see for people saying they haven’t been able to review is because they haven’t waited long enough, rather than they haven’t got the email. We understand it could be frustrating for some when an item arrives within a couple of days of ordering and there isn’t immediately a link to leave a review, but unfortunately we know from when the timing was shorter that earlier review links can lead to unfair negative reviews from impatient buyers. If the emails go out too late, buyers may not always be as eager to review, but if they go out too early we get complaints from sellers that they’ve been left negative reviews after an unreasonably short time, as when the buyers see the review email they often think it means they should already have the item. Unfortunately even with sellers that posted out quickly, with the quicker timing that wasn’t always the case when it got to the usual Christmas postage delays.
It’s a difficult balance trying to get the timing to allow for the most common posting schedules, to allow for different posting methods and delays, and we’ve gone towards a little slower to protect sellers, as we know it can cause a lot of worry when a negative review is received.

The timings may be something we can review or improve on if we develop a more sophisticated system, and as we improve the site we’ll keep in mind if there’s more we can do to make it clearer for those that are registered buyers. Unfortunately sometimes changes that may seem like a simple and quick addition (like adding a review button to the purchases page) may actually be a lot more complicated to set up with how the page currently works, which is why it may be done in different way.

We would hope that ‘reviews’ is clear as to what the page is for (particularly for buyers only who see less options on their account page than a seller). As the responses here show it isn’t clear to everyone, as a buyer what would you expect to see on a page that’s titled ‘reviews’? Or is the confusion due to also being sellers, so you’d expect to see your own shop reviews here?

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Thank you for the detailed explanation regarding the review system and the challenges associated with ensuring buyers can leave their feedback. I appreciate the effort Folksy puts into balancing buyer convenience with seller protection.

I now better understand the timing considerations and the reasoning behind the current process. However, I wanted to share some thoughts that may help improve the experience for both buyers and sellers:

  1. Clearer Communication for Buyers: While I agree that the “reviews” section title seems intuitive, perhaps a brief guide or tooltip explaining what this section is for and how to navigate it could reduce confusion.
  2. Automated Follow-ups for Unregistered Buyers: Is there a way to implement a second automated email for buyers who haven’t left a review within a certain timeframe? This could help minimize the impact of missed emails due to spam filters.
  3. Enhanced Support for Dedicated Reviewers: While I understand the need for buyers to contact support to retrieve review links, this process might discourage some buyers. Could there be a self-service option for buyers to request the review link directly?

I hope these suggestions are helpful and align with Folksy’s goals of enhancing user experience. Thank you again for taking the time to clarify the system.

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hi Marco,
Is it possible to send out out the link 7 days after purchase, rather than 13? Surely that cannot be too hard to remedy?