Ratings and Reviews

[marknc]

Has anyone used the Ratings and Reviews Plug-In from CodePath - http://www.codepath.co.uk/actinic_plugins.htm? I'd be interested to hear any feedback.

[guccij]

We use it. Love it.

[wesleythorne]

we use it and it works very well.
Much better value in my opinion than fefo.

You can have it send out review requests as well for past orders which is a good way to get your reviews looking full quickly.

One off payment is a real plus

It has a free demo so why not try it out, you have nothing to loose!

wes

[Mark Evenden]

But as you can choose which customer reviews to publish and which ones to reject, you might as well just write them yourself.

The potential to portray "perfect" appeals to some I guess.

[guccij]

Who do you know does this? Or are you just saying that to be controversial?

[Mike Hughes]

But as you can choose which customer reviews to publish and which ones to reject, you might as well just write them yourself.

The potential to portray "perfect" appeals to some I guess.

I agree with Jules. This is a rather daft assertion followed by a somewhat derogatory remark against anyone who uses a review system other than feefo.

It's a bit like saying that as you write the product description you might as well say that everything about it is perfect and on sale at 60% off.

Customers are realistic and know what to expect. The point of reviews is to let them know what people like about the product, that you are a real business and that you have satisfied customers.

For customers to buy from you they have to trust you to deliver. If you can't even trust yourself to run an ethical business how to you ever expect customers to trust you?

Mike

Edit:

PS. Trust has a far higher level of relationship between two parties than 'independently verified' / 'tested' / 'certified' etc. To a large extent, the more you strive to prove things the less trustworthy you become.

[Darren B]

Hmmm reviews

I have reviews and to be honest they are nearly all good
does this mean i have picked what to display? Actually i dont edit company reviews - well i cant they are external but the product ones are filtered because i get stupid comments that are not thing to do with the product i have some that are 1 star and some that are 5 star it depends on a persons perception but i dont eedit these.

I dont believe being locked out is a good thing either as trying to get a comment removed could take days and damage your business if its been unfarely placed by a competitor.

Unfortunately i have yet to see a number of unknown review companies appear in googles listings although the apparently have the google tags it seems only large well established ones will

[guccij]

Our reviews are nearly all good, too. I like it when a less than glowing review comes in though, as it shows we are being honest.

The only reviews we absolutely don't publish are those from our spectacularly craptastic competitors, who think we're stupid enough to plaster their url all over our sites for free.

We take note of what our customers write, and if the reviews are poor for a particular product, we stop stocking it. No point in having a product for sale if it's not going down well with our customers.

[Mark Evenden]

Who do you know does this? Or are you just saying that to be controversial?

It says quite clearly in the documentation

You decide which reviews are published with a simple management facility.

Now I wonder if you put this on your website if people would take the reviews published seriously because it is only human nature to assume given such, that a website owner would delete or not publish any negativity, again quite understandably.

However Feefo make it quite clear to customers that it is a third party and what you as a customer report will be published so long as it is not malicious.

Subtle difference.

I agree it must be quite frustrating if you cant alter Feefo or edit customer comment, or even ignore it.

Feefo from what I have read is very straight with the end user, where as the product discussed here is not, or at best offer the option not to be completely honest.......where is the value in that?

Those of you that use it obviously approve of it, nothing wrong with that, but looking at it from the outside I can see a loophole.

35 year in retail and I know that nothing is 100% - my issue with this product is that it does allow editing or deletion, but it does not make these facts available to the end user........you can only ask, why not?

[Mark Evenden]

The point of reviews is to let them know what people like about the product

Surly a review is an invitation to say what you think of a product, why should it be limited to just "what people like" ?

Criticism can also be constructive, it is not by definition destructive.

Feefo will IMO be taken seriously if Actinic apply the product to their own product sales.

[leehack]

Feefo will IMO be taken seriously if Actinic apply the product to their own product sales.

Good point.

[marknc]

For some reason I wasn't getting email notification of replies so I was unaware that there was so much discussion.

We get hundreds of comments, mostly glowing, about our website and e-tail service, we couldn't possible publish them all, well I suppose we could, but a brief selection is preferable and can have far more impact.

I would say editability in reviews is essential for obvious reasons, bad language, derogatory remarks, ill-informed opinion, link seeking, spam, and even, arguably, incorrect spelling or grammar.

Entirely negative reviews can be valuable if the opinion is sound and reasonable, but you wouldn't necessarily want to publish them. Publishing a good review that may identify a weak spot or shortcoming displays integrity and makes your reviews credible. Whatever you display to your visitors, they may be completely unaware of the selection process, which makes your choice of which reviews to pulished critical.

Thanks for all your input everyone. I think I'll definitely go for it.

[cbarling]

Feefo will IMO be taken seriously if Actinic apply the product to their own product sales.

I think that's a fair point. We have discussed it internally but there's a reasonable amount of work to do to implement it for us. Cover connects through to the support ticket system, software sales go through a different system to manage authorisation keys etc etc. It's not a question of just turning it on. Cobblers children and all that.

Chris