Reviews
Let buyers rate what they bought, decide which reviews go live, and reply publicly to the ones worth answering.
Reviews are how buyers tell the next buyer whether it was worth it. TribeNest asks each buyer for one automatically after their purchase, checks the answer for the obvious spam, and then puts you in charge of what actually appears on your site.
Only people who really bought the thing can review it, so a review on your store is a review from a customer, not a passer-by. Products, courses and coaching sessions can all be reviewed.
How a review happens
- Someone buys a product, a course, or a coaching session.
- A few days later, TribeNest emails them a link asking how it went. Each buyer is asked once per item, and the link proves they bought it, so they never have to log in.
- They give a star rating and, if they want, a title, some words, and the name they would like shown.
- The review either goes live straight away or waits for your approval, depending on your settings and whether the spam filter flagged anything.
- Published reviews appear on that item's page on your site and feed its star average.
The moderation queue
Open Operations then Reviews in the sidebar. This page is the queue: it shows only the reviews that are waiting on you.
Four tiles across the top count your Pending, Published, Rejected and Hidden reviews.
Each waiting review shows the star rating, the reviewer's name (or Anonymous), a Verified purchase badge, the date, which item it is about, and the review itself. Underneath, it tells you why it is being held:
- If the spam filter caught something, you get Held by the spam filter and one or more flags.
- Otherwise it says the review is held simply because your moderation setting holds everything.
Two buttons finish it: Approve & publish puts it live, Reject means it never shows. Rejecting asks you to confirm, and rejected reviews stay findable under All reviews.
What the spam flags mean
- Contains link - there is a web address or a bare domain in the title or body. This is the single most common shape of review spam.
- Profanity - the text contains something from a blocklist of swearing and slurs. The list also covers accusations like "scam", so a genuinely angry customer can land here too. Read before you reject.
- Near-empty body - they started writing and then wrote almost nothing, like "ok" or "...".
- All caps - a body of any length written entirely in capitals.
A flag is a nudge, not a verdict
Flagged does not mean fake. The filter only holds the review back so a human reads it first. Plenty of flagged reviews are real, and some of them are the most useful ones you will get.
All reviews
Click All reviews to see everything, in any state, across products, courses and coaching.
- The search box matches review text, titles and reviewer names.
- Filters narrows by Status (Pending, Published, Rejected, Hidden), Item type (Products, Courses, Coaching) and Rating (1 to 5 stars). Active filters appear as chips you can clear.
The table shows the Review (stars, title, and the first couple of lines, plus a You replied note if you have answered), the Reviewer, the Item, its Status, and the Date.
Moving a review between states
The ... menu on each row holds every action, and which ones appear depends on where the review is now:
- Pending reviews offer Approve & publish and Reject.
- Published reviews offer Hide (takes it off the site and out of the star average, reversibly) and Reject.
- Hidden reviews offer Publish to put them back, and Reject.
- Rejected reviews can still be brought back with Publish.
Reply (or Edit reply) is always available.
Hiding and rejecting both ask you to confirm first, and both dialogs spell out exactly what will happen.
Hide or reject?
Hide is the reversible one: use it for a review that is fine but you want off the page for now. Reject is the one you reach for when a review should never have existed. Either can be published again later, so nothing is truly lost.
Replying to a review
A reply is your public answer, shown underneath the review on your site under the heading Response from the creator. Each review gets one reply, and writing again edits it.
- Choose Reply from the review's ... menu.
- The review you are answering is shown at the top so you can read it while you write.
- Write Your reply, up to 5,000 characters. A counter tracks how much you have used.
- Click Post reply.
To change it later, choose Edit reply. To take it down entirely, open the dialog and click Delete reply.
A good reply is for the next reader
The person who wrote the review already has their opinion. Everybody else reading the page is the real audience. Thank them, answer the question, add the context, and move on.
Review settings
Click Settings from the Reviews page.
Moderation
Hold all reviews for approval decides how much lands in your queue.
- Off - verified reviews publish themselves, and only spam-flagged ones wait for you.
- On - every single review waits for your approval before it goes live.
Review requests
Ask buyers for a review turns the automatic email on and off. With it on, two numbers control the timing:
- Days to wait before asking - anywhere from 1 to 60 days after the purchase. Give people long enough to have actually used the thing.
- Review link valid for - anywhere from 7 to 365 days before the link stops working.
Click Save settings when you are done.
What buyers see
Leaving a review
The link in the email opens a page titled Leave a review on your site, asking "How was ...?" for the thing they bought. They set Your rating with the stars, and can add a Title, Your review, and the Display name they want shown publicly. Then they click Submit review.
Afterwards they get a thank-you, and are told either that the review is live or that it is waiting to be checked.
Reviews can be edited by their author for 30 days. After that the page tells them it can no longer be changed. An edited review is checked again before it publishes.
If they open an expired link, the page says so kindly and thanks them for their support anyway.
Reading reviews
On a product, course or coaching page, a Reviews section appears once at least one review is published for that item. Until then, the section is not shown at all, so a brand-new product never looks unloved.
Visitors see:
- The average rating to one decimal place, the star row, the total count, and a breakdown showing how many 5-star, 4-star and so on.
- Sort options: Most recent, Highest rating, Most helpful.
- Each review with its stars, title, body, the reviewer's display name, a Verified purchase badge, and the date.
- A Helpful button so readers can vote up the reviews that actually helped them. Voting requires being logged in.
- Your reply, if you wrote one, indented underneath the review.
- A Show more reviews button for the rest.
Tips
- Ask at the right moment. Set the delay long enough that the buyer has used what they bought. A t-shirt needs less time than an eight-week course.
- Do not hold everything unless you need to. Leaving the moderation toggle off means honest reviews publish themselves and you only ever look at the ones the filter questioned.
- Reply to the bad ones. A calm, specific reply under a two-star review does more for a hesitant buyer than ten five-star reviews with no reply.
- Hide, do not reject, when in doubt. Hiding is reversible and leaves the door open.