ZX Order Review

ZX Order Review

FREE

Automatically request customers to leave a review for products purchased.

We DO offer professional installation service for the module, although you're most welcome to install it yourself. Installation is simple, but some basic code understanding is required.

FREE DOWNLOAD PRO install service - $20

Product reviews are incredibly important nowadays and people love reading reviews left by other users before they decide to purchase an item online. Sadly, Zen Cart's review system is quite bad and relies on customers' (extremely) good will to write a review - one needs to log in, find the product they purchased and then write a review which by default can't be shorter than 50 characters. If they purchased multiple products, they need to find each and every item they want to review and write that short novel. And no, the website will not request a review - the customer is expected to remember to do it on their own. As a result, almost nobody writes reviews...

This plugin tries to make things as simple as possible. First, you decide how many days need to pass after an order is placed, and you decide which order statuses qualify for the email to be sent (ie. Delivered) and let the plugin do it's magic. An automated task is set in cPanel (cron job) which runs every day and checks which orders qualify for the reminder. An email is then sent to the customer with a few words and a direct link to your site, specifically to a new page where they can rate and review all items in their order, all in one go, without the need to login.

Once the customer reviews what they want, admin receives a notification email (if enabled in admin) and is able to approve the review(s) just as usual.

The plugin also allows you to specify a list of products that will never be asked to review - just in case you have any such products.

IMPORTANT: this module has a support thread in the official Forum. If you have ANY problems installing or using the module, please check the Forum. If the question hasn't already been answered, feel free to post your question there. Please understand that it might take some time before you get a reply. Private support via email is available only as commercial (paid) support.

Current Version: 1.0
Zen Cart Version supported: 1.5.7 (probably works with 1.5.6, but hasn't been tested)
jQuery version: not used
Database Affected: YES - backup your database
Core Files Affected: none
(optionally 1 files can be affected)
Template Files Affected: none

Installing

ZX Order Review Plugin is designed to work with Zen Cart 1.5.7c (latest version at the time of release). It can be used with all 1.5.7 releases, and PROBABLY can be used with version 1.5.6. but hasn't been tested. Older versions are NOT supported.

Before you proceed, make a full backup of your site's files AND database. Installation is done at your own risk.

Unzip the files from "files" directory to your computer. Connect to your server via FTP. Check your admin directory name and rename the one in this package accordingly. Find includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE and rename it to the actual directory name of the template you're using. Now, upload your files using your FTP client (I recommend using Filezilla) to the store root. Be careful, the store root directory on the server is where your store is installed, not necessarily domain root.
OPTIONAL: if you're using any Bootstrap template, you should upload the files from "files-OPTIONAL/includes/templates/YOUR_BOOTSTRAP_TEMPLATE" for better Bootstrap compatibility.

NOTE: I recommend renaming the store_root/order_review.php file to something like order_review_4inznzi5vbagd.php (although it's not required). It doesn't matter what you rename it to, you'll just need to add that new name to your cron job (explained below).

There are no core files affected (unless using the optional file mentioned below).

OPTIONAL: you can upload the index_dashboard.php from "files-OPTIONAL" directory. This will add a dashboard widget in your admin to show you how many orders were placed since installing the plugin and how many reviews you collected with the plugin. If you have made any changes to that file, make sure you merge the changes.

After all files are in place, log in to your admin section and the plugin will install automatically.

Go to admin->Configuration->ZX Order Review and make changes as required.


Usage

This plugin will send an automated email to the customer asking to rate and review the products purchased. You define the number of days that must pass after the order has been place, and a list of order statuses that qualify for the review request.

An email is sent only once per order. If you wish to send it multiple times (iterate review requests), please do NOT ask for my support - I would consider such emails intrusive and spam and I will not provide any kind of support with such requests.

Customer will receive an email with a direct link to a single page with all the products purchased and will be able to rate the product and leave reviews for products they want (all or just some).

After submitting their review(s), the store admin will receive an email notification about the review(s) if that setting is enabled in admin email settings. The admin will receive only one email, no matter how many products are reviewed. Reviews will be pending approval or will automatically be published, depending of reviews configuration in admin.

RECOMMENDED: change the settings for minimum length of product reviews down to 5. Nobody wants to write novels about your products and a simple "great" or "excellent" or "very happy" should be considered a good review. You can find the setting in admin->Configuration->Minimum Values->Product Review Text

IMPORTANT: you must set up a cron job on your server to run the plugin to be automated. For cPanel, simply go to "Cron Jobs" and add a new task that runs once per day (any time you want) and set the command to:
wget --quiet -O 'https://YOUR_DOMAIN/order_review_4inznzi5vbagd.php' >/dev/null 2>&1
For other hosting panels (Plesk etc.), please ask Google how to add a cron job to run a URL.

No demo available at the moment.