What are Custom Questions & How do Brands Use Them to Enhance Reviews?
Custom Questions can be a helpful way to get specific, detailed information from customers as a part of your reviews. This information key factor in helping shoppers looking at your reviews understand if a product is right for them, which in turn consistently leads to an increase in conversion rate & decrease in return rate, making everyone happy.
Core elements of a review
The core, required elements of any review are title, star & text. We always work hard to have customers include photos & videos alongside their review as well. Barbara's review here on Anyday Cookware's Everyday Set does a great job at showing up the core pieces:
Custom Questions included in reviews
Custom questions introduce linear scale & multiple choice selections to be included with reviews. You can also choose to ask short answer Custom Questions, but those are much less frequently used so we've left them out of this example. Christina's review of Fancii's Rivo Steamer has everything we're looking for in a review:
Christina's review has extra information that's very helpful to shoppers looking at the product. It's "Easy Breezy" easy to use, but that's also coming from a "Committed" beautician – so a relative novice have a bit of a different experience. They could absolutely trust the "Quality" measure as Christina would have experience with other products in the past.
Three types of Custom Questions (& when each is useful)
On Junip & other review platforms, there are three main types of Custom Questions you might ask your customers: Multiple Choice, Linear Scale & Short Answer. Each is typically used to get a different type of information.
Multiple choice
- Typically about the customer
- Helpful if you have clear, distinct customer segments
- Automatically added as a filter on product page widgets
This type of question is typically about the reviewer themselves. It’s most helpful if you have clear segments of customers that new shoppers will find helpful to fit themselves into ie: age, experience, height.
Multiple choice questions are automatically able to be used as a filter in all Junip product page widgets, making it easy for shoppers to view reviews that are most relevant to them. Many other review platforms have a similar filtering concept.
Stratia Skin asks for customers age on their Interface product:
Short Answer (rarely used)
Where multiple choice & linear scale questions are submitted at the click of a button, the short answer question takes a bit of work. We recommend most stores avoid this question type unless they are very sure it will be helpful for customers.
Linear scale
- Typically about the product
- Helpful if you have common questions & objections
- Summarized in the top of product page widgets
This type of question is most often used to dive deeper into an element of the product. These are most helpful if you have clear objections or questions that most shoppers ask when they’re considering a purchase. Some examples of good linear scale questions would be: scent, fit, quality, taste.
Answers to your linear scale questions on Junip are automatically aggregated into an overall summary at the top of your product page widgets, making it simple for customers to understand key points about each product.
Smash + Tess makes it easy to understand the Fit, Quality, Comfort & Sizing of their Sunday Romper on with linear scale questions that are summarized in the top of review widgets:
How are Custom Questions submitted
Custom Questions are submitted in the normal flow of reviewing a product. Using Junip's progressive, animated forms it's easy for customers to answer in a single click.
Getting started with Custom Questions
Install Junip or, for those already using Junip, head to your Admin to create your first custom question. This help doc has answers to any technical questions you might have while setting things up.