Questions and answers

While questions and answers are on, the product page shows a Questions and answers section below the reviews. Visitors ask about the product; the brand and customers who bought the item answer. Questions and answers are managed on the Questions screen in the Reviews group of the menu. If a channel is selected in the top bar, the screen shows, together with its counters, only the questions asked on that channel.

Seeing questions needs the “Can see reviews” permission; deciding on questions and answers and answering as the brand needs the “Can decide on reviews” permission.

Turning it on and off

Questions and answers are off by default. The card at the top of the Questions screen shows whether they are on or off: while off, turn them on with Turn on questions and answers; while on, turn them off with Turn off questions and answers and a confirmation. The change takes effect at once. Users with the Administrator role see these buttons. While they are off, the product page does not show the section and no new question is accepted; questions published earlier are not deleted and show again when the option is turned back on. The change is recorded in the Activity history.

Asking a question

Asking needs no purchase. The visitor opens the form with the Ask a question button and writes the question and, optionally, a name. Without a name, the question shows as “Anonymous”.

• A visitor who is not signed in: The email address is optional. Ticking “Email me when it is answered” opens the email field, which then has to be filled in. Without the tick, the question is saved without an email address and nobody is emailed when it is answered.
• A customer signed in on your site: If your site’s server has told Sayproof who the customer is (Signed-in customers), the name and email fields are not shown; the form shows the line “You are asking as Ayşe K. We will email you when it is answered.” The question is saved with the name your site sent and the email address of the session, and that address is told when an answer arrives. If your site sent no name, the question shows as “Anonymous”. If the session details cannot be confirmed (for example after the page has been open for a long time), the form turns back into the form of a visitor who is not signed in, keeping the question already written.

If the Hide my name on the site box in the form is ticked, the name shows on the page as the first letter of every word followed by *** (D*** Y*** instead of Deniz Yılmaz); the box is also in the form of a signed-in customer. The full name is visible only in the panel. The same box is in the answer form of a customer who bought the item.

The email address is not shown on the page; it is only used to tell the asker when the question is answered.

A question goes live after moderation. Questions are pooled by market: questions asked on the channels of the same market are shown together on the product page.

Approval

Every question and customer answer goes through automatic checks when it is sent: personal information, swearing, health claims and links (web addresses). Text that a check catches is not refused; the row is marked with the check’s name and a moderator decides.

Publishing method	Questions and customer answers
Manual	All wait for approval
Automatic	Those that pass the checks go live by themselves; the others wait for approval
Hybrid	The same as Automatic

The publishing method is shared with reviews and is chosen in the Publishing tab of the Settings screen; see Settings.

The decision buttons in the side panel follow the current status of the question or answer: Approve, Reject…, Review again, Hide for now… and Show again. Reject and Hide for now ask for a reason; the list of reasons is fixed. A rejected question does not appear on the product page and no email goes to the asker. The answers of a hidden question do not appear on the product page either.

Answers

• Brand answer: While the question is live, it is written in the Answer as the brand field in the side panel and goes live at once with Publish the answer. On the product page it shows with the channel’s brand name and the “Brand” label. The text cannot steer the customer to change a review or rating, and cannot contain a health claim, personal information or swearing; if it does, the answer is not published and the reason is shown.
• Verified buyer answer: A customer who bought the item can answer with the Answer button under the questions on the product page, after arriving with the link in the review invitation or after verifying the order. The answer goes live after moderation with the “Verified buyer” label. A customer who bought another variant of the same product group (for example another size) can answer too. A cancelled or returned item and a process invitation do not give the right to answer.
• Email to the asker: When an answer goes live and the question has an email address, the person who asked gets an email in the brand’s name saying who answered, with a link to the product page; a brand answer is quoted in the email. The question and a customer’s answer are never put in the email; the customer’s answer is read on the product page. If the address is on the brand’s do-not-email list, no email is sent. One address gets at most 5 answer emails in 24 hours; later ones are not sent and are recorded with the “Sending limit reached” result. The result shows under the answer and on the Message log screen with the “Answer notice” type.

The Questions screen

• Status card: At the top, whether questions and answers are on or off, with the button to turn them on or off; see Turning it on and off.
• Counters: Questions awaiting approval, Questions with an answer awaiting approval and Unanswered questions. Each counter filters the list with its own filter.
• Filter bar: search (question text, the asker’s name or email address, product code), status and market; and the Unanswered and Has an answer awaiting approval options.
• Sorting: “Newest first” or “Oldest first”.
• Side panel: Opens when a row is clicked. Shows the question text, the asker (with a Name hidden on the site badge when the asker asked for the name to be hidden), the email address, the product, the channel and the dates; the answers with each answer’s status, author (with the same badge when the author asked to hide the name) and email result; and the history of the question and its answers.