'How was your purchase?' Twelve weeks early
A customer orders a made-to-order sofa. A week later, she gets an email from your review platform asking her to review her purchase. She has not received it and will not for weeks. Some customers ignore the email. Some leave a review about the wait. A few leave one star saying they have not received anything yet.
Meanwhile, customers who have just had their sofa delivered, and are delighted with it, are never asked, because their request went out months ago.
Why review timing is wrong
- Review platforms trigger on the order or on dispatch, which suits parcels, not furniture.
- The delivery date is held in a separate delivery system.
- Part deliveries mean an order can be half delivered for weeks.
- Customers with problems are asked for public reviews at the same time as everyone else.
What bad timing costs
| Problem | Result |
|---|---|
| Request before delivery | Reviews about waiting, or no review at all |
| No request after delivery | Happy customers never asked |
| Problems not caught first | Complaints become public reviews |
| Few reviews | Less trust from new customers |
How we time review requests
- The review request is triggered by the delivery being marked complete by the crew, not by the order.
- For orders delivered in parts, the request waits until the last item is delivered, or asks about each delivery, as you prefer.
- The request is sent after a delay you set, giving the customer time to live with the furniture.
- The first question is private: how is everything? Customers who report a problem are routed to after-sales, with their order details, before any public review is asked for.
- Customers who are happy are invited to leave a public review on your chosen platform.
- A report shows responses by product, crew and branch, so you see what customers value and where problems arise.
Review platforms have their own rules about how you ask for reviews, and some do not allow filtering who is asked. We follow the platform's rules and your advisers' guidance, and can send every customer the public request while still offering the private route for problems.
After it is set up
The sofa is delivered on a Tuesday. The crew mark it as delivered on the app. A week later, the customer gets an email asking how everything is. She loves the sofa and follows the link to leave a review. Another customer reports that a cushion zip is broken; she is routed to after-sales, who send a replacement cover. Once it is fixed, she is asked for a review, and she mentions how quickly it was sorted out.
Reviews for the crew and the showroom
Furniture customers often want to praise the delivery crew or the sales person. The request can ask about each, so good work is recognised internally, and problems with a crew or branch are spotted early. Responses about products feed into range decisions, alongside after-sales data.
Reviews that mention a specific product can be shown on that product's page, where your platform allows it. A review that says the sofa was delivered on time by a careful crew and looks exactly like the photos is far more useful to the next customer than a general comment about the website.
The response data is useful beyond reviews. If customers of one range often mention that the colour looked different from the website, or that cushions flattened quickly, the buying team hears about it in weeks rather than at the end of the season. The private answers are read and grouped automatically, and a person reviews the summary each month.
Signs your review timing is off
- Review requests go out before delivery.
- Reviews mention waiting rather than the product.
- Happy customers are rarely asked for reviews.
- Customer problems appear first in public reviews.
- Your review platform does not know about deliveries.