Reviews Customer reviews FAQ

Your CSV should consist of a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4 columns. The first column should contain the e-mail addresses, the second column the order numbers and the third column optionally the language of the invitation, in the fourth column you can specify in how many days the invitation should be sent. You can set this fourth column to 0 to send the invitations today. The CSV must be separated by a comma (,) and not by a semicolon (;). Dutch versions of Excel almost always save a CSV in ; format. We expect the following file format:

- Email - johndoe@domain.com / jansmit@domein.nl

- Order number - abc123 / test1

- Language - eng / nld

- Customer name (optional) - John / Jan

- Delay (optional) - 3 / (empty)

The contents of the sample .csv would be the following:

johndoe@domain.com,abc123,eng,john,3 jansmit@domein.nl,test1,nld,jan,

CSV separated by semicolon?

Do you have a CSV which is separated by a semicolon (;). Then you can easily convert it to the correct format with the online Online CSV Tools. Just follow these steps:

1. Open the website Online CSV Tools

2. Select your CSV file by choosing "Import file".

3. Under "Delimiter used in source CSV", choose ";".

4. At "Delimiter used in output CSV", choose ",".

5. Under New CSV, click "Save as...".

6. The file is now ready to import at WebwinkelKeur.

By default, invitations towards customers are sent with sender the email address of WebwinkelKeur. You can easily change the sender of invitations to your customers through our dashboard, just follow these steps:

Set sender benefits

The advantage of sending invitations on behalf of your own email address is twofold:

- Emails are less likely to end up in spam

- The response to emails with you as the sender is higher (more reviews)

The reason behind this is simple. First of all, we send a lot of emails with WebwinkelKeur as the sender every day. This sometimes causes customers to click on spam and mark our emails as spam. E-mail filters learn from this and therefore detect our e-mails as advertising more quickly. By sending the email on behalf of yourself as sender, this problem is much smaller. Customers are not likely to click on spam because they recognize your web store. This recognition also makes them more willing to leave a review. This way you kill two birds with one stone.

Configure sender

To use your e-mail address as sender of e-mails, you need to take a few steps. It is important that you configure your DNS server correctly, unfortunately we cannot provide support for this. This is really something your hosting company can help you with, more technical background information can be found through our e-mail hosting provider. Generally this is not difficult at all, but some knowledge of DNS is recommended. Mistakes can lead to the temporary unavailability of your webshop.

Below you can read step by step how to update the settings:

1. Login to dashboard.webwinkelkeur.nl (this link will take you directly to the right page, then you can skip steps 2 and 3).

2. Click on Reviews and on Invitations.

3. Then click on Settings.

4. Under email sender (at the bottom of the page), choose "Send email from..."

5. Follow the 5 instructions within your dashboard for: Check mailbox, set up SPF, DKIM 1 and DKIM 2 records and DMARC.

6. Click Update.

7. Wait 24 hours for the checkmarks to turn green.

Operations can take up to 24 hours

Everything set up correctly? Then wait 24 hours, within 1 day we automatically detect if the settings are correct. When you see 5 green checkmarks in your dashboard, emails will be sent from then on with your email address as the sender.

Common problems

Especially setting up the DKIM records is something that requires technical knowledge. We cannot fully support you in this, please ask your webhosting provider for help first. Common problems include:

- If you have set up the sender properly in the past, there may still be a DKIM TXT record "mandrill._domainkey.jouwdomein.nl" among the other records. Delete this DKIM TXT record.

- Carefully read the error messages in the WebwinkelKeur dashboard. They usually indicate what is wrong.

- In case of persistent problems, read the English documentation of our e-mail hosting provider

I want to use a different e-mail address than indicated?

Currently you can only use the email address you entered under your webshop details as sender of emails. Using another email address is currently not possible.

Why do I have to go through so many steps?

We can't just send emails on your behalf. If we would do this anyway, the e-mails would almost immediately end up in the spam. Through these 5 steps you give our server permission to send emails on your behalf. Therefore, validation through the 5 steps indicated is really necessary to use your e-mail address as the sender.

We recommend configuring the spam filter on your domain so that emails from WebwinkelKeur arrive correctly. This not only ensures that emails arrive correctly at your site, it also ensures that the spam filters "learn" and that emails from WebwinkelKeur also get through the spam filter of your customers. Exactly how to do this depends on your used spam filter.

1. Domain whitelisting

First you need to whitelist the domains of WebwinkelKeur. The domains are:

- tracking.webwinkelkeur.nl

- webwinkelkeur.nl

Often this can be done through your web hosting package, for example below through SpamExperts.

2. Whitelist e-mail address of WebwinkelKeur

Often you can also add the email address of WebwinkelKeur within your spam filter to the whitelist. Add at least the address .

With our PLUS and PRO package it is possible to automatically send invitations to share experiences. These invitations are first queued and the time they are queued is based on your settings within the module.

When an invitation to leave an experience is queued it is possible to request removal of the scheduled invitation. However, there are some ground rules here and not every invitation can be removed. For example, if the invitation is sent multiple times due to an erroneous duplicate order, one can submit a "request for deletion. Of course, technical errors can also play a role in erroneous invitations, in such cases one can also submit a 'request to delete'.

However, it is not permitted to submit a "request for deletion" when there is doubt about the customer service provided and you fear a bad review. We see customer service and its consequences as a responsibility of the merchant.

In any case, the request will be reviewed and assessed. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

One-click reviews are reviews that can be collected without a written addition. This means that the customer, or consumer, can leave a review by simply clicking on a review grade. From that point on, the review is saved. The customer can then choose to add a written addition to the review. One-click reviews are shown in the promotional items (sidebar, etc.) but are not shown in the member page. Also, these reviews cannot be moderated.

WebwinkelKeur's review system allows your customers to rate your service and view reviews from previous customers.Actively (and automatically) collect reviewsWhen you have satisfied customers, you want to share this with potential customers. We therefore recommend that you actively ask customers to share their comments. A good way is to point out the possibility to your customers in your email correspondence including the order confirmation. From our PLUS package you can easily collect reviews automatically.Dissatisfied customers are more likely to writeIn general, satisfied customers are less likely to share their opinions without prompting than dissatisfied customers. This can therefore give a distorted picture of your service. Encouraging all customers to share their experience is definitely recommended. WebwinkelKeur also shares the experiences with Google. This makes it possible to indirectly improve your ranking in search results.

There are several reasons why an experience is not shown (immediately). The 3 possible reasons are:

1. The same customer has already posted a review before, so duplicate reviews get 0 stars and do not count towards the average.

2. The customer has not verified his review. He can do this by clicking on a link in the email we send him. This is to verify if the email address is real. If he does not click on it, we will send him a reminder 3 days later. You can also send this reminder yourself by logging into your dashboard and clicking on the appropriate link (see screenshot below) under "Reviews". Tip: Take a WebwinkelKeur PLUS membership and invite customers to share an experience, verification is then not necessary, because we already do this through the invitation received.

3. Is it about displaying an experience that is visible on your page, but not in your WebwinkelKeur widget? The widget is refreshed periodically. Within a few hours, a new experience should be visible there as well.

Within your dashboardThe reason why an experience is not displayed is also displayed in your dashboard. To do so, log into your dashboard and go to "Reviews" and "Shop Reviews." Under each review that is not yet displayed is the reason why the experience is not displayed (yet).

As explained here, we only delete experiences when they are demonstrably unjustified or when the consumer cannot prove that he has placed an order (for example, by means of an order number).

To give a little more insight into this procedure, we have worked it out using a diagram. For people who don't like complicated diagrams, this amounts to an adversarial process. We ask both the consumer and the store for their side of the story to determine whether an experience can be posted or not. The exact situations in which a review can be refused is detailed in our terms of use.

Is a customer review not (immediately) visible on your website's widget, but it is on the customer review page? Then you need to be patient. There is a delay of about half a day between the moment of publication on our website and in the customer reviews widget. This delay is necessary to keep the loading time of the widget always fast. Is the review also not visible on the customer review page? Then read the possible reasons and solutions here.

You may receive a review where no stars seem to be given for the overall rating. In most cases this is a customer who has posted a review before. Customers are only allowed to write a review once every 4 months which counts towards the average. We detect that it is the same customer by ip address and e-mail address. If a customer has posted a review before, it is displayed without stars. It does not count for the average rating. If a customer wants to add to or correct a previous review, the customer can do so by using the "edit experiences link" which the customer receives by email after successfully posting a review. If the customer has lost it, this link is also included by default in the e-mail with a private or public response from the merchant. Another explanation for the lack of stars may be that the customer has not entered a score for the general review criteria. However, this is becoming less common as we require in invitations that a customer provide an overall star rating. In the past, this was not a requirement.

As an independent party, we are often asked to mediate negative reviews. Of course we are happy to do so, but we always require that the online store first contact the customer itself. Why do we do that? We are happy to explain.

The negative review is not the problem Many webshops see the negative review as the problem, yet the negative review is only a symptom. The problem, of course, is the dissatisfied customer. Obviously, never every customer can be satisfied and, in addition, there are also very critical customers who always have something to complain about. Still, many negative reviews are caused by webshops being too lax in dealing with complaints. The first question as a webshop should always be "Can I solve this customer's complaint?", while the first question now often seems to be "How do I prevent a negative review?". That is why we always ask to first contact the customer, for example by sending a private message to the customer via our dashboard. Important is that you show understanding for the customer and do not go on the attack, how to do this can be read in our blog "dealing with negative reviews". Show that you take complaints seriously When we as a third party contact the dissatisfied customer first, you show the customer that you see the negative review as the problem. If you contact the customer first yourself, this comes across very differently. Do not directly address the review as the problem, but try to find a solution for the problems mentioned. The customer will notice that he is taken seriously and will be a lot milder as a result. After you have found a solution, respond publicly under the experience (this can be done through the dashboard), so new customers see that you have taken the problem seriously and solved it. With this, this negative experience can actually increase conversions in the future. Dissatisfied customers post reviews elsewhere If you really can't work it out with the customer and an experience is unjustified? Then we can mediate, see the procedure. Removing a review is a last resort and is only done by us when a review is demonstrably unjustified. Keep in mind that removing the review gives the same customer even more reason to express his dissatisfaction elsewhere. So there is a big chance that when we remove a review, the same customer will express his dissatisfaction elsewhere. Also, negative reviews can actually have a positive effect, as negative reviews increase confidence in the authenticity of positive reviews. We are therefore always in favor of allowing unjustified negative reviews, place under this review your side of the story, and your (future) customers also see that this review is unjustified. This increases the reliability of the other reviews, because you show that you do not censor anything.

As a merchant, it is easy to respond to a customer experience yourself. This can be done publicly, with your response appearing directly below the customer experience. This can also be done privately. The customer then receives an e-mail through our system on your behalf with your personal response.

Public comments are useful to share your side of the story with the rest of the world. A private reaction is meant to find a solution with a negative customer or to thank a positive customer for sharing their experience.

Responding to a customer experience

1. Login to the WebwinkelKeur dashboard with your personal login details. Have you forgotten your password? Then you can easily recover your password by clicking 'forgot password'.

2. When you are logged in, go to the 'Reviews' tab.

3. Type your comment under a customer experience. With the first option you can do this with a notification to the customer and with the second option you choose not to send a notification to the customer.

4. To send not a public comment, but a private comment to the customer, choose 'private' under 'type'.

5. Click save to post the experience.

This way you can easily respond to a customer experience yourself. We recommend that you do this regularly.

Please contact the customer to correct the problem. Do you think the review goes against our terms of use? Then request a moderation. While the moderation request is being processed, the review is quarantined.

To ensure the quality of experiences, WebwinkelKeur removes user experiences only in exceptional cases. To qualify for this, the experience must be demonstrably unjustified or the customer must want to remove it himself. It is not allowed to demand the removal of the experience. Removal must be entirely voluntary.

If you would like to see an experience removed, we ask that you first consult with the customer. You can contact the submitter of the comment via the dashboard. The customer then has the option to remove the experience.

If you feel that an experience is completely unjustified and you cannot work it out with the customer, we would like to receive a moderation request. It is important to indicate why the experience is unjustified and whether you can prove it. We will then ask the person who posted the comment whether his or her experience is reliable.

Only when a reaction is demonstrably false (e.g. posted by a competitor) we can proceed to remove it. We will check the authenticity by providing, for example, an order number from the customer. In cases where the experience is genuine and does not contain demonstrably incorrect facts, we advise you to respond to the experience using your personal log-in to the dashboard. Your side of the story is then clearly displayed below the customer's experience. See also the exact procedure regarding disputed experiences.

Rating

The rating shows at a glance how customers rate your online store. This rating is based on the stars that customers give when leaving a review. You can see the rating in our widget, in the sidebar, and on your member profile, among other places. Because this is often the first thing visitors notice, it plays an important role in the first impression of your online store. Below, we explain how this rating is calculated.

From stars to numbers

We use a scale of 1 to 5 stars. We convert these to a rating between 2 and 10 using a fixed calculation method. For example, a 3-star rating corresponds to a 6. One star therefore does not result in a 1 or 0, but a 2.

Your average score is calculated by giving all reviews equal weight and taking the average.

Reviews from external platforms

In addition to reviews posted via WebwinkelKeur, you can also display reviews from external review platforms. These reviews count fully towards your average score.

For example, if you have 100 reviews on WebwinkelKeur with an average of 9 and 100 reviews on another platform with an average of 8, your total average will be 8.5.

What effect does a new review have on my score?

We are often asked why one negative review can immediately lower your score, while a positive review sometimes has little effect. This happens especially when you already have a high average score. A positive review is then close to your current average, while a negative review deviates significantly from it.

An example will clarify this.

Suppose you have an average score of 9.7 based on 90 reviews. You receive a new 5-star review, which corresponds to a 10. The new calculation is then:

• ((9.7 × 90) + 10) / 91 = 9.703

Your average remains rounded to 9.7.

If, instead, you receive a 1-star review, which corresponds to a 2, the calculation becomes:

• ((9.7 × 90) + 2) / 91 = 9.615

Your average now drops to 9.6. This is because this rating is further away from your existing high average.

Google Seller Rating are the displayed stars of your Google Ads for paid search results within Google. Also, Google Seller Rating displays the percentage positivity of your reviews in Google Shopping. So the stars of Google Seller Rating arenotthe same as the stars of the product reviews of Google Shopping. See image below an example from Google Ads:

Google seller rating can be activated easily within our dashboard. Log in within our dashboard go to Reviews > Shop Reviews > Settings > Google Seller Rating > see if your particular web store qualifies > Activate. There are requirements to qualify for Google Seller Rating stars though. Click here for the requirements.We are unfortunately not a Google seller rating partner ourselves. Through our partnership with Verified Reviews, we can still offer these stars to our members. This gives a member an additional rating page https://www.echte-beoordelingen.com/ which is part of Verified Reviews. The fees we charge go almost entirely to the partner.

Thanks to our partner Verified Reviews, we have the ability to offer our members a Google Seller Rating option. This is unfortunately not free of charge. The activation of these stars is 20,- per month per activated webshop. Billing is quarterly and the option is easily turned on and off within our dashboard. The costs we charge go almost entirely to the partner.

Requirements for Google Seller Rating

Not every online store qualifies for the Google Seller Rating. This is because the online store must meet some requirements to display the stars. We have listed them for you below:

- The online store has collected at least 100 unique reviews in the past 12 months. Unfortunately, this is no guarantee that the stars will actually be shown. Google has its own algorithm that removes duplicate reviews. To be sure your stars will be shown, you need to be a lot above 100. Also, if you have accumulated the 100 reviews within the past 4 weeks, the stars may not be shown (yet) due to Google's indexing process. This is because indexing takes an average of 4 weeks. Therefore, after reaching the required number of unique reviews, it may take another 4 weeks before the stars become visible.

- The average of the reviews is worth at least 3.5 out of 5 stars.

- You are not using URLs with subdomains.

- You have not intentionally "overshadowed" the stars within your Google Ads campaigns.

Google Seller Rating installed, but not visible?

Google Seller Rating installed, but not visible? Now you have activated and installed Google Seller Rating and find out that the stars are not visible. This could be due to several reasons:

- The online store has collected less than 100 unique reviews in the past 12 months. (Note that collecting at least 100 unique reviews does not guarantee the stars. Google has its own algorithm that they use to pick out duplicate reviews. To be sure your stars will be shown, you need to be a lot above 100.)

- The 100 unique reviews are from different countries. You must have collected at least 100 unique reviews coming from one country, as the Google Seller Rating stars go by country code.

- The online store has collected 100 reviews within the last 4 weeks. These are not shown (yet) due to Google indexing.

- The average of the reviews is lower than 3.5 out of 5 stars.

- You are using URLs with subdomains.

- You have intentionally (voluntarily or accidentally) "overshadowed" the stars within your Google Ads campaigns.

- Google Seller Rating stars are not visible through mobile search results.

- Google Seller Rating are not product reviews from Google Shopping. When activated, Google Seller Rating does show the percentage positivity of your reviews in Google Shopping.

Check whether your Google Seller Rating works

You can easily check if Google Seller Rating is working, don't do this by Googling your ads yourself. Because sometimes the stars are not displayed and sometimes they are. However, you can easily check if the Google Seller Rating is working through the following url. Copy this to your address bar, replace webwinkelkeur.nl by your own domain name:

https://www.google.com/shopping/ratings/account/lookup?q=webwinkelkeur.nl

Do you see a review score on the page you see, then the Google Seller Rating works. Google can now display stars with your Google Ads. Per search query, Google determines whether or not they do this.

Google Seller Rating stars not always visible?

You may see the Google Seller Rating stars appear one time and not the next. This may be due to these reasons:

- When you search multiple times (often consecutively) for the same search terms, it affects Google's search results. Both of the organic and paid results. This may cause Google to stop showing you the stars (for a while).

- Google itself determines the best times to show your Google Seller Rating stars. So you may not see them sometimes.

- Google remembers what you search for or have recently searched for (caching Google). Based on the cache, they determine whether the stars are relevant to you or not.

- Your bidding and Ad Rank also affect whether or not the Google Seller Rating is displayed. There is no fixed value for this, but an Ad Rank of 7 or higher is advised.

Practical example

We would like to show you that Google sometimes displays stars and sometimes not. This has nothing to do with a non-functioning link.

Search without stars

Search with stars

This example shows well that finding out if the Google Seller Rating works is difficult by searching your ads yourself. The only way to find out if your Google Seller Rating is working correctly is through the url as shown above. After that, whether they show stars or not will vary by search query and visitor.

Many members choose to add rich snippet code to their online store. How can you test if this code is placed correctly?

Test the correct placement of the Rich Snippet code

To test the correct operation, you can use Google's Rich Results test.

1. In the "URL" field there, enter the URL of the page you want to test (for example, www.webwinkel.nl or www.webwinkel.nl/product).

2. Click on "TEST URL."

3. When you see a green text with green check mark (Page is eligible for rich results), then everything is set correctly.

Common errors

In many cases we see that this error message is caused by the use of an old "Data-vocabulary" code, which is officially no longer supported by Google as of April 6, 2020. When the error message is caused by such an old code you once got from us, we recommend to remove this code and use the rich snippet through the WebwinkelKeur sidebar option.

Proper placement rich snippet code no longer causes "Google Stars"

By activating the "rich snippets via the WebwinkelKeur sidebar" option, review information is structurally passed on to search engines like Google. Google only no longer uses this information to display stars, you can read all about that in the blog about Google's policy change. However, it is still useful to activate this option, since other search engines can still display stars and Google can use the information within its algorithm.

Google Seller Rating vs. Rich Snippets

Google Seller Rating is not the same as the rich snippets in Google. Whereas the rich snippets in Google shows the stars within the organic (unpaid) search results, Google Seller Rating shows the stars within the paid search results (ads & Google Shopping).

Example Google Seller Rating

Example rich snippets from Google

Although both stars look virtually the same, how they work is completely different. The rich snippets work via a code that you place on your own web store. WebwinkelKeur offers a ready-made option for this at no extra cost. The Google Seller Rating is obtained through a link with Google, the Google Seller Rating option can be activated through our dashboard. Thus, we offer both the rich snippets in Google and the Google Seller Rating. Also, watch this video to see the differences between the two stars.

Activating rich snippet stars

Activating rich snippet stars is easy. Before activation, we recommend you to read our blog about how Rich Snippet stars work. How do you get the rich snippets on your web store? You can easily activate the rich snippets via the Sidebar / Javascript integration. If you already have the sidebar active, you can easily activate the rich snippet integration with the following steps:

1. Login to the dashboard with your personal login
2. Click in the menu on Promotion and choose Sidebar
3. Find the heading "RICH SNIPPET VIA JSON-LD" and check "Enable rich snippet".
4. Click on Save

The rich snippet code is now active. On pages where our rich snippet code may conflict with rich snippet code of your product reviews, for example, our rich snippet code will not be loaded.

Activation of the Rich Snippet Stars via the WebwinkelKeur Sidebar

Detection of conflicting codes

You don't have to worry about our sidebar causing conflicts with, for example, product reviews on a product page. The sidebar automatically detects if there is already a conflicting code on the page. If that is the case, the sidebar will not load rich snippet code and the code already present on your web store will be leading.

Installation alternatives

An alternative is to install the rich snippets through one of our modules. For example, through our modules for Magento, Opencart, Prestashop, WordPress and Shoppagina, you can activate the rich snippet code and it will appear with an HTML code on your web store. If for some reason you don't want to use our sidebar or modules, you can also manually place the rich snippet code via HTML. Although we advise against this method, you can find the correct HTML code in the WebwinkelKeur dashboard. We do not recommend this method, because every time you get a review, the static HTML code becomes outdated and you have to manually update it periodically.