How does the automatic invite dispatch work?

Collecting reviews with Trusted Shops is easy: As soon as you have incorporated the Trustbadge® into your website and set up the automatic invite dispatch, the eTrusted platform takes over and continuously provides new reviews.

But how does an event on your website become a review? In this article, you will learn about the process behind the automatic invite dispatch. You will also learn what you can do to make your invite dispatch as successful as possible.

The automatic invite dispatch is a process consisting of the following five steps:

1. An event triggers one of your invite rules
2. Your customer’s consent to receive review invites is obtained
3. The invite dispatch is planned in the eTrusted platform
4. The review invite is sent
5. Your customers give a review

1. An event triggers one of your invite rules

An event that triggers one of your invite rules is the beginning of the automatic review invite dispatch. As a rule, this event involves a transaction such as a completed checkout (order completion) on your website. By linking the review invites to events, Trusted Shops ensures that the reviews you collect are authentic and come from real customers.

You decide which event type triggers your invite rule. For each event type, you can configure invite rules within your settings for optimised review collection. Every time the event you specified takes place (e.g. a customer completes the checkout), it can lead to the dispatch of a review invite.

2. Your customer’s consent to receive review invites is obtained

Before a review invite is sent, your customers must give their consent to receive such invites. In this way, we secure two things:

• Your customers can decide about the processing of their personal data themselves.
• You can collect reviews without the fear of receiving an "Abmahnung".

Consent can be given in two ways:

• Your customers are one of over 35 million people who have already given their consent at an earlier time (e.g. when shopping on another website). In this case, no further consent is required on your website.
• If your customers have not yet given their consent, they can do so with the help of the Trustcard. They can do this either by agreeing to receive a review invite or by applying for the Buyer Protection.

The Trustcard is part of the Trustbadge. As soon as you have incorporated the Trustbadge into your website, it will appear on the order confirmation page after checkout.

Since the way the Trustcard is displayed depends on various factors, the Trustcard displayed in your shop may differ from the one shown here. You will find an overview of the most common display formats of the Trustcard in this article: What is the Trustbadge?

If a customer has neither given their consent at an earlier time nor do they do so with the help of the Trustcard in your shop, no review invite will be sent to this person.

3. The invite dispatch is planned in the eTrusted platform

If there is consent to receive review invites, the invite dispatch in the eTrusted platform is planned according to the invite rules you've configured. The time at which the review invite is sent depends on the settings you've made within the eTrusted Control Centre for optimised review collection.

In the eTrusted Control Centre, you can choose how many days should pass between the event and dispatch and at what time a review invite should be sent to your customers. In addition, you can choose whether you'd like to send a reminder to your customers a few days after sending the first review invite if no review has been submitted by then. Based on these specifications, the eTrusted platform calculates the exact dispatch time and automatically sends the review invite to your customers.

An overview of all review invites sent can be found in the Invite History. There you can also see the current status of each invite.

4. The review invite is sent

As soon as the send time is reached, the review invite will be sent to your customers by e-mail.

You can see an example of a review invite here:

The e-mail contains links to a questionnaire. By clicking on the stars or the "Rate now" button, your customer will be taken to the questionnaire.

5. Your customers give a review

Your customers can access and complete the questionnaire linked in the review invite at any time. Once your customers have done this, you will receive a new review. A new review means the following for you:

• The star rating given by your customers is included in your average rating. This may change your average rating.
• The new review appears in your inbox in the eTrusted Control Centre. In the inbox, you can retrieve the review, answer it and, if necessary, report it.
  
• The new review will be published in your company’s review profile. Any response comments you make will also be published there.

With the publication of the new review, the invite dispatch has been successfully completed – and automatically restarts with every event on your website.

Three tips for collecting as many reviews as possible

When sending invites automatically, the eTrusted platform takes care of planning and sending out your review invites. Although this means that most of the work is done automatically “behind the scenes”, you can actively influence the conditions for successfully sending out invites.

1. Integrate the Trustbadge into your shop.

With the Trustbadge, you can also integrate the Trustcard into your website. The Trustcard gives your customers the opportunity to apply for the Buyer Protection and to consent to receiving a review invite. For this reason, the Trustbadge and the Trustcard are the basis for successfully sending out invites. Integrate both into your website as quickly as possible. This article can help you: Integrate Trusted Shops into your shop

2. Implement the audit report to obtain the Trustmark.

The Trustcard gives your customers the opportunity to register at any time to receive a review invite. However, your customers will not receive any tangible benefit from this. As soon as you receive the Trustmark, this will change: From this point on, your customers can claim the Buyer Protection.

Many customers use this service to satisfy their personal security needs – and thus also increases the number of review invites sent out. By claiming the Buyer Protection, your customers automatically consent to receiving a review invite. Create this win-win situation for you and your customers and implement your audit report. This article can help you: Give feedback on your audit report

3. Regularly check your invite rules.

Finding the perfect time to send your review invites is an important factor in collecting as many reviews as possible. After all, your customers should have already received their order at this time and had a little time to try out the goods or services they've purchased. You should therefore regularly check the invite rules set up in the eTrusted Control Centre and also experiment with different dispatch times to get a feel for the perfect time to send out reviews. This article will assist you in configuring your invite rules: How to send invites to my customers automatically?