Submission forms

A submission form enables your contributors to rate and review your products and services and to ask and answer questions.

Clients collect the majority (74%) of native content by sending out review requests (formerly post-interaction email or PIE) with a link that loads the product review submission form.

• Types of submission forms
• Simple submission URLs
• Single-product submission (SPS) form
• Multi-product submission (MPS) form
• Adding or customizing submission form questions
• Using the submission form editor

Two types of submission forms

Consider which type of review submission form you want your contributors to fill in before sending a review request:

• Single-product submission (SPS): Allows contributors to rate and review a single product or service. This is the default Ratings & Reviews submission form.

  If you’re not sending review requests through Bazaarvoice, learn how to create a single-product simple submission URL (ssURL) .

• Multi-product submission (MPS): Allows contributors to rate and review multiple products from a single email. Once the initial review is submitted, the multiple-product form automatically kicks in and the contributor is prompted to submit reviews for all remaining products using a seamless data-driven user experience.

  If you’re not sending review requests through Bazaarvoice, learn how to create a multi-product simple submission URL (ssURL) .

Note: You can expect to generate four approved reviews for every 100 post-purchase emails sent out (on average). MPS drives higher review volume than single product submission forms.

What type of information can I collect?

You can configure your review submission form to collect the following valuable information:

• Product star rating (mandatory)
• Review title (mandatory)
• Review text (mandatory)
• Customer nickname (mandatory)
• Customer email address (mandatory)
• Photos (mandatory)
• Answers to additional questions (optional)
• Photos (optional)
• Video links (optional)
• Customer location (optional)

Note: To submit the review, consumers must complete the required fields on the submission form. You can also configure your submission form to include additional sections with optional fields.

Submission form examples

The following image is an example of a Ratings & Reviews single-product and multi-product submission form elements.

Single-product submission form	Multi-product submission form
Works on mobile and desktop, but optimized for desktop.	Works on mobile and desktop, but optimized for mobile.

Submission form: design best practices

• To maximize the number of contributions on your website and minimize abandonment, keep your submission form simple and easy to complete. Collect the following types of information:
  • Useful information that helps consumers to make informed decisions based on the review.
  • Business intelligence information, such as authentic user sentiment about your products or services.
  • Words or quotes from consumers that your company can use to improve product quality or to make merchandising or marketing decisions.
  • Emojis with text that helps consumers to share more impactful expressions than words in the content when they submit reviews, questions, answers, and comments. For example, “Loving how these sunglasses look on me!😎”.
  • Photos and videos of products from consumers that your company can showcase on the product display pages (PDPs) to help consumers make informed purchase decisions.
• To ensure security of your customers, don’t ask for personally identifiable information (PII) in submission form questions, even if the questions are hidden on the review display. For example, don’t request the following:
  • Physical mail addresses
  • Date or place of birth
  • Telephone numbers
  • Drivers license or vehicle identification numbers

Why are simple submission URLs important?

A simple submission URL (ssURL) is a structured URL with parameters that contain information for triggering a submission form. It allows you to create and embed a link in the email templates that you use to send email messages to contributors. It will take a potential contributor directly to the review submission form for a specific product.

Sign in to the Bazaarvoice Support Community to understand how to create an ssURL .

Simple submission URLs are commonly used in email campaigns, review-request email messages, website banners, and splash pages to encourage review volume.

• You can use data-injection with single-product ssURLs.
• You can add information to reviews for tracking and reporting purposes.

• Through simple submission technology, you can pre-authenticate contributors so they don’t have to sign in before they submit reviews.

  Note: Research shows that when customers have to locate a product page, open the submission form, and sign in, almost 75% of the customers abandon during the process. The ssURLs removes that barrier, potentially increasing review volume and the effectiveness of email campaigns.

Single-product submission form

Specify an alternate return page

By default, customers return to the URL where they selected the Write a review link to access the review submission form. However, you can choose to specify a different return page.

Note: You must use an absolute URL when redirecting to the alternate page.

Include the following code on the page where the user selects the Write a review link:

$BV.configure('global', {
    returnUrl : 'http://AlternateReturnPage.com'
});

Set up same-page submission links for Ratings & Reviews

You can add same-page submission links to

• Pages where you are hosting Bazaarvoice content, such as the product display page.
• Pages where there is no Bazaarvoice content, such as a user’s account page.

Same-page submission links for pages with Bazaarvoice content

To add submission links to a page where Bazaarvoice content is hosted:

1. Add the appropriate submission link code.
2. Insert the following JavaScript code on any page where you want to trigger the review submission form:

   // Invoke review submission
   $BV.ui('rr', 'submit_review',{productId : 'PRODUCTID'});
   

Same-page submission links for pages without Bazaarvoice content

To add links to a page where Bazaarvoice content is not hosted:

1. Add the appropriate submission link code.

2. Insert the following JavaScript code on the page, replacing <client_name>, <site_ID>, and locale with your values.

   • Use the following code for the staging environment (the staging environment is for testing and development and is typically only visible internally. Ensure each Bazaarvoice URL referenced in the code contains </bvstaging> in the domain).

     <script type="text/javascript" src="https://display.ugc.bazaarvoice.com/bvstaging/static/<client_name>/<site_ID>/<locale>/bvapi.js"></script>

   • Use the following code for the production environment. The production environment is visible externally. Content in the production environment is visible on your live website.

     <script type="text/javascript" src="https://display.ugc.bazaarvoice.com/static/<client_name>/<site_ID>/<locale>/bvapi.js"></script>

Data injection

You can pre-populate (“inject”) data for some fields on submission forms. Data injection uses a shared key plus hashing to validate the population of data, such as email addresses.

You might want to pre-populate data for the following reasons:

• Help customers complete submissions more quickly. You can provide information you know about your customers—such as name, gender, age, or location—to make form completion faster and easier.
• By eliminating the need for users to enter repetitive details, you encourage a higher rate of reviews.

• Provide data for reporting and analytics. You can tie reviews to specific data that exists in your CRM, such as an order ID. This information isn’t visible to your customers.

• Tag a review with the verified purchaser badge to indicate that the contributor has experience with the product or service being reviewed, thereby increasing trust in the content of the review.
• Tag a review with the incentivized review badge to disclose that the contributor received a free product in exchange for writing a review. This disclosure increases consumer trust in reviews on your website. Refer to Incentivized reviews for instructions.

Data injection is available for implementations that use either site or hosted authentication. Refer to Submission form data injection for information about injecting data using hosted and site authentication.

Note: Contact Bazaarvoice Support to enable data injection for your implementation if you haven't already done so.

Multi-product submission forms

A multi-product submission form enables you to collect multiple reviews from a single review request. Designed with mobile users in mind, multi-product submission forms encourage customers to leave multiple reviews by displaying all of their purchases on one page.

Multi-product submission forms also minimize form abandonment rates by following a simple, progressive submission flow. This means that the responses to the submission form questions are captured as the customer moves from one question to the next.

The multi-product submission form displays a list of recently purchased products. The customer can tap on a product to rate, review, and submit the form. Then they are returned to the form’s first page to complete the same actions with the rest of the products if they choose to.

Note: Contact your Bazaarvoice implementation team to enable the multi-product submission form feature.

Refer to the following topics for more information:

• Enable multi-product submission forms for Bazaarvoice-hosted review requests
• Create a multi-product submission form ssURL
• Customize the multi-product submission form (using the Style Editor)
• Multi-product submission form workflow
• Multi-product submission form user experience (video)

Enable multi-product submission forms for Bazaarvoice-hosted review requests

Complete the following steps to enable and configure multi-product submission forms for Bazaarvoice-hosted review requests:

1. Sign in to the Bazaarvoice Portal .
2. Select Configuration from the Portal menu located in the upper-left corner.
3. Select an instance.
4. Select Go to Configuration. The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.

   Note:  You can also add new deployment zones and implementations on this screen.

5. Under Implementations, use the filter to find the name of the implementation you require.
6. Select Edit next to the implementation for which you want to configure submission forms.
7. From the menu on the left side of the page, select Display Options under User Experience.
8. Select the Ratings & Reviews tab.
9. Go to the Multi-Product Submission (Standard and Custom review request email templates) section at the bottom of the page. Turn on the toggle switch on the right side of the section to enable multi-product submission forms.

   Note: This toggle switch only enables multi-product submission forms for standard and custom review request email template types. In-mail template types always use a multi-product submission form.

10. Select when you want your review request to link to a multi-product submission form instead of the default single-product submission form. Choose from the following options:
    • For all transactions—All review requests will direct your customers to the multi-product submission form, whether they purchased one or multiple products.
    • Only for transactions with multiple products—If the customer purchases more than one product, they will receive a review request link to a multi-product submission form. Purchases of a single product will trigger your default single-product submission form.
    • Never only use single-product submission form—review requests for all transactions will link to your default single-product submission form configured with the submission form editor.
11. (Optional) Go to Require Review Text & Title (Multi-Product Submission Form) in the Review Submission section. Select Enabled to require contributors to enter review text and a title to submit reviews when using a multi-product submission form. Enabling this setting prevents the submission of ratings-only reviews in the multi-product submission form. We also recommend you upload a company logo to display on the multi-product submission (MPS) form. If you’re sending your review request or using a custom email template, then you may not have a company logo loaded into our system.

Note: Refer to Edit standard email templates for guidelines and instructions (Step 4) on how to add your company logo.

Tip: If sending your own review request, see Create a multi-product ssURL for information about creating your submission form link that leads to a multi-product submission form.

Create a multi-product ssURL

Refer to Create a multi-product ssURL for instructions.

Customize the multi-product submission form (Style Editor)

The multi-product submission form inherits styling from your Ratings & Reviews display. Use the Style Editor in the configuration to customize multi-product submission form display settings like star color, button styling, and accent colors.

Tip: Refer to the Content Display Style Guide for information on how to style features using the Style Editor. This guide maps the Style Editor menu options to the various display components.

Multi-product submission form workflow

The multi-product submission (MPS) form is a mobile-first review submission experience designed to work seamlessly on a consumer’s cell phone.

Note: The multi-product submission (MPS) form also works on the desktop applications.

When you’re configuring questions for an MPS form, give consumers an effortless experience that will encourage them to review all of their recently purchased products.

Designing your MPS form

Keep the following in mind when designing your MPS form:

• The five-star rating system makes it easy for consumers to rate the products they just purchased from you. The consumer taps the star icons to submit their rating of each product. The following images show a multi-product submission form with a list of recently purchased products.

  

  Note: Research indicates that 80-90% of consumers are willing to give an overall rating or recommendation (as long as it’s easy to do).
• After tapping the star icons for any one product, the review form automatically loads for that rated product without the consumer having to tap anything.
• The consumer is prompted to add review text and answer questions for each specific product, such as “Was it fit for purpose?” or “How would you rate the quality?”, etc.
• Required questions (such as “Write your review” and “Add your review title”) are included in the Step 1 section of the form to ensure completion.
  Tip: For the best user experience, minimize the number of required questions in your submission form.
• The field for entering your “Review Title” comes after the “Review Text” because research indicates that consumers find it easier to write the text for their review first and then to come up with a review title afterward.
• Consumers are prompted to upload images when submitting review forms if this setting is configured as mandatory. This setting prevents submissions that contains only ratings. Consumers can upload up to six photos with each review.

• The submission form questions move sequentially. Consumers must answer and submit question 1, then move on to question 2, and so on until all questions have been answered. Refer to progressive answer submission for additional information. Here are some example questions:
  • Write your review
  • Add a review title
  • Add photos (max. 6)
  • Add a YouTube video
  • Best uses
  • Did you receive an incentive to write this review?
• After completing a review for one product the consumer taps the Submit button. They are automatically redirected back to the initial list of purchased products where they can continue to rate and review the rest of their purchases.

Multi-product submission form user experience (video)

Watch this video (select the play icon) to see how a contributor fills in a multi-product submission form:

What is progressive answer submission?

Multi-product submission (MPS) is progressive which means as the consumer submits an answer to each question, the response will be captured.

Even if they don’t finish answering all the questions in the form. Capturing each response as the consumer adds it means MPS minimizes content lost because of form abandonment.

Note: In single-product form submission the consumer must progress to the bottom of the page and select Submit for Bazaarvoice to capture any of the user's responses. Progressive submission means a consumer can go back to complete the form any time up to 30 days (if they haven’t completed all of the questions), as long as they use the same browser.

Adding or customizing submission form questions

Use the configuration to configure your single-product or multi-product submission form questions.

Navigate to either of the two User Experience sections in the configuration to customize and add additional questions to your submission form.

• Display options—Set basic requirements for the submission form. Enables contributors to supplement their review content with additional media, such as photos and links to videos that showcase the product or service.

  Note: If collecting ratings and reviews for multiple products, refer to Ratings & Reviews configuration options for more information about multi-product submission (MPS) form options.

• Submission form editor—Add additional questions to the submission form that enable you to gather additional information about the contributor and the contributor’s sentiment about your products or service. You can also add questions that contextualize the review for consumers to help them make more informed purchasing decisions.

Refer to these sub-topics for more detailed information:

• Using the submission form editor
• Customize a submission form
• Submission form question categories and fields overview
• Question categories
• Question field types

Note: To streamline the submission process, you can configure data injection and simple submission URLs. You can also respond to events that occur in the Bazaarvoice application.

Using the submission form editor

Submission form questions enable you to collect valuable information from your customers that you can use for business purposes. The questions prompt customers to provide information about themselves and their sentiments about your products or service.

For example, authentic user sentiment and quotes about your products or services (directly from your customers), can be used in marketing campaigns and are invaluable in reviews.

Answers to submission form questions contextualize the review and enable consumers to make informed buying decisions. For example, a contributor might write a negative review about an item of clothing saying it doesn’t fit well, but answers the Body Type question on the submission form. A potential customer reading the review (someone with a different body type) may ignore this negative review.

Watch this short video about using the submission form editor:

Customize a submission form

Watch this short video to see how you can configure submission form questions:

Follow these steps to configure a submission form:

1. Before beginning, consider the types of questions available and how you want to design your form. Refer to Submission form questions, categories and fields to read about and determine the category of questions you want to configure.
2. Sign in to the Portal .
3. Select Configuration from the Portal menu located in the upper-left corner.
4. Select an instance.
5. Select Go to Configuration. The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.

   Note: You can also add new deployment zones and implementations on this screen.

6. Under Implementations, use the filter to find the name of the implementation you require.
7. Select Edit next to the implementation for which you want to configure submission forms.
8. From the menu on the left side of the page, select Submission Form Editor under User Experience.

   Note: You will also need to configure some sections outside the submission form editor. Locate this content by hovering over a grayed-out section and opening the link provided in the tooltip.

9. Select located in the upper-left corner of the page to find the product category name or ID of the submission form you want to modify. The editor automatically displays the All Products submission form. If you add, edit, or delete questions in this particular form, the editor applies your changes to all linked forms.

   Note: The path to the selected category displays at the top of the editor beside Editing questions for:. If you select again, the word "Selected" appears on the right side of the newly selected category.

10. If applicable, select the locale you want to edit from the dropdown list.
11. To add a new question to the form, select + New Question beside the category of question you want to add. A list of predefined questions for that category displays.
12. To add a predefined question, select Add This Question. You can edit the question name, display label, submission form label, possible answer values, and global question settings before saving. If you operate in multiple locales, you can also edit values for each locale. To add a custom question, select Add a Custom Question. You can select a question type and enter a question name, question ID, display label, submission form label, and possible answer values. Set global question settings. The following table shows valid values for question type depending on the question category.

    Question Category	Valid Question Types
    People questions	Dropdown Select, Free Text
    Ratings questions	Ratings, Slider
    Product questions	Dropdown Select, Tag Groups, Free Text

    Select Save and Add to form, or select in the upper-right corner to return to the editor without saving.

    Note: The Dropdown Select question type renders as a tap button on a mobile device.

13. Select to modify an existing question. If the question appears in multiple categories, any edits will update the question in all categories where it appears.

    Note: The Dropdown Select question type renders as a tap button on a mobile device.

14. If you need to delete a question from the form, select . If you delete a question from the All Products form, the editor removes the question from all linked forms.
15. If you need to change the default order of questions on the form, select > Move this section next to a question category to move an entire section of questions. Select the section you want to move and drag it to the preferred location on the submission form.

    Note: The Base Review Questions, Basic User Info, and Net Promoter Question sections are locked and can't be moved.

    You can also reorder questions within a question category. Select > Reorder questions in this section. Select the question you want to move and drag it to the preferred location.

16. If you added or modified a product question for a subcategory (chosen in step 5), this severs inheritance from the parent category. (Submission forms for product subcategories inherit questions from parent categories.) displays at the top of the submission form editor and next to the category in the product categories list. To revert the category to its original state and restore the link to the parent category, select . All of the changes made to the parent category while the child category was severed now appear in the child.

17. To require contributors to enter review text or title to submit their reviews:
    1. From the menu on the left side of the page, select Display Options under User Experience.
    2. Select the Ratings & Reviews tab.
    3. In the Review Submission section, you can configure the following options:
       • Require review text (Single-Product Submission Form V1)—Enable the option to require contributors to write review text as part of their review submission when using the default single-product submission form.
       • Require Review Title (Single-Product Submission Form V1)—Enable the option to require contributors to enter titles for their reviews when using the default single-product submission form.
       • Require Review Text & Title (Multi-Product & Single-Product Submission Forms V2)—Enable the option to require contributors to enter review text and title when submitting a multi-product or single-product submission form. Enabling this setting prevents the submission of ratings-only reviews in the multi-product submission form and single-product submission form.

Submission form question categories and fields

This section describes the available question categories and explains the elements you can configure for each question.

Watch this short video to see an overview of the submission form question categories:

Question categories

Submission form questions are grouped into the following categories:

• Ratings—Optional secondary ratings relating to specific attributes (aka rating dimensions) of the product or service, such as the cleanliness or food quality at a restaurant.

  Answers to these questions can help consumers determine if a specific aspect of a product or service meets their needs. You can customize the customer-facing labels for rating dimensions for your specific business.

• People—Provide additional information about the contributor, such as age and gender. Answers to these questions help consumers identify with the person who wrote the review. People questions should map to consumer segments important to your business. For example, a cosmetics company might want to ask reviewers to identify their skin type.

  You can customize the language of the questions to suit your business, and you can omit any recommended options. However, to benchmark this data accurately against other Bazaarvoice clients, you must use the default answer ranges. These can be powerful tools if you make these questions filterable by other users.

  Note: Ratings & Reviews supports COPPA. Refer to the COPPA support statement for more information.

• Products—Enable contributors to provide insight into specific issues about a product (such as clothing fit, durability, or appearance) and how they use the product (level of expertise or usage frequency).

  Answers to these questions help consumers learn more about the contributor and provide context for their experience with the product or service.

  • For example, if a person is shopping for a new camera to take family photos, and she sees a few low ratings from reviewers who are professional photographers, she can probably assume their concerns will not impact her satisfaction with the camera.

  • Use product questions instead of ratings questions when a specific attribute is best described on a two-option scale instead of a relative, value-based scale of 1-5 or a value-neutral scale. For example, you can collect information about product appearance using a product question (“How does your purchase fit?”) with response values like “Runs narrow” and “Runs wide”.
  • Or you can use a rating question (“How would you rate the appearance of the product?”) with response values of 1-5.
  • Product questions provide more context than ratings questions. Answers to ratings questions don’t provide consumers as much useful information as answers to product questions, especially if the contributor rates the product without writing a text review that provides context.
  Note: Be aware that submission forms for product subcategories inherit questions from parent categories. Changes made to the submission form for a parent category are inherited by child categories. For example, if you define a submission form for apparel, submission forms displayed for product subcategories in apparel (such as dresses or shirts) inherit questions from the main apparel submission form. By default, a change to a subcategory product's submission form severs the inheritance from its parent category.

Question fields

The following figure shows the window in which you configure a new question or edit an existing question.

Question Type—(all questions) Types of responses a reviewer can make for a given question.

• Dropdown Select—(people and product questions) Contributors respond with exactly one answer from a list of values you provide.

  Note: The Dropdown Select question type is rendered as a tap button on a mobile device.
• Ratings—(ratings questions) Contributors express sentiment about one aspect of the product or service on a five-point scale.

• Slider—(ratings questions) Contributors rate a product or service on a continuum instead of by numeric rank. They supplement overall ratings by providing a richer rating level for a product. Sliders can reduce returns by 5 to 15 percent.

  The following image shows a slider similar to what you would find on a submission form or published review.

  

  Examples of industries that benefit greatly from having sliders include apparel, shoes/footwear, cosmetics, sports and outdoors stores, and department stores. Sliders enable product reviews to have descriptions such as “Runs narrow,” “Fits correctly,” or “Runs wide.”

• Tag groups—(product questions) Contributors tag a product or service with descriptors you provide, and tag groups enable contributors to add commonly expressed opinions or information to their reviews. Consumers can derive useful information from the tags quickly. For example, if your product is a digital camera, you could add the tag category “Digital Camera Pros” and provide tags like “Long battery life,” “Compact,” and “Included lens.”
• Free text—(product questions) Reviewers write comments about a product or service.

Question Name—(all questions) Descriptive, unique name for internal use that helps you identify the question in the questions list during configuration.

Question ID—(all questions) The ID of the question for data injection, syndication, and reporting. This ID should not contain any special characters or spaces.

Display Label—(all questions) Text displayed on the published review that prefaces the response value the contributor provided.

Submission Form Label—(all questions) Request for information from the contributor. The Submission Label text displays on the review submission form.

Possible Answer Values—(people, slider, and product questions) Options contributors select when responding to the submission form question. To edit existing values for default questions, select inside the value box to make it editable. To add more values, select Add new value.

Note: For ratings questions, values fields are available for the slider question type but not the ratings question type.

Left Label—(slider questions only) Leftmost label on a slider.

Right Label—(slider questions only) Rightmost label on a slider.

Global question settings

Watch this short video to see an overview of the global question settings:

The following global question settings are available. During onboarding, these settings are configured as best practices.

• Required—(all questions) Requires contributors to respond to the question.

  Note: Don't select this option if you use data injection to populate the answer.

• Hide in display—(all questions) Prevents the answer to this question from displaying on the published review.
• Filterable—(people questions) Enables consumers to filter reviews based on the Values you set.
• Hide on submission—(people and product questions) Prevents the answer to this question from displaying on the submission form. Answers to these questions are populated using data injection.
• Auto-populate—(people questions only) Automatically populates the submission form fields if the contributor previously provided the same information on your website. Deselect Required if you select the Auto-populate option. Contact your Bazaarvoice Implementation Engineer if you want to enable this option.
• Subject ID required—(people and product questions) Requires the subject ID for a product to be injected into the review submission.