August 3 - Update to the Reviews Feature!
Hi Crew!
We first announced this update here. Please review this thread for more information on this update!
Here are the big changes:
1) No more categories for star reviews! The pop-up will look like this:
2) As many of you know, we have a flagging team that helps parse through all of the reviews. Only reviews & star ratings that are flagged by the team as being helpful indicators as to what happened int he chat will be counted. This means - if the star rating is a duplicate, or the flag is marked as unhelpul/ doesnt tell us anything about the listeners abilities, the star rating will not count. This will help a great deal in making the reviews accurate!!
3) You can only leave a review for your listener once every 48 hours!
4) You are required to accompany your review with 15 characters of text!
Big thank you to everyone who has already given feedback!! We are excited about this update, we haven't made any chances to the reviews in over 4 years - its ABOUT TIME!!
The updated review tool will go live today!! please let us know what you think! You can share feedback in this thread or in this form.
@Laura
Yay I'm so excited!!!! cx
@Laura you didn
@SmileDandilion same thoughts.
... it looks so bare now.
ah, i don't really like this update but *shrugs* we can't all be happy about the updates haha
@Laura I love the developmemts made since last thread Laura. Keep ip the good work. Exvited to see how it works. :) ❤
@Laura I don't think this is an improvment. The categories gave listeners important information about how they were doing and in what areas they needed to improve. Now that's gone. Also, the fifteen character requirement may discourage people from posting a review. How will that benefit listeners? It seems like the more reviews posted the better.
@Harry53
unfortunately, most often the star ratings were used by members to share hurtful, unrepresentative reviews of the quality of the listeners. I am going to look through the thread and see if any members have similar feedback!
Thank you for sharing this Harry. Sorry you arent a fan yet!
Nothing in regards to the update, I just wanted to point something out. Every post from a listener, where it was obvious that you (Laura) disagreed with its contents, you've written something along the lines of 'wanting to hear from members'. I'm sure it wasn't done consciously, but if I didn't know better I would think that you didn't really care about what the listeners thought.
@Laura one more comment. The reviews now refer to the "chat" rather than to the listener and that seems too impersonal. For example, compare these two possible reviews of one chat:
I really loved the chat.
I really loved chatting with Laura. She's a great listener!
As a listener, which review would you prefer Laura? The second one, obviously!
@Harry53 yeah and the personal biases that might already exist, which would cause a member to already have a preconceived notion about a listener? Based on their country, the name or even the description.. all of that do have an impact when a member decides to talk to a listener.. as you said right its about a chat and not about how the listener was during the chat, so it would mean its greatly dependent on the mood/ emotions in the chat, of the listener and the member.. I feel Its also less directional now. Lets see how this works..
@Harry53 Thank you Harry I hadnt noticed that somehow before. Yes that is problematic
@Harry53 ah, agreed
@Laura
I can sum up my feelings for this via some of the reviews many listeners have received:
"Nice"
"Good"
" :) "
"Helpful"
I am still new here so this really doesn't bother me at all so I just go with the flow and do what the owners of the site want and what the others under them feel is needed .
Unrelated to this subject but the one thing that would help is the way the Forum set up is, it makes it very hard for people to find things , I am used to logging on sites and seeing all the forum sections and then clicking on each one and you also see the comments and much more. It is also very confusing with so people having titles under their names and not know who is above who or what their actual roles are here because several say they do this or that but aren't so I dont care about my profile and ratings I care about how people logging on can better understand this place and it be alot easier, so many coming here are confused . Many other sites have sold out and people are coming here they are not understanding why its so hard.
7cups by far has the most info and help on it and members I have ever seen, THAT IS AMAZING!
@Tyedyedbutterfly65 Thanks for sharing your feedback! I'd encourage you to post it to our suggestion box (found here) so our admin team can properly review it ^-^
@PhoenixAsh Thanks so much!! appreciate your reply!! also sharing where else i can share.
The one category for rating a listener is absolutely best.
I used to love the categories. At least I knew that I had to improve my responding time and so I did. I used to get excited about two things:
when a member get satisfied, relieved..
when I read their appreciation and uplifting words in reviews.
I still go back and re-read reviews. I can remember those members, my journey in here..Now members get to review the chat. "the chat was good". what do you conclude from that? it doesn't mention anything about the chat, so you are not gonna take it into consideration. However the member usually come back to talk with that same listener and won't leave another review again as many people don't keep on rating a place each time they visit unless a change happens. Many scenarios can be built that shows how it is unfair (not that the old system was that fair, but it was better).
Can't you just put an optional or a required question to fill about the chat without getting ride of the old one. or maybe a required pop-up window to fill everytime someone rate under 3 stars... instead of those redirecting pop-ups?
I've been lurking in this thread for a few days to kind of gather my thoughts and decide how I feel on this update. All in all, I think it has its pros and cons, but I think there are little things that could be tweaked for this new system to succeed!
1. As SereneCirius has just said, only require a written review if the rating is 3 stars or lower (and otherwise allow it to be optional) - this will help to reduce the number of incorrect negative reports and allow action to be taken to improve listener quality, but won't discourage people from leaving positive reviews if they don't feel up to writing a review
2. Have some suggestions there on what the member can consider when leaving a review, ie Did your listener respond promptly? Did they support you well? etc
I'm happy with other aspects of this change - I like that 'helpfulness' is gone for the reason that it could be taken as meaning 'giving good advice', which as listeners we can't do. I'd still like a prompt of sorts to convey what things to think about in the review though.
Thanks for your hard work in rolling out this update! 
