Next Week - New Reviews Features!
Hi All -
I am excited to make this announcement! Did you know that the 7 Cups review feature has not changed in over 4 years? That is a long time! Today, I am excited to announce that we are going to tweak the review tool functionality! The goal is to make it easier for members to leave more helpful reviews for listeners and to ensure the reviews generated are fairly delivered.
Here are some of the changes we are thinking of giving a try -
Timing of reviews:
For every L-M connection, the member can only leave one review per 48-hour time frame. The goal here is to reduce duplicate reviews and ensure that members know that each review matters. If you are going to leave your listener a review, you need to make it count.
If something goes wrong in the chat after a review is submitted, the member can always use the block feature or wait 48 hours to leave another review.
Star ratings & text reviews:
We were able to look at star rating data on the whole and determine that star ratings are misused by members. At present they are not the best tool for determining the quality of the listener. We need to tighten them up to better reflect each listener's skills. We did some research on how to best collect star ratings and what other sites do. And we thought about how to incorporate that information into 7 Cups star reviews.
We will remove the 4-star rating categories (helpfulness, response time, empathy & professionalism). Instead, it will be one-star rating measure out of 5. Members will choose one of the above:
1 Star - This was not a helpful chat
2 Stars - Could have gone better
3 Stars - It went okay.
4 Stars - I liked it, helpful chat
5 Stars - Loved it! Awesome chat!
The Review box will have these directions:
Help others select a good listener by leaving a review. If you liked the chat, say what was good about it.
If you thought the listener could improve, please mention your feedback here.
Depending on which star they choose, a different pop-up text will appear in the text box.
If rating <=3 stars, show this modal on submission-
We are sorry your experience was not great. Click here to connect with a verified listener.
If rating >= 4 stars, show this tip-
Thanks for your feedback! We are glad you are getting the help you are looking for!
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Please share any feedback on the ideas mentioned above. As always we want to try something new and see the impact on the site and in the community. Your feedback and ideas are welcome!
As a reasonably new listener, I spend a decent amount of time exploring the platform to better understand it, and I've seen a lot of room for improvement, and it's great to see that new developments are happening! Even if it has been 4 years :)
Some feedback;
- While making the ratings easier is a good thing, I did find the categories very useful, it's a great quick overview on where you should improve on as a listener.
- Sadly it appears there are teams of people who work together in reviewing eachother into giving themselves good ratings (I'm trying not to be discriminative however they all seem to be from the same country) I'd highly recommend some sort of IP filtering will be done for reviews or chats.
- I've seen situations where a member would connect to a listener, check for the listeners gender or paste a set of rules, and if the listener does not suit their rules, they would end the chat and leave a negative review. In this instance it would be great if there was a minimum amount of messages exchanged before you are able to leave a review. There is actually no need to leave a review if nobody actually had a chat right?
@WonderfullTree i absolutely love your suggestion at the end.
@usefulFlamingo12 Thanks! Let's hope it gets implemented :)
I can see the value in having a simpler system, but I think keeping helpfulness and dropping the other categories is a poor choice.
We already have the problem that, for some members, there is an "expectation of us solving their problems magically for them" (as @usefulFlamingo12 so accurately puts it). I think this new emphasis on helpfulness can only make that problem worse.
We also have the problem that some listeners dump or block members as soon as they hear about anything unfamiliar or difficult. I think this new emphasis on helpfulness can only make that problem worse too.
It would be better, in my opinion, to use a neutral word like "good" instead of "helpful", so as to avoid undermining the importance of active listening. Let's not reduce listening to a suggestion competition.
@Laura
@RarelyCharlie I agree with you. It already takes a toll on the strain in the listener member interaction so it would make matters worse.
This is great feedback everyone!! Thank you!
I read everything and I think these are the main points (comments from our team in bold on if possible)
- Make it required to leave text with all star ratings. Add a character limit. *added this
- The timing of the review pop-up is too soon ( i think its after 10 messages right now) *we can tweak this once the feature is live
- instead of a review every 48 hours, make it every X chats. A member can only leave a review for every X chats they have together. This will reduce spammy reviews. *we discussed this in detail with dev team and dev wise it was a huge load.
- this update makes the reviews too simple
the 4 topics categories gave us something concrete to work on.
*if we ask members to leave more detailed reviews, it makes them not write one at all. All feedback is currently sent out via emails. We can explore ways to make that email process more effective, maybe having Noni give onsite feedback in the future.
Let me know if you think I missed anything!
@Laura
Current feedback emails currently really don't tell you what you are doing wrong thou if you talk to a lot of folks in 1;1's there is really no way to tell what you are doing wrong if you don't know of a bad 1;1 chat. It is only helpful if you know you really messed up and they think you really didn't help them and that you failed them.
@Laura
what counts as a new chat?
@Laura
That's exactly what I was talking about! :)
Re:
"maybe having Noni give onsite feedback in the future."
No, and besides, the poor bot has enough things in her cup, uh, I mean on her plate right now. Her cricuits are bound to get overloaded. 
@BeautifulBreeze
I agree Noni can't answer current questions so not sure how that would work at all.
@Laura well I am a member and I can't agree I wouldnt leave feedback that'd have to me more detailed .I often find it difficult now not knowing what to say but the categories at least help me to see what I can think of and write about .I might be different than other members at this point but I'd find it easier if I just have something to fill out similar to the system LeftistFreedomfighrer suggested .I don't know if most members see it different or not but I found it a good idea to make a voting about how the new system should be with this ,old system or the one presented here. Tho itd make sense to have separated one for members and listeners to see if they have the same preferences.
@brightPlane9640 I agree and I find it easier with the categories too
@brightPlane9640 I'm quite new here and just wrote my first review and the categories helped me too. if it was just a scale abou helpful id have chosen a rather random number and just write he was good or something really short but the categories helped me to write a more reasoned review and I'd also welcome something to make it even more structured even if it takes a bit more time but who would complain about spending a few mins for that. I think thats the least we can give back to a listener that eventually spent hours helping us.
@crimsonMango5233 yes its nice if you can at least give something back to a helpful listener no matter with which system but I also prefer a more detailed one
@Laura Im a very new newbie to 7 cups but I would like to share that it is overwhelming to get a pop up review window more than one time during a session with a listener. I think changing it to 1 time every 48 hours is a great idea.
The one thing that worries me is the this chat wasn't helpful part because "helpful" for one member isn't helpful for another member. Some members define helpful as you fixing their problem or as you offering advice. When you tell them you actually can't offer advice but are here to empower them because they are the expert on their own life members can end up raging.
Some new members also assume we are adults or actual therapists so they don't understand we are teen volunteers. I think new member assumptions can hurt overall listener ratings as well
Also for chatroom moderators any time you have to warn/mute a user it impacts your rating because they automatically rate you lower for revenge even though they aren't suppossed to rate your listening skills and instead use the mod feedback form. They usually pm you on purpose to rate you lower especially when they learn you can't undo a mute or take back a warning
Having 3 stars as 'it went ok' isn't really ideal- members will see this as a default imo
@Lucy
I agree with you and those of us trying to work on certificates we are aiming for 5 stars for the higher certificates.
To reiterate,
I felt the old rating system was a great one. You could rate listeners in different areas such as helpfulness, empathy, response time and professionalism. I believe these are important for guest/members and also helped listeners to improve. It also was helped members know more about their listener.
As a member and a listener, I feel the category-rating system really encompassed what great listening is. Also, if a member has an unsuccessful chat, which happens often before they have a great one, they won't be able to leave great feedback for the next listener because there is a limit. This decreases quality control.
Specific feedback is what helps listeners to improve.
And that in-turn would give everyone who uses 7 cups have a positive experience.
