New funded feature - customer feedback form

Software improvement
21

When considering my request above please consider Jim’s point in the google doc copied here:
Jim Veilleux
Yes, but…

Managing variations in questions gets into all kinds of issues. For
example, do you want to be able to track over time? If yes, then the
phrasing of the question has to remain consistent enough to be comparable
over time.

On any given week, your sample size is going to be quite small. If the
stats on your OFN homepage are correct, with 480 shoppers, you’ve got maybe
a maximum of 50 shoppers for any one shop in any given week. If 1/2 of
them respond (unlikely), you’ll have 25 responses. And that’s at the top.

My suggestion is that you decide on 3-4 stock questions which could be
included for any given order and we make those selectable (either selected
or not). Then, if you want to get into depth on other details, send a
specialized survey after month. Memories will be weaker, but your sample
size may be bigger. And then you can use a flexible tool like SurveyMonkey
or Google Forms.

I will create Admin page with 4 editable questions. How about that?

22

Hey all, should a cobudget bucket be created for this feature, given there are people willing to contribute money towards it? @NickWeir?

23

Yes I thought @lin_d_hop had already created a bucket for it. If not please can I leave it with you Lynne to set this up? Thanks

24

Erm, we don’t have a spec or estimate. What is our target co-budget amount?
In fact, Nick has implemented a simple solution for the user as an interim that meets their needs. Thus we have a bit of time to figure out the kind of approach we want on this.

So far we’ve had a proposal to integrate mailchimp, a proposal to implement amazon style ratings, a proposal to integrate a CRM tool suite and a proposal to better integrate analytics.

Am I the only one that’s confused?

Maybe @NickWeir we could wait for the user to feedback on what improvements theyd really like from your phase one implementation? Perhaps a mailchimp integration would be something they’d like to see. Or would it be worth doing a phase one integration of the CRM tool as a next round? Probably their feedback would help indicate this.

And perhaps we cobudget @jveilleuxs amazon style reviews work separately, first for an estimate? I feel like this is very useful and would likely be a separate piece of work. Though if we can do it with the same CRM tool all the better. It would still be a separate project to integrate though, no?

Happy to drive this forward but I feel the UK priority is a little lower now… so would be good to get indication from others @danielle @NickWeir @Kirsten @jveilleux

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25

In response to @NickWeir, I added a few more detailed questions to my mock up of the consumer response form. What this cries out for is an admin panel for the user to define the text that goes into those questions.

But - since there is an existing Spree extension for consumer reviews, I’ve discussed the existing Spree functionality with my developer. Basically, the Spree extension allows - but does not solicit - product reviews from anyone. My developer has already done a modification (for another client) to restrict reviews to actual buyers. But the components that are required would be:

  1. Email process to solicit feedback and link the customer back to their purchase history
  2. Addition of other questions (or placeholders for questions) as suggested by @NickWeir
  3. Admin panel to select options and enter text of questions
  4. Database changes to capture answers to questions
  5. Display - if any - of data from additional questions

In response to @lin_d_hop, several of the suggestions she’s listed: “a proposal to integrate mailchimp, a proposal to implement amazon style ratings, a proposal to integrate a CRM tool suite and a proposal to better integrate analytics” are great ideas but with somewhat separate decision paths and implications and deserving of their own discussion threads.

Mailchimp is one of many bulk mailing platforms. I just bought sendy.co, for example, which seems to be much cheaper and I think there are other such programs to allow leveraging services like Amazon SES (Odoo, for example). So I think this belongs to a generic integration project that allows each partner/service provider/etc. to use their own mailing tool.

CRM’s are another category. I use Pipedrive and like it very much, but it’s not free. And, again, CRM integrations could be made generic so each partner, etc picked their own. (SugarCRM is probably a more popular open source CRM in the US, although I haven’t kept up with it.)

And whether you combined analytics with marketing automation or not, that’s yet another category, or two. (I noticed that Odoo had a module for this as well.)

So I suggest this thread stay focused on the core objective - assuming that the review module design I’ve drafted meets - or could meet, with modifications - @NickWeir’s funder’s objectives.

Being new to your organization, what’s the process - if there is any - to deciding what the specs/requirements here are? I know that @NickWeir should get reaction and requirements from the people he’s working with, but is that enough? If he and I agree on a spec that can be used to develop an estimate, does anyone have a problem with just going forward from there?

(NB: My developer is in India and is significantly less expensive than developers in western countries. But I don’t have much experience with him. That said, he’s shown a level of familiarity with Spree that I’ve found useful and he claims to be an expert. So I have high hopes.)

26

Hi @jveilleux Thanks for your thoughts. I like the idea of reviews, and I think it helps us to add to the transparency of the platform. It sounds like a logical step, particularly if we can integrate with a good email solution to request feedback from buyers and additional questions.

It would be good to gain some clarity about the nature of your proposal.

In terms of process, our normal process is that we collectively spec a feature, find the funds for an estimate of the work, then the developers do an estimate, then we try to find full funding on cobudget, then the work goes into our pipe and a small dev team will work on the project. Final tests and merges are currently done by the Australian team.

We’ve had limited experiences with external developers. Generally when developers contribute they join the project itself and become part of the team. So it would be good to understand how you are hoping to coordinate with OFN and your developer. Do you envisage writing a spec and contracting your developer to do the work independently? Would you want this work merged into the main OFN repo? Or would the normal processes and cobudget work for you? Could other OFN devs work more closely with your developer in India?

As you are aware substantial costs are involved in the planning, testing, reviewing and merging, that mean we continue to have a robust platform. This work is currently done in Australia, with the UK training up. It would be great to work with your developer in India. And even more exciting if he is allied and might like to work closely with OFN India. Without this process the code will quickly diverge and, even with code made public as per the license, different code bases will fork and forked instances would miss out on all the features developed in the international project.

Since your proposal depends on Spree 2.0 we have some time to figure out the best way of working here. It also gives us a concrete project to explore things within.

27

Hi @lin_d_hop. With regard to the coordination, etc., I’ve had one conversation with @Kirsten and she’s given us some direction. I think she’s also started a few topics on this issue of how to work together, coordinate, etc.

For the things that we think have common interest, we’re writing up specs and asking for feedback, but that’s strictly via this forum (discourse). If there’s another place to hash that out, I’m not aware of it.

The specific project we started with that we believe makes sense for the core code is a set of pages for selecting by distance from a customer-user’s location. I shared the current draft of those pages in that thread (Use Customer's geo-location to filter shops on arrival).

We got some responses from @Kirsten but haven’t seen any feedback from anyone else, so we’re moving forward as we spec’d out those pages. (Process issue here: I like the idea of coordinating, but can’t wait an indefinite period of time to go forward.)

I am aware of the cost of testing, etc. and we agreed with @Kirsten to pay for that for this first round of development. I need some experience with you all to understand what that’s going to cost as we develop more things. As a private business, I’m used to getting things done as inexpensively as possible - within quality parameters, of course.

This is my first experience working with and on an open source project so you’ll have to bear with my ignorance for a while. Also, I’d rather avoid creating a fork that goes off in its own direction, so I’m learning - but am not yet certain - how to accomplish that within our business goals.

Hope that helps. Here are answers to other of your questions:

Yes

It depends on the work. Yes, for things we think help the project as a whole. No, for things that are specific to our business plan.

I’m learning what those are and how they work so I can’t answer that right now.

Maybe. I’m not opposed to it at this point.

28

The Canadian instance would also be interested in heading down the customer managment and feedback path. I like the focused nature of where @jveilleux and @NickWeir are heading re: a hub getting buyer feedback after the order cycle . I think we could be very focused as a first step on the experience with the order cycle as a whole – so for ex - rate the on-line ordering process, rate the range of products available, rate the experience with pick up /delivery of products, rate the on-line payment options - and then giving options for comments . I think this is quite different from feedback on particular suppliers , or products however. That could be a future direction perhaps.

29

I may have changed my mind regarding Odoo :grimacing:
From Coopdevs we’ll start investigating OFN > Odoo integration, still at conceptual stage but I thought could be interesting to share anyway.

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