Review requests: when to ask, and what to do with the answer

Most review tools let you send a request a fixed number of days after the order. That number is a guess about delivery, and it is wrong for every order that ships late, ships early or ships in two parcels. The better trigger is the delivery event itself, plus a short pause so the customer has actually opened the box.

Tie the ask to delivery

Shopify exposes fulfilment and delivery events. Use the delivered event, wait a day or two depending on the product, then ask. For products that need time to judge, a skincare routine or a pair of running shoes, wait longer. The request should arrive when the customer has an opinion, not when your calendar says so.

Ask once

A request and one reminder is the whole sequence. If the customer has not answered after that, the answer is no. Keep the door open on the account page, where a customer can leave a review whenever they like, and stop sending.

Decide what a bad review triggers

A one-star review is a support ticket that happens to be public. Route it to a person before you route it to the storefront. The reply you post later should say what you did, not what you feel.

Stop asking people who already told you

If the same customer reviewed the same product last month, do not ask again. If they opened a support ticket about this order, pause the request until it is closed. Both of these need the review tool to see the rest of the customer record, which is the argument for keeping reviews inside the same profile as everything else.