The problem
Asking for reviews by hand means finding the order, writing the email and sending it, and it gets skipped in busy weeks. If a shop has 60 orders a month and each request takes 3 minutes, that's 180 minutes, 3 hours a month.
What the AI does
Judge.me is a review app for Shopify. Its pricing page shows the free plan includes unlimited review requests, automatic scheduling, an email delivery time setting (when the request goes out) and store reviews. The Awesome plan, $15 (about £11) a month, adds automatic reminders, coupons, referrals, AI replies and summaries and SMS. Set it to ask every customer in the same neutral way at a delivery time you set. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, fake and incentivised reviews are banned: never offer a discount or gift for a positive review, never ask only happy customers, and never use AI to write reviews. Keep coupons and referrals off for review requests. If you use AI replies on Awesome, you read and approve every reply. Judge.me needs a Shopify store, priced separately; this example assumes you already pay for Shopify Basic.
A worked example
A pet-treat shop in Bristol with 60 orders a month, already on Shopify Basic, sets up Judge.me's free plan and spends 15 minutes a week reading new reviews and replying.
Before
3 minutes a request by hand: 60 x 3 = 180 minutes, 3 hours a month
After
About 15 minutes a week reading and replying: 15 x 4.3 = about 65 minutes, 1.1 hours a month
What it's worth
About 1.9 hours a month saved (115 minutes), worth around £48 if your time is worth £25 an hour. The base case runs on Judge.me's free plan, so £0. Awesome is $15 (about £11) a month, billed in US dollars, and only adds automatic reminders and extras you may not need. Your Shopify plan is extra. The value of more reviews is not counted.
How to set it up
- Install Judge.me from the Shopify App Store and start on the free plan.
- Set one review request for every order, sent the same way at a delivery time you set, with neutral wording such as 'tell us what you thought'.
- Do not link reviews to discounts, gifts or entry into a prize draw, and keep coupons and referrals off for review requests.
- Reply to every review, good or bad; if you try Awesome's AI replies, read each one before it is posted.
- Once a month, check requests are still going out by placing a test order.
What goes wrong
- Offering a reward for a review, or asking only customers you expect to be happy, can breach the 2024 Act. Treat every customer the same.
- Never write, edit or generate reviews with AI, and don't ask staff or friends to post them.
- Automatic reminders are an Awesome feature; on the free plan each customer gets the scheduled request only. Prices are in US dollars and may be billed in dollars.
- Review requests are emails to customers who bought from you; keep to your privacy notice and let people opt out.