Complete Guide to Configuring Questions & Answers in PrestaShop

The Questions & Answers feature in the Product Reviews module empowers customers to ask questions about your products and receive answers from other customers or your team. This fosters transparency and builds a community of shared knowledge.

In this guide, we’ll focus on the essential configuration options under Settings > Questions & Answers, explaining their significance and providing examples to help you set up this feature effectively.

Accessing questions & answers settings

• Navigate to the Product Reviews module from the quick access menu.
• Go to Settings and select the Questions & Answers tab.

Key configuration options

General settings

• Enable questions & answers: Turn this feature on or off for your store.

Example: If you’re launching a new product and want to build a knowledge base, enabling Q&A can encourage interaction and address common inquiries.

• Allow guests to ask questions: Decide whether non-registered users can post questions. While enabling this can increase participation, requiring user registration can prevent spam.

Validation and Permissions

• All questions must be validated by an employee: Ensures that only approved questions appear publicly.

Example: If a customer posts an inappropriate or irrelevant question, this setting gives you control to filter it out before publication.

• Who can answer questions: Define the group of users allowed to provide answers:
  • Any registered user: Encourages community participation.
  • Admin and author of the question: Provides a controlled environment.
  • Admin only: Keeps answers professional and reliable.

Example: For highly technical products, choosing Admin only ensures accuracy and builds trust in your brand.

Interaction and Moderation

• Enable Like/Dislike for questions and answers: Allow customers to vote on the usefulness of posted content. This feature highlights the most helpful responses, improving user experience.

• Allow customers to edit their questions or answers: Decide whether users can modify their content after submission.

Example: If a customer provides incomplete information in their question, enabling editing allows them to update it without starting a new thread.

• Auto-approve answers and comments: Automatically publish responses without manual approval. Use this feature carefully to maintain quality; consider enabling it only if you have a strong moderation system in place.

Content Restrictions

• Minimum time between questions: Set a delay between questions from the same user to prevent spam.

Example: A setting of 24 hours (86400 seconds) limits users to one question per day, reducing repetitive queries.

• Content length limits:
  
  • Minimum: Prevents extremely short, vague questions (e.g., “Help?”).
  • Maximum: Ensures responses are concise and easy to read.

Tip: Setting a minimum of 20 characters encourages users to provide meaningful context in their queries.

Display options

• Default sorting for questions: Choose how questions appear (e.g., Latest, Oldest, or Most Helpful).

Example: Sorting by "Most Helpful" highlights valuable content, guiding new customers to common answers quickly.

• Number of initial questions and answers: Control how much content is displayed upfront, with additional entries loaded via a "View More" button.

Tip: Displaying 3-5 questions initially keeps the interface clean while encouraging users to explore further.

  

Additional features

• Display publish time of questions: Show timestamps for questions, adding transparency.

Example: A visible date reassures customers that the answers they’re reading are up to date.

Example Use Case

Imagine you’re selling high-performance laptops. A customer asks, "Does this laptop support 32GB RAM?"

• Another customer answers: "Yes, I upgraded mine to 32GB, and it works perfectly!"
• Your admin then verifies the response and marks it as helpful.

With the Q&A system configured effectively, this interaction not only helps the original asker but also provides valuable information to other potential buyers.

By focusing on these key settings, you can create a well-moderated, user-friendly questions & answers section that enhances engagement, builds trust, and reduces customer support inquiries. For further assistance, contact our support team anytime!