Filter or Disable Alternative Products

Introduction

As the customer is answering questions, Product Finder 360 will select the products that match the customer's needs. Such products are called "Best matching". The rest of the products available in your product collection are so-called "Alternative products" (headers displayed above them may be defined in the "Standard texts" settings of the "Appearance" tab under the "Design" settings).

It's up to you to decide whether the alternative products shall be displayed. You can:

1. Disable alternative products display: The filters will be applied to all questions and answers, which means that alternative products won't be displayed anywhere but on the initial page of the Product Finder. (The latter depends on the "Show initial recommendation" setting in the "Appearance" tab under the "Design" settings).

2. Filter out alternatives that don't meet specific answers: This is particularly useful if you feel that some of the prospect's choices are so important, that there is no sense to show products that don't match those choices, even as an alternative. (For example, if they are looking for a product that can be delivered home, you might not show them products that can only be bought on-site).

The setting is available under the "Settings → Modifying product results & recommendations" .

1. Disable Alternative Products Display

This setting will actually exclude the "Alternative products" page from the results. We recommend you to be very careful with this setting, as it’s typically better to suggest close alternatives than an empty result. However, if you want to make sure that users only see 100% matching results, you can enable this setting. We recommend to use it, only if you are certain that each path will lead to a match. In particular, this can be safely used if you are using a progressive filter to hide or disable the answers, for which no products can be shown.

To disable the 'Alternative" products display for all question and answers, maximize the "Modifying product results" and change the "Filter alternative products" setting to "Don't show alternative products"

2. Enable the Matching Filter for Selected Answers

If you've enabled the matching filter for specific answers, the "Alternative products" page will be always filtered by those answers.

TIP

You can check specific answers, or check the question. Checking a question with no answers is the same as checking all the answers to this question.

For example, let's say that you're selling mobile phones, and have enabled matching filter by a question "What make should your phone be?" and "Select the screen width range that you are interested in". Once the customer has answered the questions, the "Alternative products" page will contain the products that don't match some of the other given answers but only of the chosen manufacturer and screen width.

To disable the 'Alternative" products for some question and answers:

1. Maximize the "Modifying product results" and change and change the "Filter alternative products" setting to "Filter by selected answers"

2. Click the link that will emerge below the setting

3. Check the answers you want to select. If you check/uncheck the question, the filter will be applied to all of its answers.

In the example, we'll modify a digital Product Finder that helps the prospect to select the best bike matching their needs. We consider that the category of the bike is so important, that there is no point in offering bikes from another category. We also feel that if the prospect wants or doesn't want and electrically-aided bike, the opposite will be of no interest to them.

4. Click the "Apply" button.