Use Progressive Filters for Questions
Hide Answers for Which No Products Are Available
At this moment, the digital Product Finder knows what products you are offering, there is a set of questions to ask your prospect and mapping rules with which the Product Finder knows what product to suggest the visitors who have answered the question in one or another way. However, there might be a situation that many retailers would like to avoid: the prospect keeps answering questions and, at some point, there are no products in the catalog to meet all their needs.
This is when you can use the "Progressive Filter" feature.
If the feature is not enabled, the question itself and all the answers to it will always be shown available to the visitor. If the feature is enabled, Product Finder 360 will proactively analyze the product catalog and disable or grey-out such answer options that, if they were chosen, there wouldn't be a product to meet all the requirements.
In this article you can:
Find an example of the filtering logic and learn how it affects the filtered questions and other questions
Learn to set up the Progressive Filter
Learn how to show or hide the filtered answers
1. Progressive Filter Logic
1.1 A Simple Example
For example, you sell bikes and specialize in Mountain and Road bikes. Those bikes come in different sizes, models, and colors:
Mountain bikes are available in colors: black and blue
Road bikes: come in colors red and white
If no progressive filters have been enabled, the customer will always see all the options. Even if there are no products to meat such combination (e.g. red mountain bikes).
However, if you turn on progressive filtering, Product Finder 360 will automatically eliminate the answer options that aren’t available. For example, the prospect who is interested in a road bike will be only able to select red or white.
You can decide to grey-out or completely hide non-matching answers in the "Design" tab.
1.2 Filtering Answers to Next Questions
Once you've enabled the progressive filter for a question, Product Finder 360 will be checking all the answer options against the chosen question.
Let's consider the following example.
There are three questions: 1. Where do you want to ride your bike? Answers: Mountain / Road2. Which color do you like? Answers: Black / Blue / Red / White3. What is your preferred frame length? Answers: 16"/ 17"/18"/19"
colors: black and blue
frame length: 16", 17"
colors: black and blue
frame length: 16", 17"
colors: red and white
frame length: "17", 18", 19"
colors: red and white
frame length: "17", 18", 19"
If you have enabled the Dynamic filter for the bike type - it will not only work as in the example above, but ALL the following answer options will be filtered, and only answers that correspond to the chosen type will be enabled. The visitor who has chosen Road bikes, won't be able to choose black and blue colors, and neither a 16-inch long frame.
On the other hand, if you set up a Progressive filter to the question about colors - at this step, it will also work as in the example above. But, at the third question, the list of available frame length will depend not on the type of bike chosen, but on their color.(If there are no red bikes with 17" frame, and red was chosen, the 17" option will not be available).
1.3 How the Dynamic Filter Affects Different Answer Types
That's how the dynamic filter will affect different types of answers:
1.3.1 Dynamic Filters and Multiple Choice Answers:
For all multiple choice answers (drop-down menus, single selection and multiple selection answers):
Only the answers that meet the filter conditions are available for selection.
If there are no available answers, the question is skipped.
For drop-down menus and single selection answers, this answer is considered given and the question is skipped
For multiple selection answers: the question is displayed with an only answer. This way the visitor can still define if the corresponding attribute of the product is important.
For drop-down menus and single selection answers, this answer is considered given and the question is skipped
For multiple selection answers: the question is displayed with an only answer. This way the visitor can still define if the corresponding attribute of the product is important.
1.3.2 Dynamic Filters and Sliders:
The initial start (and if available end) values of the slider will be adjusted to meet the filter.
If there is no available product that is in both the filter range and the slider's range, the question will be skipped.
If there is only one value that is in both the filter range and the slider's range, this value is considered given, and the question is skipped
2. How to Enable the Filter
In order to enable the Progressive Filter: 1. Go to the "Settings" tab of the Product Finder's editor. 2. Go to the "Filter the conversation flow" section |  |
3. In the fields below, enabled the toggle "Use a progressive filter" 4. Click the "Select questions" |  |
5. Select the questions, for which the feature shall be enabled. If the question hasn't been selected, it will always be shown and all of its answers will be available. 6. Click "Apply" |  |
3. Show/Hide Disabled Answers
As the visitor is going down the Product Finder flow, they answer different questions, and Product Finder 360 defines what types of mapped products correspond to their answers.
For example, at the moment we know that the visitor is interested in off-road hybrid bikes and our next question is "What manufacturer do you prefer?". Initially, there are 5 manufacturers whose bikes we are selling. However, only three of them have some off-road hybrid bikes.
This setting will define how such answers should be displayed:
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TIP
If by the time the visitor has reached this question, there is only one answer for which products can be mapped (as if in our example only one manufacturer had off-road hybrid bikes), the question will always be skipped.
Two manufacturers don't have products that match the previous answers. | |
"Show disabled" is on | "Show disabled" is off |
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