Many brands sign up for a KnoCommerce account wanting to maximize the data collected and the reach of their surveys to their entire customer base (which is--for real--a great goal). We want that for you too!

But then within a couple of days of turning the first survey live someone realizes that the number of survey views recorded by KnoCommerce does not match the count of orders they have received over that same time period. This applies to overall order count as well as new customer order count vs. returning customer order count.

Do not fret, however, as this is expected. As much as we would like to track down all of your customers and get a survey response from them, that remains impossible. Here are a few different reasons why the number of views in KnoCommerce will always be slightly less than the order count in Shopify or whatever e-commerce platform you are using.

After a customer makes a purchase on the checkout page, they're taken to the Order Status page (Shopify's language) or your platform's version of a confirmation page. Once our survey script loads on that page, we will record a survey View that you can track on the main Reports page in the app. The overall Survey Stats are at the bottom of the page and look something like this:

To learn more about these Survey Stats check out our Reports help doc.

The reason for the discrepancy in this instance is that the customer exits the confirmation page/closes the tab before the KnoCommerce script loads and the survey displays. No view is recorded and no survey is shown here.

Whenever our script loads, we check the customer and their order for the conditions to match against the Audiences of the live surveys on the account. Survey Display Logic is executed according to the help doc and a survey is displayed. However, some customers do not match any of the criteria for any audience. For instance, if a brand is running a New Customer with an audience targeting lifetime order count = 1, a customer with a lifetime order count of 2 would not see a survey because they do not match any audience.

This instance would occur if a customer matches audience criteria, but has already submitted a survey result. In the same situation as the previous example, once a returning customer has completed a Returning Customer survey, they would match the audience criteria but would not receive a survey due to us having already recorded the survey submission previously.

For brands either using a 3rd party subscription provider platform (like Smartrr or ReCharge) or self-built subscription services, orders are placed automatically and the customer never reaches a confirmation page of any kind.

On Shopify stores (and some stores on other platforms as well as custom-built stores), upsells and some other apps or popups can live between the Checkout page and the Order Status page/confirmation page where our survey displays. These apps are incredibly useful and add a ton of value for your brand, but they do result in customers navigating away to these upsells or interacting with the modal/popup and failing to reach the confirmation page.

If you have any questions or concerns about the content you're reading here, please feel free to reach out to hello@knocommerce.com for support or further assistance.