Auto-replies
In This Article
Overview
Most support teams work with a large number of reviews that often cover similar topics. Reply Templates speed up the process by allowing you to send replies with just a click – but there's also a way to completely automate the reply process.
In AppFollow, you can streamline the support workflow by setting up Auto-replies. Auto-replies instantly send appropriate replies to reviews that match a predefined set of criteria. Read on to learn how to set up an Auto-reply rule, choose the necessary conditions for the rule, and how to manage your Auto-replies.
Minimal requirements for Auto-replies to work:
- The app has an active Reply to Reviews integration.
- The Review fits the criteria of an existing Auto-reply rule.
- The Review doesn’t have a reply in the store yet.
Who Can Create Auto-reply Rules
User roles that have access to create Tags and set filters for Auto-tags are:
- Admin
- User
- Support manager
Learn more about roles in our article about User Roles.
How to Create Auto-Reply Rules
To get started with creating Auto-reply rules:
- Create a set of Reply Templates which you'll use as your Auto-reply text.
- Expand the Reply to Reviews section in the left-hand navigation panel and click "Auto-replies".
- Click "+Add New Rule" at the top right of the page.
- Enter a name for your new rule.
- In the "If" section, select the Review conditions which should be met for your rule to work. Learn more about Conditions in the next section.
- In the "Then" section, select which action should happen when a Review matches your rule's conditions. Learn more about Auto-reply Actions further in this article.
- Choose a Publication Mode: Approval or Auto-posting.
- Click "Save Rule".
Auto-reply Conditions
Auto-reply rules work with conditions based on review text, rating, language, translation, length, and Semantic Tags and Sentiment. Find more details about the available conditions in the tables below.
Text Conditions
Condition | Description |
Review text is | The review is equal to the specified text |
Review text is not | The review is not equal to the specified text |
Review text contains | The review contains the specified text |
Review text doesn’t contain | The review doesn’t contain the specified text |
Review text starts with | The review starts with the specified text |
Review text ends with | The review ends with the specified text |
|
💡 It’s possible to use regular phrases for these conditions. For example, if the condition “Review text contains” is “tariff|price|expensive”, then the tag is assigned to all reviews that have any of the specified words. Learn more about conditions in our article on Auto-tags and Auto-replies: Advanced Conditions
💡 Conditions are not case-sensitive.
Rating and Length Conditions
Condition | Description |
Review rating/length = | The review rating/length is equal to the specified number of stars/symbols |
Review rating/length != | The review rating/length is not equal to the specified number of stars/symbols |
Review rating/length < | The review rating/length is less than the specified number of stars/symbols |
Review rating/length <= | The review rating/length is equal to or less than the specified number of stars/symbols |
Review rating/length > | The review rating/length is greater than the specified number of stars/symbols |
Review rating/length >= | The review rating/length is equal to or greater than the specified number of stars/symbols |
Tag Conditions
Condition | Description |
Any of the tags | reviews that have at least one of the selected tags |
All of the tags | reviews that have all the selected tags |
Other Conditions
Condition | Description |
Language | Apply the tag to reviews in a certain language(s). *Please note that this condition refers to the review language, not the device language. |
Translation |
Looks for keywords in the translation text, based on the app’s Translation language |
Semantic Tags* | Apply the tag to reviews with any or all of the selected Semantic Tags |
Semantic Sentiment* | Apply the tag if the review has or does not have the selected Semantic Sentiment |
*Learn more about Semantic conditions in another section of this article: Semantic Tags and Semantic Sentiment Auto-replies.
Feeling stuck? Check out our article about Troubleshooting Auto-reply Conditions.
Auto-reply Actions
Actions determine which template is sent when a Review meets an Auto-reply condition. It's possible to reply to a Review with a:
- Specific Reply Template
- Random Reply Template from a predefined template folder
- Report a Concern Template
Read on to learn more about each of these Auto-reply actions.
Reply With a Template
To set up an action with a Reply Template, create a set of templates which you'll use as your Auto-reply text. Learn more about creating templates in our Reply Templates article.
When you choose a specific template as your reply text, the template is sent to every Review which meets the rule's conditions.
Reply With a Random Template from a Folder
When you receive several reviews on the same topic, Reply Templates help you send a response quickly and spend more time on trickier cases. However, sending the exact same message over and over again isn't ideal. To give your messages a more human touch, set up Auto-replies with random Reply Templates. This will ensure that the exact same replies don't get posted one after the other, and your replies will appear more diverse to anyone browsing your app's reviews.
To set up Auto-replies with random Templates from a Folder:
- Create a set of Reply Templates.
- Create a Folder to store Templates that answer the same question.
- Go to the Auto-replies page and create a new Auto-reply rule.
- Set the action to "Reply with Random Template from Folder".
- Select the Folder from which you want to send your Auto-replies.
- Save the Auto-reply rule.
- Now, every time a Review meets the Auto-reply rule's conditions, a random Template will be sent.
Automatically Report a Concern
If your app gets a lot of spam or inappropriate reviews, you end up spending a lot of time reporting them, and less time working with your more valuable reviews. Save time by setting up Auto-reply rules to report inappropriate and offensive reviews automatically. These reviews may contain offensive language or have low ratings, so you can create a rule that detects these criteria and reports a concern automatically.
Report a Concern is a premium feature. Send us a message at help@appfollow.io if you would like to enable it.
To automatically Report a Concern:
- Make sure you have set up the Report a Concern integration.
- Click "+Add New Rule" on the Auto-replies page.
- Enter the name of the new rule.
- Select the conditions which a review should meet to be fall under this rule.
- Select Reply with "Report a Concern" as the action.
- Choose the type of report that you want to submit: off-topic, spam, offensive material, or something else.
- Select a template that will be sent to the store when the report is submitted.
- Click "Save Rule"
Semantic Tag and Semantic Sentiment Auto-replies
Use Semantic Tags and Semantic Sentiment to cover a larger scope of Reviews that fall into a specific category. With the help of machine-learning algorithms, Semantics-based replies provide more accurate results than rules based on a fixed set of keywords and ratings. Semantic Analysis works for up to 20 languages, so your Auto-replies are good to go, no matter the language.
With Semantic Automation rules, you can set the Auto-reply to be triggered by:
- Specific topics (bugs, subscriptions, ads)
- The user's tone of voice (positive, negative, neutral, mixed)
Auto-reply Publication Modes
Choose between 2 methods of publishing Auto-replies, depending on whether you want to approve the response before posting or not.
Approval mode
In Approval Mode, Auto-replies receive the "Pending approval" status before being published. This allows you to revise and edit the reply if necessary before posting it to the store.
Find and publish pending replies on the Reply to Reviews page:
- Open the Reply to Reviews page from the left-hand navigation panel.
- Switch to the app where you want to publish a reply.
- Click "+Add Filters".
- Select "Reply" -> "Pending approval" and click "Apply".
- Review the reply and post it.
Auto-posting mode
With the Auto-posting option, all Auto-replies are published to the store without any pre-moderation.
Learn more about conditions in our article on Auto-tags and Auto-replies: Advanced Conditions.
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