Auto-replies

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.

💡 In case you would like to use Auto-replies together with Zendesk integration, please set up the rules in the Zendesk Workspace. This way AppFollow will collect the review, check whether or not the review can be covered with an Auto-reply rule, and then send only those reviews to Zendesk which do not have Auto-replies. Feel free to learn more about Zendesk App Integration in this article.

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.

💡 The Auto-reply script runs every 10 minutes. When you set up a new Auto-reply rule, Auto-replies are applied to all Reviews without replies received during the last 2 days.

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".

If a Review meets the conditions of multiple Auto-reply rules, then the most recently created rule is applied. You can check how recently an Auto-reply rule was created by looking at its position in the list of rules: the newer the rule, the higher up it is in the list. Note: publishing modes do not affect this logic. Even if you use Approval mode, only the most recent rule is applied.

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

💡 The Review length is calculated without the title.

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

💡 Avoid using Auto-tags in your Auto-reply conditions. These features are not designed to be used together and can violate the reply rule. If you'd like a tag to be assigned to a review, add a tag to a Reply Template, and include this template in your rule. The tag will be assigned to reviews right after the reply is triggered.

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.

💡 If the selected Reply Template was set up to work for specific apps only, then the Auto-reply rule will also work only for the apps selected in the Reply Template settings.

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.

💡 Create Template Folders for different topics and languages. This will allow you to have a solid collection of ready-to-go replies for any situation.

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"

💡 By default, all accounts have a standard "Report a Concern" Template Folder that you can use for Auto-reply rules. If you deleted yours by mistake, you can create a new set of templates for each of these situations. Need the original messages? Just send us a message at help@appfollow.io and we'll be happy to share them with you.

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.

Make sure you have set up the reply rules correctly before choosing this mode!

Learn more about conditions in our article on Auto-tags and Auto-replies: Advanced Conditions.

Need more info? Click on the Support beacon in the bottom right corner – we're here to help!