Review requests and the review funnel
Ask customers for a review by text or email, share your review funnel link and QR code, and keep your contacts in one list.
Customer Outreach is where you get more reviews: a review funnel link and QR code that send customers to your review sites, review requests that ask customers by text or email, and the contact list those requests go to. Open it from Customer Outreach in the sidebar.
Before you begin
- Connect at least one review site to the location (see Getting started). The funnel needs somewhere to send happy customers, and a review request cannot be sent until the location has one.
- Review requests by email and SMS are included on Professional and Enterprise, and during your free trial. Each message sent costs 1 credit.
- The review funnel, its QR code, private feedback and your contacts are on every plan: Starter, Professional and Enterprise.
- To send requests automatically after each sale, connect Square in Settings > Locations.
Find your way around Customer Outreach
The page is titled Outreach and has three tabs: Review requests, Review funnel and Contacts. It opens on the tab you used last.
The strip at the top of the page counts what your outreach did over the period it names: Sent, Open rate, Reviews collected and QR scans. QR scans are counted for the whole account, so when you filter to one location that tile is marked All locations.
If your plan does not include review requests, the Review requests tab shows what they do and how to upgrade, and the page opens on Review funnel instead.
How the review funnel works
Your review funnel is a short page on your customer's phone. A customer reaches it by scanning your QR code, opening your funnel link, or pressing the link in a review request.
- The customer sees your location's name and How was your experience?, with three answers: Great, OK and Poor.
- Great takes them to Glad you enjoyed it!, which lists your review sites. They pick one and leave their review there.
- OK or Poor opens a short private note to you, with a box for what went wrong and optional contact details. The same review sites are listed under it, so they can still post publicly if they prefer.
Every customer can reach your review sites, whatever they answer. Asking only happy customers for reviews is against the rules of the major review sites, so the funnel never hides them.
A private note lands in your Inbox. Choose Private feedback in the site filter to see only those. If the customer left an email address or phone number and ticked that it is OK to contact them, you can follow up.
Share your review funnel
- In Customer Outreach, open the Review funnel tab.
- Under Your QR Code, pick the Location. Each location has its own code and link.
- Share it one of these ways:
- Press Copy to copy the link, then paste it into your website, social media or a receipt.
- Press PNG or SVG to download the QR code for a table tent, a poster or a sign. The SVG stays sharp at any size.
- Press Print to print the code with your location's name and "Scan to leave a review" under it.
If the tab says Your funnel isn't live yet, the location has no review site connected. Press Connect a platform and connect one.
Choose which review sites the funnel shows
Funnel Settings on the same tab lists the review sites a funnel can show. A connected site reads Connected · shown in funnel; press Connect beside one to add it.
To change the order, scroll to Customer Preview, open Happy Path and drag the rows in the phone into the order you want. Customer Preview shows exactly what a customer sees, screen by screen (Sentiment Check, Happy Path and Unhappy Path).
If no site is connected yet, every customer is sent to a Google search for your business instead.
Add your contacts
Contacts is your customer list: everyone you can send a review request to. You can add people one at a time, import a spreadsheet, or let your point of sale add them.
Add one contact
- In the Contacts tab, press Add contact.
- Type the First Name, and an Email or a Phone (at least one of the two). Write the phone number however you like; it is converted to a standard format when you save.
- Under Consent, tick SMS consent only if this person has agreed in writing to receive texts from your business, and Email consent if they agreed to emails.
- Press Add Contact.
Import a spreadsheet
- Save your list as a CSV file with a header row. Include a first_name column (and last_name) or a single name column, plus email and phone.
- To put people on lists as they arrive, add a lists column with the list names separated by semicolons, such as
VIPs; Lunch crowd. A list you do not have yet is created. - Press Import CSV, then Choose CSV file. You see a preview, and any row with a phone number that cannot be read is named so you can fix it.
- Under SMS Consent Notice, choose whether everyone in the file has given express written consent to be contacted, or whether to import them for email only (no texts).
- Press Import. The button says how many contacts it will add.
From your point of sale. With Square connected, new customers from your sales are added to your contacts automatically, and your customer groups there appear as lists marked with a shop icon. You can send to those lists, but they are kept in step with your point of sale, so you edit them there rather than here.
Use the chips above the table to filter: All, each of your lists, Unsubscribed (people who opted out), and Check number, which appears when some phone numbers could not be read and those people cannot be texted. Open one to correct it. Press New list to group contacts by hand.
Send one customer their own review link
To ask a single customer yourself, by WhatsApp or from your own phone say, press the link button on their row in Contacts (Get review link), then Generate review link. The link is copied, ready to paste, and it opens your review funnel. Under Review links you can see whether they opened it, reviewed, or sent private feedback. This works on every plan and spends nothing.
Create a review request
A review request is a message, its wording and its sending rules, saved under a name. You create it once and send it as often as you like.
- In Customer Outreach, press New review request. The Review Request Editor opens.
- Give it a Request name, such as "Post-visit follow-up".
- Under Trigger Type, choose:
- Automatic to send it after each new sale your point of sale records, or
- One-time send to choose who gets it and when, yourself. No point of sale is needed.
- Under Channel, choose Email or SMS.
- Write the message, or leave it empty to use the standard wording. For an email, fill in the Subject Line and the Message Body. For a text, write up to 500 characters; "Reply STOP to opt out. Msg & data rates may apply." is added to the end of every text for you.
- Add Merge Fields to personalize it: First Name, Last Name, Customer Name, Location Name, Owner Name, Review Link, Unsubscribe Link, and in an email a Review Button. Each is replaced with the customer's or your details when the message goes out.
- Under Review Request Settings, pick the Location (when you have more than one) and set the sending rules (see Sending rules).
- Check the Live Preview beside the form, on Desktop or Mobile.
- Press Save. The request is saved as a draft.
To check a message on your own phone or inbox, save it, then press Test Send and type your email address or phone number.
Hi Jane,
Thanks for visiting Juniper Street Kitchen. We'd love to hear how it went. A quick review really helps us out.
Leave a reviewSend a review request
A one-time send goes out when you send it:
- In the Review requests tab, press Send on the request's row.
- Choose a Contact List, or pick Individuals by name.
- Press Send to followed by the number of contacts.
You see how many it was sent to, and how many were skipped. Contacts are skipped when they opted out, have not agreed to that channel, or were sent a request too recently.
If you send outside the request's send window, you are asked first: press Queue for followed by a time to send it when the window next opens, or Send now to send anyway.
An automatic request sends itself. Press Activate on its row and every new sale your point of sale records becomes a request to that customer, after the delay you set and within your send window.
Manage your requests from the row: History shows each message sent, Edit opens the editor, and you can pause an active request, resume a paused one, or archive one you no longer need. The status filter above the table shows All, Active, Draft, Paused or Archived. The Shareable links row pinned below the table collects the review links you generate for single contacts; it is not a request you send.
Sending rules
These keep requests polite and legal. You set the first four in Review Request Settings.
- Delay (minutes): how long after a sale an automatic request waits.
- Frequency Cap (days): the least time between two requests to the same customer. Someone asked more recently is skipped, on automatic and one-time sends alike.
- Send Window Start and Send Window End, in the request's Timezone: the hours a request may go out. A request due outside them waits for the window to open.
- Send follow-ups: when it is on, a customer who does not respond gets up to 3 reminders, at least 3 days apart. Reminders stop as soon as they leave a review, and if the customer has not agreed to the request's channel, a reminder uses the other one when they agreed to that, and is not sent when they agreed to neither.
- Consent: a text goes only to a contact with SMS consent, and an email only to one with email consent.
- Opting out: a customer can reply STOP to any text, or press Unsubscribe in any email. STOP ends their texts only, and their emails carry on if they agreed to them. Unsubscribe stops everything: if you have both an email address and a phone number for them, it ends their emails and their texts. Someone who has opted out of both moves to Unsubscribed in your contacts.
- Credits: every message sent, reminders included, costs 1 credit. Test sends and review links you share yourself cost nothing.
What the customer receives
A text arrives with your message (or the standard one, "Hi Jane Smith, thanks for visiting..."), a short link to your review funnel, and the opt-out line.
An email carries your location's name across the top, your message (or the standard greeting with a Leave a review button), and at the bottom a line saying it was sent by your business via GetSetReply, with an unsubscribe link. Without a subject of your own, the subject reads "How was your visit," followed by the customer's name.
Either way, the link opens your review funnel for the location the request belongs to.
Track how requests perform
Outreach Analytics in the sidebar shows how your review requests are doing. It comes with review requests, on Professional and Enterprise.
On the page:
- Audience Growth, Delivery Rate, Click Rate and Conversion Rate across the top.
- Performance Funnel, from sent to delivered to clicked to converted.
- Outreach Sends Over Time, split into Email and SMS, and Channel Performance comparing the two.
- Top Performing Review Requests, your best requests by opens and replies.
Delivery figures depend on what the phone network reports back. When it reports nothing, Delivery Rate reads Not reported rather than a misleading zero.
If something goes wrong
- "No review platforms are connected to this location." A request cannot be sent until the location has a review site connected. Connect one in Settings > Locations, or with Connect a platform on the Review funnel tab.
- Fewer people got the request than you chose. Some were skipped: they opted out, have no consent or no address for that channel, or were asked within the frequency cap. The message after sending says how many.
- A contact shows under Check number. Their phone number could not be read, so they cannot be texted. Open the contact and correct the number.
- The Review requests tab shows an upgrade page. Your plan does not include review requests. Your funnel, QR code and contacts keep working; review requests are on Professional and Enterprise.
- "Unrecognized merge tag". The message has a tag in double braces the product does not know, which would be sent exactly as written. Use one from Merge Fields or remove it.
Related
Review analytics and monthly reports
Read your ratings, sentiment and topics over time on Review Analytics, and generate a printable monthly report for you and your team.
Sales dashboard
See revenue, orders, average order value, tips and your best-selling items, read from the point of sale you connect.