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If your helpdesk is not listed in AppReply, you can still send reviews to it, as long as it turns incoming email into tickets. AppReply emails each review you choose to your helpdesk’s address, and the review arrives as a ticket. Your agent answers it like any other ticket, by email, and AppReply posts that answer to the store as your reply to the review. There is no API key, no app to install and no sign-in. All AppReply needs is one email address. You can also point it at a shared inbox that your support team reads, and answer reviews from there. Freshdesk, Help Scout and Front have their own options and pages: see Freshdesk, Help Scout and Front. Salesforce has its own page too: see Salesforce. For any other helpdesk, such as Helpshift, Kustomer or Usedesk, use Other helpdesk or inbox. We have not tested those helpdesks on a real account.

Before you start

  • The address your helpdesk turns into tickets, or a shared inbox your support team reads. Use an inbox only your support team can read, never a mailing list with a public archive.
  • Someone who can open the confirmation email at that address and press Accept.
  • No automatic replies for these emails. Switch off acknowledgements (“we received your request”), “solved” notices and satisfaction surveys for these tickets where you can. AppReply ignores automatic mail it can recognise, but anything your helpdesk sends back above the review could otherwise be posted.
Any AppReply plan can connect a helpdesk by email. Ticket rules need the Pro plan. Create ticket on a single review does not.

Connect your helpdesk

1

Open the connect window

In AppReply, go to Integrations (in the Apps section of the sidebar) and click Connect in the Helpdesk connections section (or Connect your first helpdesk). The Connect helpdesk window lists the helpdesks. Scroll down and choose Other helpdesk or inbox.
The Connect helpdesk window: Choose a helpdesk, with Zendesk, Intercom, Salesforce, Freshdesk, Help Scout and Front in a list that scrolls to Other helpdesk or inbox
2

Paste the address and send the confirmation

The window is titled Connect another helpdesk or inbox. Paste the address into Email address and click Send confirmation.
The address step for another helpdesk or inbox: find the address your helpdesk turns into tickets, or use a shared inbox, and paste it here. The Email address field with support@yourcompany.com.
Under the field, the window reminds you to use an inbox only your support team can read, to have people remove their signature, to switch off automatic replies, and that replies to Huawei AppGallery and RuStore reviews are not taken by email. AppReply then shows Check your inbox: the confirmation email arrives as a new email. Click Done. The connection is listed under Helpdesk connections with the status Waiting for confirmation.
3

Accept the confirmation

Open the confirmation email, “Confirm AppReply reviews for this address”, and click Accept the integration. A page asks “Send app reviews from” your workspace “to this address?”. Press Accept. The page says Confirmed.
The AppReply page behind the confirmation link: Send app reviews from AppReply to this address?, the address, and the Accept button
Opening the link is not enough: press Accept. The link works for 7 days. No review is sent to the address before it is confirmed.
4

Check the connection

Back in AppReply, the connection shows Active and a Verify button.
While the status is Waiting for confirmation, the card shows Send again in place of Verify. Click it to email a new confirmation link.

Send reviews to your helpdesk

There are two ways to send a review. Both send the same email.
  • Ticket rules send every review that matches their conditions. Go to Ticket rules on the Integrations page, click Create Rule and choose this connection as the Helpdesk connection. See Helpdesk ticket rules.
  • Create ticket sends one review. On a review card for one of your own apps, click Create ticket, pick the helpdesk under Helpdesk if you have more than one, and click Create ticket.
Each review comes from its own sender address, so each reviewer becomes a contact in your helpdesk.

What the review email contains

  • A first line that starts with ## Reply above this line ##. AppReply uses it to find your reply. Don’t delete it.
  • The star rating and the app, the review title and text, a translation when there is one, the author, the date, the app version, the country and the language.
  • An Open in AppReply link to the review.
  • One paragraph of instructions for the agent, with the store’s reply length limit.
Review emails come from reviews.appreply.co. If reviews stop arriving, look in your helpdesk’s spam folder and allow that domain.

Reply to a review

Answer with a normal reply to the review email, not an internal note. Write the reply at the top, above the quoted review email, and leave the quoted email in place.
Everything you write above the quoted review email is posted on the store, where anyone can read it. Remove your signature and keep out anything private. A signature after a line with only -- is left out.
Keep the quoted review email below your reply. AppReply finds the reply by the line ## Reply above this line ## in the quoted email. If you delete the quote, send from a “reply without the original” option or paste your answer into a new email, AppReply cannot tell which part is the reply. The reply is refused, and the note says “AppReply could not tell which part of your email is the reply, because nothing AppReply sent is quoted below it.”
Wait a couple of minutes after the ticket arrives. A reply that reaches AppReply within about two minutes of the review email is treated as an automatic response and is not posted. See Notes you may get back. AppReply then treats the reply like one typed in the reply box on a review:
  • The review becomes Queued, and Replied once the store accepts the reply.
  • The responder is shown as the sender’s name followed by (email).
  • The ticket in AppReply is marked Resolved. AppReply does not change the ticket in your helpdesk.
  • The reply counts towards your plan’s replies for the period, like any other reply.
To change a reply, reply again. The newer reply replaces the earlier one. Replies can only be posted for your own apps, and the app must be connected to its store in AppReply.

Reply length limits

Huawei AppGallery and RuStore

These two stores don’t allow a reply to be changed once it is posted. A review from them still arrives as a ticket, but the email says that a reply to it is not posted, and to answer in AppReply. A reply sent anyway is refused with a note. This holds for Freshdesk, Help Scout and Front too. Only Salesforce posts replies to these stores by email.

Notes you may get back

When AppReply can’t post a reply, it sends a short email back to the same ticket. It starts with “AppReply did not post your reply.” and says why, for example “Your reply is 439 characters. Google Play allows up to 350. Send a shorter reply.” It ends with “To send a reply, answer this email or the review email, with your reply at the top.” So the agent replies again on the same ticket with the corrected text. Answering the note itself works. AppReply sends at most 5 notes for one ticket a day. Common reasons:
  • The reply is longer than the store takes. See the limits.
  • Your plan’s replies for this period are used up.
  • The app’s store connection is broken.
  • The reply arrived within two minutes of the review email. It looks like an automatic response, so it was not posted. If a person wrote it, wait a little and send it again. The ticket gets this note once; after that, an early reply is ignored without a note.
  • The quoted review email is missing, so AppReply could not tell which part of your email is the reply. Reply again with the quoted original left below your text.
  • Nothing was typed above the review. An empty reply is not posted.
  • The reply contains the made-up name the review email was sent under, such as “Dana Reyes Google Play review”. Only a template writes that, so the note says which name to remove.
Some notes can’t be answered by email, because another email can’t fix the reason: the store takes no reply by email (Huawei AppGallery and RuStore), the app is not one of your own, or the review is gone. Those notes give the reason and do not ask you to answer. When the store refuses a reply after AppReply accepted it, the note says “Open the review in AppReply to see it and try again.” That note can’t be answered by email either. AppReply ignores automatic mail it recognises, such as out-of-office replies and ticket acknowledgements, and anything that arrives within 30 seconds of one of its notes. It does not send a note for those.

Edited reviews

If the author edits a review that was already sent, AppReply sends it again with [UPD] at the start of the subject. Whether your helpdesk adds it to the same ticket depends on the helpdesk.

Disconnect

Click the trash icon on the connection card. The card warns: “Replies to review emails already sent will stop posting.” Confirm to disconnect. Nothing in your helpdesk is changed.

What it does not do

  • No status sync. AppReply does not see or change the ticket’s status in your helpdesk.
  • No posting without the confirmation. No review is sent before someone presses Accept.
  • One connection per helpdesk option per workspace. You can connect several different helpdesks at once, and if two rules match a review, both helpdesks get it.

Questions

No. You need the address your helpdesk turns into tickets, and someone who can open a ticket there to press Accept.
No. It only receives the emails agents send in reply to its own review emails.
Yes. Connect Other helpdesk or inbox with that mailbox’s address. Addresses on AppReply’s own domains are refused.
Use Other helpdesk or inbox. It works with any helpdesk that makes a ticket from an email and lets agents answer by email.
Everything above the quoted email is posted. Remove the signature before sending, or put it after a line with only --. To change a posted reply, reply again.

Set up ticket rules

Configure which reviews are sent to your helpdesk