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How review request automation works

Automation emails a customer a short series of review requests after their visit, spaced out over days, and stops as soon as that customer leaves a review. This page explains the moving parts so the rest of this section makes sense. Reading it takes about five minutes.

Email automation requires Trustaroo Premium

Automation lives on the Automation page in Trustaroo. On a free account that page shows an upgrade prompt with a Subscribe Now button instead of the settings, so nothing is sent until you subscribe.

What automation does​

A customer who is already standing at your counter can scan a QR code. A customer who left an hour ago cannot. Automation covers that second group: it emails them a link to your review page a day or two later, and follows up once or twice if they do not respond.

It is not a bulk mailing tool. There is no contact importer, no list upload and no broadcast button. Each contact arrives one at a time, from a system that knows a real transaction happened.

The three panels​

The Automation page is split into three panels, listed down the left side.

  • General Settings turns automation on, picks the fallback location, chooses who sends the email, and holds the inbound webhook URL and webhook secret.
  • Email Sequence is the ordered list of emails. Each step has an order number, a delay in days, a subject and a body.
  • Contacts Queue is the table of customers currently moving through the sequence, with their status and the step they are on.

Where contacts come from​

Contacts enter the queue through an inbound webhook. You copy a URL and a secret from General Settings and give them to whatever system knows that a customer just bought, booked or checked out.

In practice that is one of two things:

Each contact is tied to one location, because the review link in the email is per location. If the incoming request does not name a location, Trustaroo uses the fallback location you picked in General Settings.

When emails go out​

A background job checks the queue every 15 minutes and sends whatever is due.

Delays are counted in whole days. Step 1 counts from the moment the contact entered the queue. Every later step counts from the last email that was actually sent to that contact, not from the entry date, so editing a delay changes the gap after the previous email.

A zero-day delay is not instant

A step with a delay of 0 days goes out on the next run of the background job, so within about 15 minutes. Plan for that when you test.

What stops a sequence​

Three things end the emails for a contact.

  1. They leave a review. The link in the email identifies the contact, so when a rating comes in Trustaroo sets that contact to Unsubscribed and sends nothing further.
  2. The sequence finishes. Once the last step has been sent, the contact becomes Completed.
  3. You remove them. Deleting a contact from the Contacts Queue takes them out entirely.

The first one matters most: it is why a customer who reviews you after email 1 never receives email 2. See Unsubscribes and consent.

Setting it up​

Work through these in order:

  1. Enable automation and pick your settings
  2. Build your email sequence
  3. Choose who sends the emails
  4. Connect Zapier or hand the webhook reference to a developer
Can I upload a list of customers to email?
No. Trustaroo has no contact importer. Contacts enter the queue one at a time through the inbound webhook, usually from Zapier or a direct integration.
Do the automation emails count as marketing email?
They are a request for feedback sent to your own customers, but the same consent and opt-out rules apply. Only email people you have a lawful basis to email.
How many emails should a sequence have?
Two or three is normal. A first request a day or two after the visit, one reminder, and at most one final nudge.
Does a customer who leaves a review still get the reminder?
No. Leaving a review sets that contact to Unsubscribed, so the rest of the sequence is skipped.
Can I use automation on the free plan?
No. The Automation page shows an upgrade prompt on a free account. Automation is part of Trustaroo Premium.