# Ask customers for reviews

> Send review requests by email or text message, one person at a time, from a list or through the API, and see how many lead to a review.

Source: https://docs.bifrostorbit.com/presence/everyone/review-requests/

A review request is a short message with a link to a page for one of your locations. The page shows the review sites you use and a way to tell you privately. Everyone gets the same page, whatever they thought of their visit.

## Ask one person

1. Open **Review requests** and select **Ask for a review**.
2. Enter their name, then their email address or mobile number, such as `+47 912 34 567`.
3. Choose the location they visited, such as Northwilds Oslo, and the language to write in.
4. Under **Why you may contact them**, choose whether they are a customer who just visited or bought, or someone who agreed to hear from you.
5. Select **Ask**.

The message doesn't go out straight away. It waits for the delay after a visit, two hours by default, and never goes out in quiet hours in the location's time zone. A message that falls in quiet hours goes out when they end.

## Upload a list

1. Select **Upload a list**.
2. Choose a CSV file, or paste its contents. The first row names the columns: `name`, `email`, `phone`, `location`, `language` and `visited`. Name and location are needed, with an email address or a phone number. Norwegian headings such as `navn`, `e-post` and `butikk` work too, and so do semicolons.
3. Select **Check the list**. Each row shows whether it can be sent, or why not.
4. Select the **Ask** button, which shows how many people will be asked.

The `location` column takes a location's name, its short name in the address or its code. `visited` is a date such as `2026-10-29`; the delay counts from it.

## Who isn't asked

Presence Orbit checks every request in the same way, whichever way it was made:

- **Opted out:** anyone who unsubscribed, or replied STOP to a text, is never asked again.
- **Asked recently:** nobody is asked twice within the cooldown, 90 days by default.
- **Already waiting:** someone with a request still waiting to be sent isn't asked again.

These show as **Not sent**, with the reason. You can cancel a request that is still waiting from its page.

## Reminders

One reminder follows after three days, unless they already went to a review site, sent private feedback or opted out. You can change the number of days, or switch reminders off, under **Review requests** in the settings.

## What the numbers mean

The top of **Review requests** shows the last 30 days:

- **Sent:** messages that went out.
- **Opened the page:** people who opened the link.
- **Went to a review site:** people who chose Google, Trustpilot or another site.
- **Reviews matched:** reviews that arrived from someone with the same first name within two weeks of going to that site.
- **Private feedback:** people who wrote to you privately instead.

## Text messages

Text messages go through your organisation's own Twilio account, so they come from your number or sender name and you pay Twilio directly. They are in the Growth plan.

1. Open **Review requests** under Settings.
2. Under **Text messages**, enter the Account SID and auth token from the Twilio console, and what to send as: a number, an alphanumeric sender such as Northwilds, or a Messaging Service SID.
3. Choose the region. Ireland keeps your messages in the EU.
4. Select **Check and connect**.

Every text ends with how to stop. People who reply STOP are never texted again.

## Messages

The wording of the email and text is yours to change for each language, under **Messages** in the settings. Use `{first_name}`, `{location}` and `{link}`. In the email, `{link}` becomes the button to the review page. Every email has an unsubscribe link.

## The API

Your own systems can send requests with a secret API key, through `POST /presence/api/v1/organisations/{organisationId}/requests`, up to 100 at a time. It takes the same fields as the list, and answers with the result of each one. The management API is in the Growth plan.

## Why everyone gets the same page

Asking only happy customers for a review, or sending unhappy ones somewhere else, is called review gating. Google forbids it, and consumer law in the EU, the UK and the US treats it as misleading. Presence Orbit has no setting for it: every request leads to the same review sites, with private feedback as an equal choice next to them. Don't offer anything in return for a review either.