Reply autopilot

Reply autopilot is off until you turn it on, so every reply waits for you to approve it. If you turn it on, Chiffchaff drafts a reply to a 4 or 5 star Google review and schedules it to post after a hold. Until then you can stop it, edit it or post it straight away. Everything else still waits for you.

Settings

Autopilot is off unless you turn it on. Owners and managers turn it on or off in Settings → All settings → Replies:

• Reply autopilot for 4 and 5 star reviews: on or off. Off to start.
• Which reviews autopilot replies to: 4 and 5 stars, or 5 stars only.
• Hold before an autopilot reply posts: 1, 4, 12, 24 or 48 hours. The default is 24.

Turning autopilot off, or switching to 5 stars only, stops the replies already scheduled that no longer fit.

To change it for one location, open the location from Locations and use Reply autopilot at this location: same as the business setting, on at this location, or off at this location.

Reviews that always wait for you

Autopilot never replies to:

• 1, 2 or 3 star reviews.
• Reviews on sites other than Google.
• Reviews flagged as possibly breaking Google's rules.
• Reviews that mention something you'll want to answer yourself, whatever the stars: health or safety (such as food poisoning, an injury or an allergy), a refund or money back, damage, a complaint about your staff, a legal claim (a lawyer, suing, or a report to an authority), or discrimination. A 5 star review that says "great food, but I got sick after" waits for you.
• Reviews that aren't in English.
• Reviews you've already started a reply to.
• Reviews more than 14 days old when autopilot first sees them.

A draft that breaks the reply rules, or includes a web address, is never scheduled. When autopilot leaves a review for you, the inbox says why, naming what the review mentions, for example "It mentions an allergy, so it waits for you." While autopilot is off for a location, the inbox doesn't mention autopilot: a sensitive review says "Worth a personal reply: it mentions an injury." instead.

We look for these with a fixed list of words and phrases, not AI, so it works the same way every time. Everyday praise like "killer croissants" or "dying to come back" doesn't count. Now and then a review waits for you that didn't need to; you approve it in one tap.

If the customer edits their review during the hold, the reply is drafted again and the hold starts over.

Knowing what's about to post

Owners and managers with new-review emails on get an email when a reply is scheduled, with a Stop this reply button. In the inbox, the review shows Autopilot · posts and the time.

See Stop a scheduled reply.

When autopilot pauses

If you use all your AI drafts for the month, autopilot pauses until the count resets and owners and managers get an email. Replies already scheduled still post.