Service reminders and review requests

Both human-run worklists remain: an advisor can draft one service reminder or press Ask for a review. A shop may also open Settings › Automatic messages and turn on Service due or Review request. Each automatic event has its own channel, delay and template, and each starts off until the shop turns it on. The global pause switch stops both without changing their saved settings.

Turning service reminders on

Calendar reminders are off until you pick a cadence. That is deliberate: a shop that has not chosen an interval gets no reminders invented on its behalf. A mileage reminder someone set on a vehicle still appears when its mileage comes due.

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   Step 1: Open Reminders

   Go to CRM › Reminders. While reminders are off, the page says so and, for an owner or manager, shows the one choice that turns them on.

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   Step 2: Pick an interval

   Choose 3 months, 6 months or 12 months under Remind about a car after and press Turn on reminders. Cars whose last finished repair order is older than the interval appear straight away. The same one-line form stays above the list to change the interval or choose Off again.

   

The same setting is also on Shop settings, under Service reminder interval; the two are one setting, so changing either changes both. A service advisor or front desk without settings access sees the list but not the switch, and the page names who can change it.

The list maintains itself. It is derived from your finished tickets on every load, so nobody files a reminder and nobody has to remember to close one: a car that comes back for service closes its own row as booked. Only work your shop actually finished counts — imported history from a previous system never invents a due date, and a car you have never completed a job on never appears.

A reminder can also carry an odometer target, such as due at 65,000 mi. Torqix compares that target with the latest reading on the vehicle and compares the calendar target with today. Whichever one is first observed as due opens the reminder, and the row keeps whether the date or mileage fired it. A corrected odometer reading does not rewrite why an advisor originally saw the row. If there is no odometer reading, the mileage target waits; the calendar target can still come due on its own. This is the latest mileage saved on the vehicle, not a live connection to its dashboard, so it can be as old as the last manual, imported, or repair-order reading.

Working the reminders list

Each row is one decision: do we reach out about this car. Three ways to answer it:

Draft reminder

Writes the text — the customer's name, the car, your shop's name, and an offer to get it on the schedule — and drops it into the ordinary message composer. You read it, change anything you like, and press send yourself. Customers whose preferred language is Spanish get the Spanish wording. While your online booking page is on, the text ends with its link so the customer can pick a time; with booking off it simply asks.

Snooze

Snooze 1 month or Snooze 3 months hides the row for a month or three; it comes back on its own when the time is up.

Set mileage

Set mileage takes a whole-mile odometer target, such as 65,000, and arms the row so it comes due when the car's recorded mileage passes it or its date arrives, whichever is first; the row then says which one fired. An empty value clears the target. The target only becomes an automatic message when Service due is separately turned on under Settings › Automatic messages.

Dismiss

Takes the car off the list for good, with an optional note saying why. A dismissed car does not creep back next month — “stop asking about this car” is a person's decision about a customer, and time passing does not overrule it. It returns only after the car actually comes in again and another interval passes.

One handled reminder per visit is the contract. A manual draft closes the row immediately; a successful automatic delivery closes it as reminded. It returns only after the next finished visit plus the interval. Customers somebody marked as departed are excluded from the audience automatically, and the page says how many.

Set up Google reviews

Open CRM › Reviews. The screen opens with Google reviews. Under Your Google review link, use the link Google already gives your shop. Torqix does not need a Places API key or permission to your Google account to send somebody to that page.

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   Step 1: Open your Google Business Profile

   Search your shop's name on Google while signed in, or open Google Business Profile at business.google.com.

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   Step 2: Copy the review link

   Choose Ask for reviews in the profile and copy the link Google shows. Google's own steps: Create a link to request reviews.

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   Step 3: Paste and save it

   Paste the link under Your Google review link and press Save review settings. A bare Google Place ID beginning with ChIJ works too; Torqix turns it into Google's full write-review link. Test the link opens the saved destination in a new tab.

   

Google's g.page review links, Google write-review links and maps.app.goo.gl share links all work. An https link to Yelp, Facebook or another review service is allowed too; the screen says This is not a Google review link so the shop knows what it saved. Torqix refuses non-https and javascript links because this address goes straight into a customer text.

Asking for a review

On a finished ticket the review ask is one tap. On a paid repair order, press Ask for a review on the rail under the paid line, and that human click sends the saved message through the ordinary text path. The recent-customer list below uses the same action. Before the button lights up, four things have to be true, and when one is not, the button itself tells you which:

• The ticket is paid or closed. A quote is a price, not a visit, and an open ticket is not a finished experience to ask about.
• A review link is set. Shop settings calls it Review link, and the guided field on the reviews screen is Your Google review link — your Google, Yelp or Facebook review page, wherever you want the customer to land. It has to start with https: a plain-http link in a stranger's phone is the shape of a scam.
• The customer has a number that agreed to texts. Consent has no override here either.
• It has been at least 90 days since this customer was last asked — counted across every location in your organisation, because a person asked by two branches three weeks apart experiences it as the same shop texting twice.

The optional automatic path is separate. Turn on Review request under Settings › Automatic messages and choose its channel and delay. It considers invoices only after they are paid in full, and stands down for an open dispute or comeback, a review-safety refusal, the 90-day customer cooldown, missing consent, or demo data. Its {link} is always the shop's saved review destination.

The standard message is Hi {first}, thanks for choosing {shop}! If we earned it, a quick Google review helps a lot: {link}. The wording is yours to change. Open CRM › Reviews and edit Review request message: {first} becomes the customer's first name (or “there” for a walk-in with no name on file), {shop} your shop's name, and {link} the review link — which every template must include, because an ask with nowhere to go is worse than not asking. Leave the box blank to use the standard wording, and the What the customer gets preview shows exactly what will land on a phone, rendered by the same code the send uses. This is the manual ask's wording. The automatic event has its own template under Settings › Automations and may use {first}, {shop}, {vehicle} and {link}.

Ask recent customers

The Ask recent customers list on CRM › Reviews is another door to the same ask — not a second sending system. Under Paid in the last, choose 7 days, 30 days or 90 days, then press Show customers. The choice stays in the page address, so the list works with JavaScript off and can be bookmarked.

Ready to ask

The row names the customer, repair order and paid date and offers Ask for a review. Pressing it uses the same consent check, 90-day cooldown, text send and request record as the button on the repair order.

No texting consent

The customer stays visible with No texting consent and no ask button. The list never treats a phone number as permission and offers no override.

Asked recently

A customer already asked inside the 90-day cooldown stays visible with the existing delivery state. There is no second ask button until the cooldown has passed.

What the reviews screen shows

The Reviews screen under CRM is the record of the program: Asked, Wrote back and Last asked, over the last 90 days, plus every ask with the words that went out and whether the carrier took them. “Wrote back” means the customer sent any inbound text within 14 days of the ask — it is an honest signal that the message landed, not proof that anybody posted a review.