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Google review touchpoint - Add Google reviews to the Hello Customer platform
It is possible to integrate your Google reviews directly into the Hello Customer platform. In the near future, it will even possible to reply to this reviews from the platform. This will be activated upon request.
IMPORTANT
Access to your own Google business account and someone internally who can manage it is necessary to be able to set up this integration.
IN THIS ARTICLE
1. Configuration in your Google business account
First of all, surf to https://console.cloud.google.com/ and login to your account. To be able to connect your Google business account with Hello Customer, you need to set up a Google service account and to activate the correct Google API's. The Google service account is used within the touchpoint to call the API's and retrieve the information needed.
Google service account
- Step 1: Add a service account in your Google business environment
- Go to IAM & Admin > Service accounts OR use the direct URL: https://console.cloud.google.com/iam-admin/serviceaccounts
- Click "Add service account" and follow the steps.
- Step 2: Grant access to Google my business profile(s)
- Step 3: Create the JSON for the service account to use in Hello Customer
- Click on the three dots (⋮) on the right and select "Manage keys".
- Click "Add Key" > "Create new key".
- Choose JSON as the key type.
- Click "Create". The JSON file will immediately download in your browser.
- Step 4: Grant the service account access to your business account
- Go to business.google.com.
- Log in using the Google account that owns or manages the business location.
- Select the business profile.
- In the left menu, click “Users”.
- Click “Add users”.
- Paste the service account email address (e.g.,
my-service-account@my-project.iam.gserviceaccount.com). - Choose a role:
- Manager – usually sufficient for adding reviews
- Owner – can add replies to the reviews (so only necessary if you want to make use of this future feature)
One touchpoint is linked to one business account, but a service account can be used for multiple business accounts, for example if you have an account per country.
Google API calls
- Step 1: File a request to Google to make use of their API calls via this form. Once they approve your request, you can continue with the next steps.
- Step 2: Activate the necessary API's
- Go to API's & Services > Enabled APIs & services
- Click "Enable APIs and services"
- Look for following APIs and add them
- My Business Account Management API
- My Business Business Information API
- Step 3: Request higher quota for your API's
- Click on the respective API's in the Enabled API's & Services overview
- Go to Quotas and system limits
- Click the three dots next to "requests per minute" > Edit quota
- Fill out the value. If necessary, apply for higher quota.
2. Set up Google review touchpoint in Hello Customer
To start adding your Google reviews to Hello Customer, create a new touchpoint starting from the homepage and choose touchpoint type "Google Review touchpoint".
The set up of this touchpoint is rather limited and contains the following steps:
a. Settings
b. Google Access
c. Locations
d. Publish
2a. Settings
| Touchpoint details | Provide a name and description for your touchpoint |
| Team access | Link your touchpoint to a team. This can be an existing team you already use for other touchpoints or a new team. Choosing the team is important for the third step: Locations. In that step, you will be able to link your Google locations to the teams in the Hello Customer platform. Learn more about teams here. |
| Context | Select the right sector to make sure the text analysis is adjusted to your company context. |
2b. Google Access
In this step, you're going to link your Google Business Account with Hello Customer.
| Google credentials | Provide your business account ID. You cannot use the same business account ID for multiple touchpoints. Copy paste the full JSON of your service account you generated in the Google cloud console - see above. |
| Start date of the Google review import | Choose from which date onwards the Google reviews need to be imported. You can go as far back as 1/1/2022. The first time your touchpoint is published, all reviews from the chosen date onwards will be added to Hello Customer. Afterwards, every day at 12:00 and 00:00, new reviews will be added. |
2c. Locations
In the locations step, your Google locations can be linked to Hello Customer teams. You'll see a list of all your locations.
IMPORTANT
- You can only link locations to the lowest-level teams (units) that are part of the team you assigned to the touchpoint in the Settings step
- Several locations can be linked to the same team unit.
- Only reviews for linked locations will be imported into Hello Customer.
There are two ways to link teams:
Manually:
By clicking the link icon next to the location name, a modal opens where you can select an existing team unit or add a new one to link the location to.
- Once a location is linked, you can unlink it by clicking the icon again.
- Via file upload
- Click "Upload CSV to link IDs"
- A screen opens where you can download two files:
- Google locations: contains an overview of all your Google locations
- Teams: contains an overview of all the team units - with their Unique IDs - to which locations can be linked
- Add the UniqueIDs of the teams in the Google locations file to the correct rows.
- The Google locations will be linked to the team of which you assigned the Unique ID on the same row.
- Google locations for which no team Unique Id is defined, will not be linked to a team.
- Re-upload the file
2d. Publish
Once you complete the previous steps, it's time to publish your touchpoint!
As long as your touchpoint is online, reviews will be added to the platform every day at 00:00 and 12:00.
3. Good to know
- Reviews are imported every day at 00:00 and at 12:00. Reviews are only imported for the Google locations that are linked to a Hello Customer team.
- If a review on Google is written in a language that is not supported in Hello Customer, the review will be added in English. Google provides a translation for all reviews.
- If a customer updates their review, the updated version will be added to the Hello Customer platform too. In this case, the same customer will have two reviews:
- One on the original date and the original text
- One with the updated text displayed on the date they updated the review