Collect and Show Reviews
The best time to ask for a review is a couple of hours after a good appointment, and the hardest part is remembering to do it. The Reviews module asks for you. It emails a private rating link after each completed appointment, lets you moderate what comes back, and shows approved reviews on your site with a block or shortcode.
Turn It On
- Go to Bookings → Settings → Modules, switch on Reviews and click Save modules.
- Go to Bookings → Customers → Reviews and check the Review request email settings.
- Use Mark completed on each appointment as you finish it. That’s the trigger: no completed appointment, no review request.
Set Up the Request Email
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Email a review request after completed appointments | On | Sends one request per completed appointment. |
| Delay (hours) | 2 | How long after completion to send it, from 0 to 720. |
| Link lifetime (days) | 60 | How long the review link works, from 7 to 365. |
| Subject and Message | “How was your {service}?” and a built-in message | Leave blank to use the defaults. A custom message must include {review_url}. |
You can use these placeholders: {name}, {service}, {when}, {staff}, {review_url}, {days} and {site}. Click Save review settings. Saving never sends anything.
The request goes out once. If the appointment is reopened before the delay is up, nothing is sent. Prefer to ask from an automation instead? The Automations module’s {review_url} placeholder gives the same link, so turn the built-in email off to avoid asking twice. See Automations.
What the Customer Sees
The link opens a private page, Rate your appointment. The customer picks 1 to 5 stars (Very poor to Excellent), can add an optional comment of up to 2,000 characters, and can tick “You may show my rating and comment on this website with my first name and last initial.” Then they click Send review.
They can change their review with the same link until you approve it or the link expires. The page isn’t indexed by search engines, and the private code in the link never reaches your server logs.
Moderate Reviews
Bookings → Customers → Reviews has four tabs: Waiting for moderation, Approved, Hidden and Requested, not answered. Each review shows the rating, comment, appointment and whether the customer agreed to publication.
- Approve publishes the review, but only if the customer agreed to publication. Without that consent it’s marked private and stays off your site.
- Hide removes it from display and from averages.
- Public reply (shown under the review once approved) adds your answer under the review. Click Save reply.
Ratings by staff member and Ratings by service average every submitted and approved rating and leave hidden ones out. With the Insights module on, ratings by staff for the selected date range also appear in Bookings → Reports.
Show Reviews on Your Site
Add the Booking reviews block, or this shortcode:
[core_bookings_reviews service="2" staff="7" limit="6"]- All three attributes are optional.
serviceandstafftake IDs.limitruns from 1 to 20 and defaults to 6. - It shows only reviews that are approved and consented, newest first, under a summary such as “4.8 out of 5 from 23 reviews”.
- Each review shows the stars, the comment, the first name and last initial, the date and any reply.
See it on the demo reviews page.
Good to Know
- There’s one review per booking. A recurring series gets one per session marked completed.
- Once approved, the customer can’t change the review.
- Erasing a customer’s data removes their name, email, comment and reply and withdraws publication. The bare rating stays so averages remain correct.
- Prefer a testimonials plugin for display? Developers can hand approved reviews to it and turn the built-in block off with the hooks in Hooks and Filters.