Create a Retrospective Invitation campaign

In this article, you'll learn how to create a Retrospective Invitation campaign and its importance. We'll help you create a list of past customers and provide step-by-step instructions on how to send invites to them.

What is a Retrospective Invitation campaign?

The aim of the betterbunch game is to follow up with every customer after a job is complete.

We believe the best place to begin is by sending a feedback invitation to every customer you have serviced in the past 12 - 24 months asking for their feedback and reviews. 

We call this a retrospective invitation, and trust us; it's a game-changer!

Why send retrospective invitations?

Although it has been some time since your last interaction with these customers, they may still have valuable experiences to share. Sending a feedback invitation to them now can lead to a surge in positive reviews.

A Retrospective Invitation campaign can also help highlight any problems you may have overlooked recently, giving you the chance to save repeat business.

Just look at how Mowbray Automotive received 100+ Google reviews with their Retrospective Invitation campaign. 

How to create a Retrospective invitation campaign.

1. Prepare a list of customers you've worked with over the past 12 to 24 months.
2. Format the list.
3. Send the invitations by uploading the list to your betterbunch account.

To watch an overview of how to set up a Retrospective Invitation Campaign, check out the video below:

Step 1: Prepare a list of past customers 

To begin your Retrospective Invitation campaign, we need to compile a list of historical customers. We recommend that this list contain every customer you have serviced in the past 12 to 24 months. 

The list of customers needs to be in a spreadsheet similar to the example below and include their first name, mobile number and/or email address.

Most job management and invoicing platforms offer the capability to export customer data in formats such as Excel, Google Sheets, or CSV. We highly recommend obtaining your Retrospective customer list directly from your software provider whenever possible, as this approach can save you significant time and effort compared to creating the list manually.

If you need assistance downloading a list of your recent customers from your software platform, consider reaching out to your software support team with the email template provided below.

"Hey team,
I was hoping you could help me out.
We want to download a list of every client we've serviced in the past 12 months. Can you please help us generate this list? For reference, here's an example of what it needs to look like. 
It needs to be in Excel, Google Sheets or .csv format and contain:

a) The customer's first name
b) Their email address
c) Their mobile phone number

Step 2: Format the list 

Before sending your Retrospective invitations, it’s important to ensure that the list exported from your job management provider is clean and properly formatted. Please take a moment to review the necessary betterbunch terms and requirements for your Retrospective list outlined below.

CSV. file format

Your data spreadsheet must be saved in CSV (comma-separated value) format for it to be accepted.

Column headers

Row 1 of your spreadsheet must contain column headers. Colum headers help betterbunch identify which column contains the data that corresponds to the matching field in your invitations.

The headers are case-insensitive, and do not require a space in between. For example, 'Email Address' and 'emailaddress' are both acceptable. 

Acceptable names include: 

• 'Name', 'first name', 'recipient name' or 'customer name' 
• 'Email' or 'email address'
• 'Phone', 'phone number', 'mobile' or 'mobile number' 

Accurate customer names 

Your customer will be addressed by the name displayed in the name column. Therefore, we recommend including first names only to help personalise your invitations.

If the spreadsheet includes both first and last names or other titles, such as Mrs in the name column, we suggest removing these.

Accepted phone number format 

betterbunch can send SMS invitations to any New Zealand or Australian phone numbers as long as they are in one of the below formats.

• +642xxx (with the NZ dialling code)
• +614xxx (with the AUS dialling code)
• 02xxxxx (without the dialling code)
• 2xxxxxx (without '0' before the number)

Required data

To be accepted, a CSV file must contain a column header for 'Name' as well as a 'Phone' or 'Email'. While including both a Phone and Email header is not mandatory, having at least one of them is required for the file to be accepted.

If information is missing for an individual contact, it is acceptable to leave a cell empty. For instance, one contact may have a name and phone but no email, while other contacts in the CSV file contain a name, email, and phone. 

Step 3: Send your invites by uploading your Retrospective list 

Now that you've created a list of past customers and formatted the list to suit, it's time to press play on your Retrospective Invite campaign. Follow the steps below to upload your CSV file:

1. Log in to betterbunch and navigate to the bulk upload page
2. Upload your customer list by clicking browse and selecting your Retrospective CSV file
3. Before you click send, we suggest editing your text message to suit your brand tone and customer journey. This is a great way to increase interactions with your invites.
   
   1. Click Edit Invitation
   2. From the Select a Template dropdown, choose Custom 1, and type the message you'd like to send. The invitation will appear on the display phone on the right side of the screen. Feel free to copy and paste our example below. 
      
      Hi {recipient_name}! {business_name} here.
      
      We know it's been a while, but we'd appreciate it if you could take 1 minute to share your experience with us through the link below -
      
      {invitation_url}
      
      Every review has a big impact, so thank you for taking the time to support us. 
      
      
   3. Click Update for this send only to save your changes. 
4. Similarly, consider changing your email invitation template to something more 'on-brand' too. 
   1. Click Edit Invitation, then navigate to the email template tab and type your message. Feel free to copy and paste the example below. 
      
      Hi {recipient_name}, 
      
      Thanks for choosing us for your job. We know it has been a while, but we're very interested in hearing your thoughts on our service. Your feedback can help us grow and improve our offerings, so it's really appreciated. 
      
      Simply click the buttons below to let us know how we did. 
      
      We hope to hear from you again soon, 
      The {business_name} team 
      
      
   2. Click Update for this send only to save your changes.
      
      
5. Lucky last, select Send Invitations. We suggest choosing to send your invitation later and opting to send it at the best time in 24 hours. We monitor when your customers are more likely to interact with your invitations to help increase your conversion rates. 
6. Done!

Happy inviting!