App stores
App reviews are customer messages that happen to be public. Connecting the stores brings them into the same queue as everything else, so they get answered instead of noticed three weeks later.
Both stores work the same way in FirstReply: a review becomes a conversation, your reply becomes the public developer response, and a review the customer edits later updates the conversation.
Google Play
Google Play does not use OAuth. Instead you grant FirstReply's shared service account permission to reply on your app.
In the Play Console:
- Open Users and permissions.
- Invite
playstore-reviews@firstreply.iam.gserviceaccount.com. - Give it permission to reply to reviews for the app you want to connect.
In FirstReply:
Add an inbox of type Google Play Store and enter the app's package name,
for example com.example.myapp. That is the only field.
Limits. Replies are capped at 350 characters — by far the tightest limit of any channel — and are plain text. Google also allows only one response per review: editing it replaces the previous response rather than adding to it.
At 350 characters, an answer has room for one point. Acknowledge the problem, name the fix or the next step, and stop.
Apple App Store
The App Store uses a per-app API key that you create yourself.
In App Store Connect:
- Open Users and Access → Integrations.
- Create an API key with the App Manager role.
- Note the Issuer ID and the Key ID, and download the
.p8private key file. Apple lets you download it exactly once.
In FirstReply:
Add an inbox of type Apple App Store and fill in:
| Field | Where to find it |
|---|---|
| App Apple ID | The numeric id under App Information in App Store Connect |
| App name | Whatever you want the inbox labelled |
| Issuer ID | Users and Access → Integrations |
| Key ID | The id of the key you created |
| Private key | The contents of the downloaded .p8 file |
The private key is encrypted before storage and never shown again.
Limits. Replies are capped at 5,970 characters and are plain text. Like Google, Apple allows one response per review.
Answering reviews well
Reviews are read by people deciding whether to install your app, which makes them a different job from a support ticket even though they arrive in the same list.
Give them their own classification. Reviews rarely fit the categories you built for email, and a separate one lets you attach a prompt that knows the reply is public and short.
Prefer drafts to automatic replies. A public, permanent, one-shot response is the worst place for an automated answer that misses the point.
Answer the one-star reviews first. They are the ones prospective users read, and a specific reply changes how the review lands even when it does not change the rating.
Do not ask for the rating to be changed. Both stores discourage it, and it reads badly in public.