Instagram comment-to-DM automation for restaurants, salons, gyms, and clinics
A local business doesn't need viral comment volume for a manual reply-and-DM routine to break down — it just needs someone checking Instagram between customers instead of throughout the day. A comment asking for your menu, your price list, or a booking link at 11pm gets answered whenever you next open the app, which might be tomorrow. By then the person's often booked with whoever replied first.
Dartzo answers it the moment the comment lands — no phone in hand required. You set up the keyword and the DM once per post, and it keeps working on every post you tag with it, at whatever hour the comment arrives.
The setup
- Pick the post and the keywordA photo of your menu, your space, or a before/after — and the word you ask people to comment: "MENU", "BOOK", "PRICE". Mark it to apply to your next post so a new photo doesn't need new setup.
- Write the DM onceText, your link — a booking page, a PDF menu, a price list — and up to three buttons. A public reply under the comment lets other people scrolling the same post see that DMs are how to get the info.
- Lead capture, if you want to follow up yourselfTurn it on to collect an email or ask a qualifying question in-thread before the link goes out, with CSV export so the list lands somewhere you can actually call or email people from.
- What the fan seesA comment, a quick public reply, and a DM with your link — arriving whether it's the middle of a lunch rush or the middle of the night, without anyone on your end noticing it happened.
What to write
| Comment keyword | What the DM says | Where it sends them |
|---|---|---|
| MENU | "Here's our full menu — see you soon! [link]" | A PDF or web menu |
| BOOK | "Booking link's below — pick whatever slot suits you. [link]" | An appointment booking page |
| PRICE | "Full price list is here, no surprises. [link]" | A pricing page or PDF |
What to expect
At the volume a local account usually sees, sends go out in seconds — the pacing and queueing rules that matter for a viral post rarely come into play here. What matters more is the reply window: Instagram gives roughly 7 days to reply to a post or Reel comment, 24 hours for a story reply or mention, and exactly one private reply per comment, ever. A DM keyword automation, separately, answers someone who messages your account directly rather than commenting.
Every comment that matches shows up in your delivery log with a status — sent, queued, expired, or failed with a reason — so if a customer says "I never got the link," you can check what actually happened instead of guessing whether the automation ran at all.