There are numerous reasons to why this should be a high priority. For one, the more positive ratings the better the app’s ranking but also because it is important social proof that your app really is worth downloading. Here are some tips to improve on this.
We have all experienced that pop-up asking for a rating and a review. How often do we do anything else on it than press the “x” on the top corner? Personally, not too often. As an app marketer, how could you make it more likely for me to give a rating or a review?
Timing
Firstly, timing. This is key in many cases and especially with games. If the rating prompt shows up after a losing streak, you can bet on getting worse reviews than if it shows up after a winning streak. Additionally, interrupting is generally bad. Find a spot where the user is at a natural “end” of a process, so it doesn’t feel forced and it is not in the middle of a process. It is also good to make sure the prompt doesn’t pop up right as the user is opening the app for the absolute first time when they have barely even made it inside.
Learn from the worst
What comes to feedback in general, unhappy users are most likely to give it. Bad feedback is not something that we love having posted, but those are actually the ones you need to pay attention to and learn from. Always reply to bad reviews as well and make sure to really focus on providing excellent customer service (not over-promising though, that’s not good customer service). You can use the bad reviews for good. Let’s say there is some functionality about the app that continuously gets bad reviews. Use the feedback to make fixes, changes, or whatever it requires and communicate this back to the users. Us humans love having an effect on things and when we feel we’re being heard, it is very gratifying. Being responsive in the reviews is a great way to keep a discussion open with your users. Being personal instead of copy-pasting the same reply to everyone works wonders.
Positive vibes
The real struggle is to activate the app’s lovers to talk about their feelings. Yes, we know, opening up about your feelings is never easy, not even when it comes to confessing your love for an app. Therefore, a great way is to just ask for reviews. As mentioned earlier, timing is key, but overall not asking usually means not getting any. Try to formulate the question in a way that triggers some emotion in the user. Something that makes them feel like they want to help your app succeed. In order to get more happy users, make it your mission to turn negative ratings into positive ones. After all, the app should be built with users in mind to make it work as well as possible. Make sure the process of giving feedback has been made as easy as possible. If the user finds it too hard and lengthy to give the rating or review, it is likely they just give up.
Strategize
Lastly, really focusing on and making a strategy for getting lots of feedback is important. Try to think of creative ways and try to learn how your users work to find out what works best for them. Trying out new things in order to increase the number of ratings and reviews is also a great idea.
Did you know that Geeklab lets you edit any element of the store page, even the ratings? A/B testing how the rating score affects your conversion rate shows you data on the importance of ratings and reviews.
