5 Tips to Increase Mobile App Reviews
Other people’s opinions play a considerable role in our purchasing decisions. And since we’re living in a world where people are spending a significant amount of time on the Internet, online reviews, be it of a restaurant or of a mobile app, are particularly important.
According to a local consumer review survey carried out in 2018, 86% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, while 57% of them would only consider using a business if it has 4 or more stars of rating.
With respect to mobile apps, though, opinions, as well as reviews, also affect how visible the app will be in the respective app store search results and how likely is it that it will be featured on the app store. Considering the results of the above survey, chances are that more people will also download your app if it has more and positive reviews.
Swag Soft, a mobile app development team with over 51 developed apps, assures that people aren’t exactly going to be lining up to review your app, even if they like it. Users are less likely to go back to the app store on their very own accord to compose a well-written review.
That’s why they might need an ever so gentle push towards the right direction — something that will give them that extra incentive to take the step and provide you with the much need mobile app user feedback.
With this in mind, we’ve taken a look at a few clever ways you can increase your mobile app reviews and customer feedback.
Facilitate In-App User Feedback
The way you ask your users to review your app is particularly important. You need to invoke a sense of enjoyment when reviewing your application.
Not only should you make your review requests engaging, but they should also be incentivizing. For instance, it has become a common marketing practice to show in-app videos of promoted content and if the user goes through them they receive some sort of a reward.
You can do the same to increase your mobile app user feedback. Regardless of what your application is about, you can always find something to give away in return for a quick, honest review.
Use an App Review Plugin
In continuation of our previous point, using an app review plugin makes it drop-dead simple to ask your users to review your mobile app.
There are plenty of different solutions that you can take advantage of. Some of them include WP Product Review Lite, WP Review, Appirater, and others of the kind.
One thing you need to be careful about, though, regardless of what plugin you use, is timing. You don’t want to trigger the review popup too soon. You have to be realistic — the user needs to first try out your app in order to be able to display any type of experience.
Therefore, a review popup which showed up too soon could simply roadblock your entire endeavor or worse — it could annoy your users and lead to bad reviews.
Be Responsive
Regardless of whether you’ve received positive or negative reviews, you need to make sure that you’re there to respond. This displays the most important thing for a user — your attention and care. Being responsive means you are listening to what they have to say and, most importantly — that user feedback is actually appreciated.
Positive feedback should also be responded to. Providing exceptional customer service is going to go a long way and it will most definitely trigger additional engagement.
Furthermore, a lot of the reviews contain recommendations, suggestions, or even help requests. Hence, your utter attention is not only beneficial, but it’s also oftentimes required. You can’t afford to ignore your users — you just can’t.
Run a Contest
Contests are another great way to increase your mobile app reviews. There are various forums where you can do so. What is more, you can easily organize one yourself through your different social media channels.
One thing that’s quite critical, though, is transparency. Regardless of whether you use your own social media and website or you go to a forum or a third-party blog, for instance, you need to lay down clear ground rules.
First things first, make sure to keep a well-devised list of participants — how many people take part in your contest and who are they? Second, you need to provide formal guidelines on how to qualify for the prize of your contest. Last but not least, make sure to be explicitly clear during the draw — how did you choose the winner and why?
Choosing the reward is also an important moment. However, if you’ve done your homework you’d surely know what your audience is interested in and how to capitalize on it.
Make Your App Worthy of Reviewing
As an experienced app development company with years on the market, we can assure you that not every app is worthy of a review.
There is a whole lot of applications on the market which are not worth your time, let alone your review. But that’s completely normal — especially given the overall increase of mobile devices and the consequential growth of mobile apps.
This doesn’t mean that your app has to get lost amid the crowd of competition. Mobile app development itself plays a very important, if not the most important, role in the way your application performs on the market afterward.
This might seem particularly obvious but it’s also amongst the most overlooked tips. If your offering is unnecessary or less than great, people won’t use it and you can rest assured they won’t review it — it’s that simple.
Final Thoughts
The above are not the only actions you’d have to take to increase the number of reviews your app gets. However, throughout our experience, we’ve come to see that they are absolutely quintessential for your mobile app’s overall market performance.
Before all of the above, though, you need to do your research. Prepare to spend money on marketing — your competition is already doing it.
Increasing your mobile app reviews is a complex and continuous process but also a critical step towards further success.
