Tips On Gathering App Reviews

I’m always excited to check on our app reviews, because it’s nice to know that the app is reaching people of many nations and different walks of life. I find it overwhelming to get 5 stars and a bunch of “Awesomes!”. Though, there are times when the review would not be so good, but we try to help them figure out what’s wrong or investigate on their complaints, because we believe their feedback about our apps can help in its improvement and capacity to stay in the app store.

Reviews are important to user’s interest and app market ranking, because:

• Reviews determine if the app is desirable and interesting.
• The comments suggest if it’s worthwhile downloading.
• The number of reviews (and how positive the reviews are) affect the app ranking in an app store.

It’s not easy to get reviews. There are times when an app has been published for a long time but has not received any rating or review. This is because users find it time-consuming to leave a review, and the ones who love to send comments would be those who had a bad experience with the app. The fact that it’s not easy to get reviews shouldn’t mean that you would settle into getting fake or automated reviews, because Google and Apple are very vigilant. They suspend or ban an app if they found out that the reviews are not legitimate. So to avoid that, here’s a list of some Do’s and Don’ts in gathering app reviews.

Do’s:

• Get honest and legitimate reviews from family and friends after they’ve tried the app.
• Use Social Media to promote the app and get more comments, likes and feedback.
• Use an app Review Exchange Network where you can give publishers a review of their apps, and in return, get an honest review for your app too.
• Consider in-app reminder prompt or pop-ups that ask users to review your app.
• Ask groups from Facebook to try the app and leave a review.
• Try forums such as AndroidCentral.com and iPhoneDevSDK.com.

Don’ts:

• Do not use automated review software.
• Do not hire anyone or pay for a review service.
• Do not ask app users to change their negative ratings/reviews for your app.
• Do not incentivize users just to get 5 star rating or great reviews from them.

Google and Apple have suspended/banned some apps indefinitely because of fake reviews. Integrity is very important in gathering reviews. It’s not really worth it when you have exerted efforts to work on an app, released it in a market then just get banned because of doing some shady things in the end. Anyway, you’ll be fooling no one but yourself.