I Hate This App: Three Types of Bad Review to Pay Attention to, and Two to Ignore
No matter how brilliant your app, or how widely popular it is, it’ll always pick up some bad reviews. Sometimes these are worth your attention, others should be ignored.
Learning to read your app’s reviews properly is an artform. Doing it right will give you the insights needed to improve your app’s standing in the Google Play or Apple App store — and so bring more customers.
Here’s five types of bad review: three worth listening to, and two which you shouldn’t give a moment’s thought.
1. Pay attention: Missing features
Consider this bad review for a hiking / trail-walking app:
App doesn’t include traffic information which is a basic requirement of any modern mapping app. Just use Google Maps, it’s much more fully-featured.
It would be easy to concede that your app is lagging behind competition in this area, and that you need to prioritise adding traffic information. After all, the review doesn’t seem unreasonable and is clearly true.
But this is a hiking app. It does one thing, which is to guide walkers through trails. Google Maps is not your competitor, even though on the surface it might have much the same purpose. If you did add traffic information, you would start to lose clarity on the value of your app. You’ll force yourself into competing with other apps, and, worse, doing so on their turf. You’ll never match the features of Google Maps, but nor should you.
So why should you pay attention to this type of bad review? Because your app store listing shouldn’t have piqued this user’s interest in the first place. They’re not your target audience. Someone who values traffic information should never have ended up downloading your hiking app. Re-read your listing, this time from the perspective of someone who wants a driving app. Could it appeal to them? Tweak your wording if so; make it clear it’s only for hikers. You don’t want to appeal to anyone outside of your core audience. Re-review screenshots, too: do they suggest features beyond what is on offer?
2. Pay attention: Missing features (from someone in your target audience)
For example:
This app guided me through my walk, but didn’t tell me how far I’d gone at the end. Useless to me without this.
In contrast to #1 above, this is a valid feature request from someone in your core target audience. Respond to this review, and if enough people request the same, consider adding the feature in a future update.
If you do add the feature, update your response to the review to say so. That way, potential customers browsing reviews can see it’s been addressed.
3. Pay attention: Bug reports
App doesn’t work. Crashed when I selected ‘start new trail’.
A straightforward programming bug. The first thing to check here — and both stores provide this — is what version of Android or iOS is in use, and what device they are using.
If it’s a really old version, take a moment to review your minimum supported versions. A good rule of thumb is to support any device bought in the last 5 years, so long as its OS has been upgraded when available. For Android that means supporting about 4 or 5 major versions, for iOS it’s 2 or 3. Trying to support even older versions usually causes more trouble than the value it provides, as the extended testing it needs means it’s easy for slip-ups to go unnoticed. Don’t be scared to push up your requirements.
Technical differences among the multitude of devices which run Android lead to bugs. Use the Play Console (or, better, Firebase) to see whether this bug only occurs on a specific device, and if so, consider removing that device from the support list in the Device Catalogue page. Cheap unbranded tablets are notoriously problematic; don’t waste any time trying to support them.
Lastly, if it’s a genuine programming bug which is not specific to device or Android/iOS version, fix it immediately and respond to the reviewer saying you’ve done so. Cheekily request a re-review: you’ll be surprised how many people turn a 1-star into a 5-star.
4. Ignore: The free-roller
Most features are stuck behind a paywall or you are bombarded with ads.
Well, yeah. That’s how you make money.
So long as your revenue model is reasonable (more on that in another blog), you can safely ignore this. There are plenty of folk who don’t like to pay for apps — they are of no interest to you. Reducing your price devalues your product.
5. Ignore: The ineloquent
I hate this app. It never works and the competition is much better.
Most people on the internet aren’t very expressive and are easily riled. Fact.
This review has no substance and is therefore of no value to you. You could try a boilerplate response to see if you get a more helpful reply, and if so address it as one of the above. But experience has shown me this uses more time than it’s worth.
Ignore it. Your time is worth more.
Finally…
Bad reviews are often helpful, much more so than good reviews. But the correct way to read and act on them isn’t always obvious. Ignore the ones which aren’t from your target audience (and ensure your app listing doesn’t attract those people), and pay close attention to your real users.
Tom Colvin is CTO of the Hampshire-based app development agency Apptaura. Programming since the age of six, Tom likes all things tech, and can often be spotted solving massively complex puzzles, or ‘relaxing’ with a cryptic crossword or three.
