When buyers are at the first stage of the sales funnel their purchasing decision is impacted by the product opinions of the people around them. If the product reviews and ratings are good, then they are more likely to make a purchase decision otherwise it is just another unsuccessful conversion. The same goes in the case of apps as well. When users explore the app product page in the store and, if they find negative reviews, then most of them will not download the app. Conversely, if they find positive reviews, then they will surely take their time to use your app at least once. In a nutshell, quality app reviews and ratings help you to convert users into early-stage customers.
Before discussing some of the tricks to get more app reviews, let’s first understand why they are important?
Why are quality app reviews important?
– More positive reviews indicate app stores how good is your app. App stores then automatically improve the search rankings of your app.
– New users are more likely to download your app only if they find positive reviews and high star ratings. Positive reviews also improve user penetration rate.
– More quality reviews will help your app to stay on top of the charts in the app store which will automatically boost your app downloads. Your app will also gain a competitive edge over others due to improved search rankings.
– Do not worry if your app gets a negative review. Consider this as an opportunity to build a strong relationship with your customers. Send a positive reply to the review and promise to fix the issue soon. You can even ask him to improve the app ratings after the issue is resolved.
– Even negative reviews are useful as they can notify developers about some serious bugs in the app.
In a good ASO strategy, mobile app reviews should be given a top priority as it helps app stores to decide which app is more useful. Even if your app star ratings drop by 0.1 points, it affects its app store rankings and your app business. Do you know that apps in the top charts have an average rating of 4.5 stars? In order to survive the competition and grow your app business, you should put some efforts to get more quality reviews.
Let’s now see some useful tricks to get more app reviews.
1. Ask users to write a review
One of the best ways to get more mobile app reviews is to ask your app users to leave a review itself. In order to get reviews from them, send push notifications, in-app reminders, or pop. The only downside of this strategy is that if you target more pop-ups to get a review, then it will degrade the overall user experience. Most users don’t like frequent pop-ups while interacting with the app and they usually tend to ignore it. Instead of bombarding users with annoying pop-ups, reduce their frequency and pitch them only at the right time. Send app review reminders only when users feel satisfied or happy with your app. Your app users are most likely to feel happy when they complete complex tasks, clear difficult stages, or get some extra coins. So, target these events, and display app review pop-ups just right after them. It increases the chances of getting more positive reviews.
2. Use app review plugin tools
Many times you want users to leave an app review after specific conditions like when they have used your app for a certain number of times or when they clear a difficult stage. In such complex use case scenarios, you can integrate app review plugins within into your app to get the job done. Our mobile app developers can even add this functionality to your app without using any fancy app review plugin. Some standard app review plugins: Appirater (open source) for iOS apps, Helpshift, and Cordova/Phonegap (open source) for both iOS and Android apps.
3. Ask reviews from engaged users only
A user who has just downloaded your app is less likely to leave a review as compared to a user who is highly engaged with your app. Furthermore, it can even annoy new users if they keep on getting app review pop-ups every time they open your app. Frustratingly, they can react by writing a negative review or give poor star ratings to your app. Agicent recommends targeting engaged users to get an app review. You can do this by analyzing the behavior of your app users and then prompt the engaged ones to leave a review.
4. Reward users for reviewing your app
If you own a game app, then offer virtual currency, powers, special characters, etc. to the users and encourage them to leave a good app review in the app store. For non-game apps, you can offer some premium content for free. You can also think of other innovative ideas to incentivize users. We are quite sure that this strategy will work positively as happy users tend to leave compelling app reviews. However, iOS app publishers should note that Apple has been banning apps which incentivize mobile app reviews.
5. Conduct contests
Another way to bring in more app reviews is to run contests on various forums. Ask the forum members to write a review of your app and share their Google Play or iTunes user name in the thread. When the contest is over, pick up a random member as the winner and give him the prize.
6. Update your app regularly for organic app reviews
Updating an app regularly helps in two scenarios. In the first case, the updated version helps you to convert all the negative reviews associated with your app to positive, as it generally resolves the bugs and issues identified in the previous version. In the second case, the new updated features can make existing users happy and tempt them to leave reviews organically.
After some extensive second-hand research, we came up with these super useful tricks to get more app reviews and improve overall app ratings. If you have got some tricks under your sleeve, then do share them via comments or ping us at [email protected].
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