Saturday 13 September 2014

Microsoft: Responding to reviews boosts your ratings

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It was a month ago when Microsoft revealed the promised responding system for Windows Phone Developers. It allows Windows Phone Developers to respond to the consumer feedback on their apps. Now a month later, Microsoft has shared some details on the success of the program so far. For example, most developers see an average star rating increase of +1.2 when they respond to reviews.

Number of daily responses to user reviews

Respond to reviews allows for increased customer satisfaction and better ratings overall. Here are three things observed by Microsoft since launching the program:

  • Since launch, almost 20% of all developers have responded to at least one customer review.
  • 5% of customers update their app review after receiving a developer response.
  • Developers see an average increase of +1.2 stars in their app rating when they use this capability to respond to questions and inform customers of updates to their app. This shows that both customers and developers are benefiting from this communication.

The ability to respond to customer reviews in an inappropriate manner can result in user complaints. Which is why Microsoft is updating their guidelines for developers responding to user review:

  • Don't include any marketing content or ads in your response: your reviewer is already your customer.
  • Don't promote other apps or services in your response
  • Your response should be directly related to a specific app and review. Duplicating the same response to a large number of users is not allowed if the canned response doesn't address the same question
  • Don't include any profane, aggressive, personal, or malicious comments in your response. Always be polite and keep in mind that happy customers will likely be your app's biggest promoters.
Don't know how to use this feature? Here's our quick tutorial for the Developers:
  • Go to Windows Dev Center (Login with your Microsoft credentials).
  • Select the Dashboard for Windows Phone.
  • Then select one of your published apps and look at the reviews screen. 
  • You will see the “Respond” link in the lower right corner of the review, write your response in the text box and then press Send.

NOTE: You might not see the Respond link for all reviews. For example, you won’t be able to respond to reviews that were created on devices outside the U.S. that aren't running Windows Phone 8.1, or to reviews written by customers who have chosen not to receive review responses.

My own words on this feature:
Being a Developer, I love this feature. I use it daily to understand why someone gives a low rating to my app so that I can rectify that problem. It helps me a lot to understand the user needs. I try to reply all the reviews, whether they are some kind or some rude words. It helps me to understand the needs and work accordingly on my apps and also plan features for the future updates.

So, some nice insights into how the program has been doing since launch. Hey devs, let us know what you think of the program so far!

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