A month ago Microsoft gave Windows Phone developers the ability to respond to Store reviews. This was a new feature welcomed by the developer community as it gave them a way to address misinformed reviews or customer complaints. 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.
Since rolling out the feature, Microsoft has seen a quick adoption by the Windows Phone developer community. 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.
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!
Source: Building Apps for Windows
