Contents
Introduction
A previous article, “CRO Advanced: How to Convert Visitors to Users,” introduced a strategy that increases the number of downloads and discussed optimizing the creatives (e.g. screenshots, icons, preview video, etc.) will lead to the growth of CVR. Yet bad ratings and reviews can easily hinder the impression of the app, even though its creatives are attractive and intriguing, as 80% of users check ratings and reviews before they download the app. Therefore, it is critical to optimize not only the creatives but also the rating and reviews to generate meaningful results from ASO.
While rating and reviews affect conversion, it also establishes the overall reputation of the app and its brand. So it is advisable to prepare a solution as soon as possible when the rating of the app is going down. With that being said, this article discusses RSO (Review Score Optimization) which can prevent a rating from going down or revamp it when it happened to decrease.
What is RSO?
RSO stands for Review Score Optimization, and it aims to optimize the rating and reviews of the app by improving its essence. Most segments of an app’s product page can be managed and manipulated by the developer, yet the review is an exception; the developer cannot control it. Therefore, to improve an app’s rating and reviews, the app’s quality has to improve to the level where users are satisfied with it and willing to leave good reviews. Enhancing user review: this is RSO’s objective.
Rating is Important for Conversion
According to Appentive, earning one more ★ makes a huge difference in conversion. For instance, when an app increased its rating from ★2.0 to ★3.0, it was found that conversion increased by 280% in the best case. If an app goes from ★3.0 to ★4.0, a 90% conversion increase is expected.
Though earning more ★ would result in more conversion, apps that have lower than ★4.0 ratings have less than half downloads as the apps that have ratings higher than ★4.0. Moreover, there is a feature in Google Play Store by which a searcher can filter the apps that have ratings lower than ★4.0, so there is a high possibility that the low-rated apps would not be found. For these reasons, it is critical to maintain an app’s rating higher than ★4.0.
What Should be Done to Enhance Rating?
Improve Service Quality
When an app has technical issues, such as bugs, and they occur frequently while not being fixed for a long time, users would not be happy about it and leave bad reviews and rate it low. Solving technical issues should take place as soon as possible, while it is as important to respond to users politely. Lastly, you can design a system where the users who found technical issues are led to the help center, instead of the app store, to prevent them from leaving a low rating.
UI/UX Enhancement
The user experienceーfrom the opening of the app to closing itーsignificantly affects how much the user is satisfied with the app. If the in-app design and interface are not as pleasing as users expect, they are likely to break away from the app and leave bad reviews. On the contrary, well-designed in-app UX will make users come back to the app and settle in, and as a result, there will be more good reviews. In the end, improving the app itself makes the app store algorithm value the app and leads to more profits.
Request for Review
To enhance an app’s review and rating, you can design a system where a request for review is sent out to the users after they experienced something positive in the app, such as winning a match or reaching a high level. Or the request for review can be sent only when a user answered “yes” to the questions like “Are you enjoying our app?” while the users who answered “no” are led to the app’s help center. Even though you cannot directly control your app’s review and rating, you may be able to guide your users.
Outro
When you think about enhancing your app’s rating and review, the most important thing is to see your app from a user’s perspective and find out what the user demands or what might help him or her. It can be the app’s design or UI. It can be service quality. It can be a timely response to a review. Upon improving these essential elements of user experience, you may also try RSO strategies. This way you will be able to make your app rated higher than 4.0 or even better.
