Top 5 Reasons Showing the Importance of Ratings and Reviews for Your Mobile App

Right now, Google Play has 1,476,104 apps with an average rating of 4.1

If we talk from the perspective of a developer, app reviews and ratings are everything. Whenever you publish an app, surely, you get curious about the feedback of the user. User reviews and ratings are one of the primary criteria that decide if an app will survive and thrive in the market, or not. Now, to make that happen, go through the mobile app marketing guide, make an optimized and well-designed user interface, and integrate unique but useful features among others. 

ReviewTrackers, in a report published in 2018 says, 94% of customers avoided a business after reading negative reviews online. Moreover, 80% of customers do not interact with a business having a rating lower than 4.0 stars. That can be related to the app market as well. 

In this article, we are discussing the importance of reviews. As a developer, you must have an idea of how important are online reviews. Therefore, I advise you to keep reading the rest of the blog to understand its depth.

Do you know why are reviews important?

To understand in-depth why ratings and reviews are important, let’s have a look at a few important statistics.

• As Statista’s report for January 2021 says, Google Play Store had approximately 511,000 apps with an average rating of 4.5 or higher;
• Reviewtrackers stated that 80% of customers avoided business with a rating of 4.0 or lesser;
• As per AppBrain, Google Play has 48.9% which is 1,476,104 apps with an average rating of 4.1;
• Among most downloaded apps, FAU-G had 5 million-plus downloads with an average rating of 3.1;
• Among best free android apps in the United States, Lumbercraft is on the top with a 3.9 rating and 500K+ downloads.

Why ratings and reviews are important?

Still, struggling with the question? Well, further facts might make it more clear for you to understand. Data published by TUNE says that 47% of iOS and 53% of Android users found the mobile app via search engines. Search engines display apps with good app reviews. So, a good strategy to improve app reviews might create an impact.

Now, let’s discuss the importance of product reviews in-depth!

1. Increased number of installations

As per a report published by Apptentive, app reviews can influence 70% of people in installing the app on Apple devices. On the other hand, 75% read app reviews and downloaded them.

In 2014, the Apple App Store had 128,000 best business apps onboarded. With this competition, you can understand why reviews are important. The number of installations is directly dependent upon reviews. According to data by the Sensor Tower, overall, 71.5 billion mobile apps were downloaded.

2. Improved user retention

To make any app successful, user retention is important. The retention rate can boost with the help of a few tricks such as great user experience, easy navigation, and cool user-interface among others. In short, if users are happy with the app, they will stay, and provide good app reviews as well.

Data by Upland Software states that the app retention rate can be multiplied by 3 with features such as In-App messaging. Moreover, integrating apps on multiple platforms or making them Omni-channel friendly will help in boosting the app retention rate and app reviews parallelly.

3. Increase in-app revenue

As a developer, your primary goal must be the app revenue, right? Well, app reviews affect app revenue directly. However, with good app reviews, opportunities arise. Your overall app rating will influence users to download your app. Moreover, it will also attract more promotional opportunities from clients. According to Statista, top-rated apps are expected to grow global revenue up to $935.2 billion by 2023.

4. Boost in-app visibility

As mentioned earlier, good ratings can have a direct impact on app searches. If you go through a few app download statistics, you will find that apps in the top 50 have a good number of reviews and ratings. In short, good ratings can make it easier for users to find your mobile app. One of the top importance of ratings and reviews is that good reviews push your app on the top in search engines.

5. Better Conversion rate

Currently, users are cautious about what they are installing on their smartphones. And for their assurances, app reviews come into the picture. A report by Apptentive shows that 90% of users go through reviews and ratings before installing any app.

If you are still asking questions such as why are reviews important? Well, have a look at the infographic, you will get your answer. You can see that top-rated apps with 5-star-rating have the maximum percentage of users downloading them. However, the 1-star-rating category has the least download share. The data mentioned here is based on the survey done on real users. These app conversion rates are directly related to app reviews and ratings. App reviews help in building trust in the users’ minds.

Tips to improve app reviews

The importance of reviews is common for developers or app development companies equally. If you take a look at a few top-rated apps, you will find some useful strategies that might help you in this task.

Let’s have a look at these tricks in detail-

1. App review plugins are effective

Review plugins are easy to integrate and can provide a quick medium to users for the app rating task. In short, a pop-up on the smartphone screen will appear while users are using the app. Users can directly rate your app from the screen and it will impact the app rating on the respective app store.

2. Provide excellent customer service

Not everyone amongst your users is tech-savvy. You have to make sure that you are always available to help your users. With the help of features such as integrated customer service, easy-to-contact customer support, and 24x7 availability, etc. An excellent mobile app customer support will help you in earning good reviews, and it will also improve your brand reputation. A study by Sprout Social says that 47% of users will complain about a product or service online.

3. User personalization

As an app owner, you must have an understanding of the current trend. Almost every modern app existing at the moment is trying to provide a personalized user experience. Customers are finding products and services easily via apps due to the user personalization techniques. Therefore, it can positively impact your app feedback. 

4. Focus on the quality more than quantity

It might be a little tricky to understand, however, you have to understand that quality matters more than quantity. While releasing updates, just do not try to integrate anything randomly in your apps. Do market research, go through market trends, and then work on features that might help users. Most importantly, consider user feedback while working on removing bugs, or creating updates. It assures the user that you are taking them seriously.

Key summary

Hopefully, these pointers included above were useful. Moving forward, before we wind up the blog, let’s have a look at key points for the revision:

• Google Play Store has 48.9% mobile apps with an average rating of 4.1 stars out of 5;
• By 2023, the global app revenue is expected to touch $935.2 billion;
• 47% of customers use social media platforms to complain about products or services;
• A study says, 94% of customers avoided a business due to negative reviews.

Apart from the ways mentioned above, there are a few other ways of gaining app reviews as well. For example, you can contact app critics and professional reviewers to get app reviews. It will benefit you in understanding if your app is lacking anything from the perspective of users and expert developers.