You have an app in the App Store and Google Play Store that’s being downloaded and used consistently.

But users aren’t reviewing it in either store, and if they are, the reviews are often negative.

Your first instinct may be to think something is wrong with your app: the UI is confusing, the review prompt has a bug, the load speed is slow.

What is an app developer to do?

Try asking for a rating

Just like no one fills out a survey at a restaurant unless the food was cold or the service was poor, fans of your app aren’t going to the App Store on their own time to search for your app and leave a glowing review.

If you aren’t asking for a rating yet, the problem is actually pretty simple to solve: just ask!

Take the Great Clips app, for example. When we first started working on it, it had no review prompt and a rating of around 2.8. When they came to us asking for a prompt that would encourage people to leave a review, we built it to show up to users after a successful haircut check-in.

We released an updated app, and within 48 hours, they received thousands of reviews, and their rating jumped to 4.8.

If you are asking, find a better time to ask

Green Mill already had a review prompt in place, and yet their average rating was around 2.1.

We moved the review prompt so it only triggers once a user has successfully completed two orders in the app. As a result, their rating improved dramatically to 4.6.

The key to raising your App Store rating is to ask your users at the right time. When a user has had a successful interaction within the app, they’re more likely to follow the review prompt when asked “Are you having a good experience” and leave positive feedback..

We often see apps that ask users for a review right after launch. This is a terrible idea since your users are unlikely to have formed an opinion. Instead, they are likely to dismiss it so they can get into the app and get on with the task they’re trying to accomplish (or worse, leave a 1-star review because they are irritated).

Redirect negative reviews

Instead of popping up the system prompt, show your users a question asking how their experience is.

If they indicate a positive experience, then pop up the review box.

If they indicate a negative experience, you can direct them to your support page to help them resolve the issue or report a bug.

Giving users a chance to resolve a problem outside the App Store will help them solve it productively (and keep those negative reviews at bay).

Supporting an existing app can be just as challenging as building one from scratch, and review prompts are just one of many concerns. Our team is here to help any way we can, so whether you have questions about improving your app’s ratings or backlogged maintenance, give us a shout. And if you're techy and want code suggestions for review prompts, check out this article from JMG's CEO, Robert Bentley.