Summary:
We went from a 4.1-star rating that had remained stagnant for 8 long months to witnessing a massive improvement to a 4.7-star rating in less than 3 months! From getting 60 ratings per week to 1016 ratings a week. What happened? Sorcery? Wish granting genie?
Read on to find out how the team at MoveInSync achieved this feat within the seemingly impossible duration.
Article:
For the longest time, specifically, from October 18th 2022, to 19th June 2023 [8 months], the iOS ratings of our MoveInSync app were stuck at 4.1. Stagnant. Still. Neither moving up or down.
An iOS rating of 4.1 while the Android app was at 4.5 didn’t bode well for the company’s perception, especially during sales demos.
Our nearest competitor, having 4.6 iOS ratings, did not make things better either.
With the return to office agenda picking up and MoveInSync on a dream growth trajectory, we simply could not risk losing a deal just because of a ‘not true’ perception.
We had to do something and we had to do something fast.
Our developers got into the research mode. The first part of this project (internally named Operation Pineapple) was to find out the root cause of being stuck at 4.1. Once we found out the cause, finding the remedy to getting a higher rating was easier.
During these 8 months, we averaged around 60 ratings per week, with 45-50 being 5 stars, 5-10 being 1 star, and the rest 2, 3, or 4 stars. In contrast, on Android, we averaged about 300 ratings per week, with over 250 being 5 stars, 10-20 being 1 star, and the remainder 2, 3, or 4 stars.
Once we found out the current status of ratings and reviews, we tore apart the existing rating system to see how we could make it better. The existing process required the user to:
- Exit the MoveInSync app
- Navigate to the App Store and wait for the Product Page to load
- Rate the MoveInSync app
This lengthy process could result in churn, and spotty internet connections or user impatience might lead to no rating despite a 5-star experience!
At this point, we realized we had to make the rating process much more seamless so users didn’t have to wait so long. After scouring the Apple docs, we came across some documentation around the SKStoreReviewController. This is Apple’s way of enabling easy ratings submission right from the app’s convenience! This meant that users did not have to exit the MoveInSync app and could directly submit the ratings from the app itself!
We integrated the code from the documentation into our app, allowing us to prompt users to rate the app on the AppStore without leaving the app. This gave us the control to request ratings at the most opportune moments, such as after a successful trip or reaching home safely during late-night shifts.
After defining, integrating, and testing these scenarios, we released the app and waited with bated breath to see if our experiment would succeed.
The current mechanism got us around 60 ratings a week. However, the week we released the new app, we got 1016 ratings in 1 week.
Yes, you read that right!
A whopping 1593.4% increase!
Total ratings : 1016
5 star ratings: 947 [93.2%]
1 star ratings: 11 [1.1%]
To put the 1016 ratings to context, we got about 4 months of ratings in 1 week!
This unexpected and unprecedented surge in ratings was something we did not expect (in the best way possible) and to our surprise, we were able to sustain this and even today, we still average 350+ ratings every week.
This kept going for weeks, and in less than a fortnight of releasing the app, we went from 4.1 to 4.3.
Two months later, we’re sitting pretty at a rating of 4.7 on the iOS App Store.
Who thought Apple documentation could result in such an adrenaline rush?
