Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar, a show about independent iOS app development.

00:00:03 ◼   ► I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:04 ◼   ► >> And I'm David Smith.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

00:00:09 ◼   ► >> So we finally have the ability to respond to reviews in the App Store.

00:00:13 ◼   ► >> Yay!

00:00:14 ◼   ► >> We've been waiting for this for a while.

00:00:16 ◼   ► We probably thought it would never come.

00:00:18 ◼   ► It was announced, what, about two months ago or something like that.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Now we finally have it.

00:00:22 ◼   ► The way they've implemented the system is actually pretty good.

00:00:25 ◼   ► You know, it's pretty much what you would hope it would be in that when you respond

00:00:29 ◼   ► to a review, Apple notifies the user with an email and says, "Hey, the developer responded

00:00:34 ◼   ► with this.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Would you, you know, click here if you'd like to update your review?"

00:00:39 ◼   ► And the person can do that.

00:00:40 ◼   ► So it's actually like, it's a pretty nice system.

00:00:42 ◼   ► All the reviews are in iTunes Connect.

00:00:43 ◼   ► You can, you know, you can browse all the regions and everything.

00:00:48 ◼   ► So I think they did a pretty good job with it.

00:00:50 ◼   ► And now, it's, I think the interesting part to discuss today is now that we have this

00:00:56 ◼   ► system as developers, what are the best ways we can actually use it?

00:01:00 ◼   ► You know, what should we do?

00:01:01 ◼   ► What shouldn't we do?

00:01:03 ◼   ► What are the risks?

00:01:04 ◼   ► What's worth doing?

00:01:06 ◼   ► And I think there's a good approximately 30-minute discussion to be had there.

00:01:10 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:01:11 ◼   ► >> I think so, yeah.

00:01:13 ◼   ► And it's, I think I would absolutely agree with that, that I'm very glad they've done

00:01:17 ◼   ► this, and I think the way they did it works well.

00:01:21 ◼   ► As you know, it's early days still, but it seems like it wasn't one of these things where,

00:01:26 ◼   ► you know, we finally got what we were asking for, but they did it in a way that was awkward

00:01:29 ◼   ► or cumbersome or annoying for the most part.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Like the interface in iTunes Connect, so just as a, in case you're trying to find this and

00:01:37 ◼   ► you haven't, so if you go to a particular app, you go to the activity tab, and then

00:01:41 ◼   ► you go to ratings and reviews, which is an area that has actually always been there,

00:01:44 ◼   ► or it's been there for a very long time, but now suddenly there's a reply button at the

00:01:49 ◼   ► side of each review, as well as a whole lot of really good filters that you can apply

00:01:54 ◼   ► to it.

00:01:55 ◼   ► You can see all your reviews, you can see reviews that you've responded to, reviews

00:01:58 ◼   ► that you haven't responded to, reviews that were changed as a result or after you responded

00:02:04 ◼   ► to them, which is also a really helpful thing, so you can get a sense of if it's actually

00:02:07 ◼   ► working, as well as filtering, you know, by different versions of the app or different,

00:02:12 ◼   ► you know, how critical they are, like if you want to see all your one-star reviews, your

00:02:15 ◼   ► five-star reviews.

00:02:16 ◼   ► It's a really good, solid, like you would hope, interface.

00:02:20 ◼   ► I mean, the only slight niggle I have about it, which is only really applies to me, because

00:02:25 ◼   ► I have so many apps, is that I have to go through each app individually to check on

00:02:29 ◼   ► the new reviews, rather than there being a consolidated interface for it, but that's

00:02:33 ◼   ► just because I'm strange and have dozens of apps.

00:02:37 ◼   ► But otherwise, it's, you know, overall, mechanically, it's really nice, and they show up pretty

00:02:42 ◼   ► well in the App Store.

00:02:44 ◼   ► I always kind of wonder how many people actually read the reviews in the App Store versus just

00:02:48 ◼   ► looking at the star rating, but, you know, it shows up that it truncates the review you

00:02:53 ◼   ► responded to, like it always does at about three lines, and then below it, it just says,

00:02:57 ◼   ► like, "developer response," and, you know, your response shows up right below there.

00:03:02 ◼   ► And that's probably actually a little pro tip that I thought of when I started doing

00:03:07 ◼   ► my reviews response, that is, once I thought of it, I was like, "Oh, of course, that's

00:03:12 ◼   ► where I should start," because right now, you probably have an app with, you know, if

00:03:17 ◼   ► you have an app of any volume, you have, you know, maybe hundreds of reviews to look at.

00:03:21 ◼   ► It's like, "Which one should I start looking at for responses?"

00:03:24 ◼   ► And the first thing I did is just open the App Store, go over to the Reviews tab, and

00:03:29 ◼   ► see which are the first ones to show up in that list.

00:03:31 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:03:32 ◼   ► Because that is, by far, the most likely reviews that anyone is ever going to read.

00:03:37 ◼   ► You know, it's very unlikely that people are going to be paging through all the way to

00:03:42 ◼   ► the bottom of that list.

00:03:43 ◼   ► Like, maybe, but whenever especially that number one review below your star rating,

00:03:50 ◼   ► make sure that there's a good response to that, because often that can also be slightly

00:03:55 ◼   ► critical because I think the sorting of that list is not chronological.

00:04:00 ◼   ► I think it's--

00:04:01 ◼   ► It's most helpful.

00:04:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:04:03 ◼   ► But it's kind of vague.

00:04:04 ◼   ► Like, I don't think it's purely based on, like, the number of upvotes and downvotes

00:04:07 ◼   ► and, like, the "was this helpful" thing.

00:04:08 ◼   ► I don't think it's only that.

00:04:10 ◼   ► I think there's other factors.

00:04:11 ◼   ► It's hard to tell, but if you leave the sorting in iTunes Connect at the default that it loads

00:04:17 ◼   ► up with, it's that sorting.

00:04:18 ◼   ► So-- And you can always, you know, go on your phone and look at the App Store to just verify

00:04:22 ◼   ► that that's still the way it's sorted.

00:04:24 ◼   ► But yeah, that-- Because, like, I feel like you have to decide as, you know, as a way

00:04:29 ◼   ► to spend your time and as a way to take the risks, which we'll talk about, of the system,

00:04:34 ◼   ► you have to decide, like, are you mostly doing it to address that particular reviewer and

00:04:40 ◼   ► to talk to them directly, or are you mostly doing it to show other people who are reading

00:04:46 ◼   ► the reviews, you know, your point of view on it, or to correct falsehoods, or to appear

00:04:52 ◼   ► to be caring about your customers, or things like that.

00:04:54 ◼   ► So if you're mostly responding to reviews, like, to the public, basically, in that, you

00:04:59 ◼   ► know, in that latter way, rather than to the individual reviewers, then it makes sense

00:05:04 ◼   ► to really only spend your time addressing a few of the top ones in each region, because

00:05:10 ◼   ► again, as you said, like, they're prob-- Most people are not going to be paging through,

00:05:15 ◼   ► you know, 200 reviews of an app, like, that's, you know, if you're lucky enough to have that

00:05:18 ◼   ► many, it's gonna be the top handful at most, and after that, it's severely diminishing

00:05:25 ◼   ► returns.

00:05:26 ◼   ► So it doesn't make sense to spend a ton of time responding to every single review from,

00:05:33 ◼   ► you know, the last four years or whatever, because most people are never gonna see that.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think too, it's-- The perspective that I take with these things is that these

00:05:43 ◼   ► are marketing statements, first and foremost.

00:05:46 ◼   ► They can be helpful to the person that I'm responding to, but because this is a public-facing,

00:05:53 ◼   ► you know, this is text that is public-facing, that is on the app store page for my app,

00:06:00 ◼   ► which is like where I put all of my other marketing copy, like, it is important that

00:06:04 ◼   ► these are written in such a way that they are, you know, useful and helpful to anybody

00:06:11 ◼   ► who is trying to think about if they want to download my app, and so it essentially

00:06:15 ◼   ► becomes marketing.

00:06:16 ◼   ► And you can still, you know, write them to the person.

00:06:18 ◼   ► It's not like this has to be some kind of stilted, PR-speak type of response, but it's

00:06:26 ◼   ► in the back of your mind when you're writing these reviews.

00:06:28 ◼   ► It's, you know, how would I write this?

00:06:31 ◼   ► Unless writing this to this one person, then I am to the, hopefully, hundreds or thousands

00:06:36 ◼   ► of people who might read this when they're browsing the app, because the strange thing

00:06:40 ◼   ► with reviews is they're very, like, point in time.

00:06:44 ◼   ► You know, someone came, wrote, you know, say that you have the classic, kind of like the

00:06:49 ◼   ► one star, it's like, "I hated this app.

00:06:52 ◼   ► It was useless.

00:06:54 ◼   ► I deleted it right away."

00:06:55 ◼   ► And they leave that as a review.

00:06:57 ◼   ► Well, that user is unlikely to come back.

00:06:59 ◼   ► They've deleted the app.

00:07:01 ◼   ► Like, you're kind of done with them.

00:07:03 ◼   ► You can still usefully write a response to that, where you might show interest in terms

00:07:08 ◼   ► of saying, "I'm so sorry you had a bad experience.

00:07:11 ◼   ► If you have any problem, if you have specific concerns or complaints, you know, plea by

00:07:15 ◼   ► all means email me.

00:07:16 ◼   ► Here's my support address," or something like that, which is a marketing message that, "I'm

00:07:21 ◼   ► engaged.

00:07:22 ◼   ► I'm interested.

00:07:23 ◼   ► I care about my users, even if this one person had a bad experience," which can be useful.

00:07:27 ◼   ► Or someone who, you know, "I wish it did X.

00:07:29 ◼   ► It doesn't one star," and you can respond to that person and say, "Hey, actually it

00:07:33 ◼   ► does," or, "That's a great suggestion.

00:07:36 ◼   ► We'll see if we can work that into a future update, maybe."

00:07:39 ◼   ► But whatever that is, you're writing these with the expectation of, you know, someone

00:07:43 ◼   ► is opening the app store.

00:07:44 ◼   ► They're going to reviews.

00:07:45 ◼   ► They're reading these reviews, especially if they're reading a negative review.

00:07:49 ◼   ► It's having a slight counterpoint that's right below it, something that they can at least

00:07:53 ◼   ► see a response to, so it doesn't just stand there on its own as a negative message.

00:08:00 ◼   ► >> Steve- In deciding which ones to respond to, I've seen a lot of developers talk about,

00:08:06 ◼   ► you know, on Twitter or on different podcasts, I've seen a lot of people mention, like, the

00:08:09 ◼   ► idea of, "Well, I don't want to, like, set the wrong expectations of my customers," or,

00:08:14 ◼   ► like, "Train people to expect certain things will always get responses," or "Won't always

00:08:17 ◼   ► get responses," or whatever else.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Or, you know, one thing you can think about is, like, if you respond to every review,

00:08:23 ◼   ► that might create an incentive for people to one-star review you to just get your attention

00:08:28 ◼   ► because they know you're listening.

00:08:30 ◼   ► I think these are all wonderful concepts, but I think in reality, this is out of our

00:08:35 ◼   ► control, because the reality is, whatever standards that people will expect, whether

00:08:42 ◼   ► people will expect reviews or will expect responses to their reviews or not, whether

00:08:46 ◼   ► they will, you know, think that reviewing your app or especially one-starring your app

00:08:53 ◼   ► will get your attention or not, that will be decided globally, like, among the entire

00:08:58 ◼   ► app store and just the people using it, like, their thoughts and, you know, the kind of

00:09:03 ◼   ► norms and culture that comes around that.

00:09:06 ◼   ► Whatever you do with your individual app is not going to affect that at all.

00:09:09 ◼   ► Like, whatever people will come to expect with whether they get responses or not and

00:09:14 ◼   ► whether it's worth one-starring and yelling at people or not, that's out of our hands.

00:09:18 ◼   ► That's being decided, it's already been decided, like, that battle is over.

00:09:24 ◼   ► People already were using reviews, you know, angry one-star reviews, to try to get our

00:09:28 ◼   ► attention.

00:09:29 ◼   ► They already do the thing where, like, they hold the star hostage and things like that.

00:09:32 ◼   ► You know, like, you're lucky if they only hold one star hostage.

00:09:33 ◼   ► Like, you know, that's out of our hands.

00:09:37 ◼   ► And so whether or not you respond to your reviews or how many of your reviews you respond

00:09:43 ◼   ► to has nothing to do with what your customers expect from you and you are not setting their

00:09:48 ◼   ► expectations or setting their incentives.

00:09:50 ◼   ► The entire app store is.

00:09:52 ◼   ► So you should probably just go along with what people will expect to happen, regardless

00:09:58 ◼   ► of what that is.

00:09:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think, too, it's also important to keep in mind how small a proportion of

00:10:06 ◼   ► your user base we're talking about here.

00:10:09 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:10:10 ◼   ► - Like, it is easy, I think, and this is part of why, when I say, like, I think this is

00:10:15 ◼   ► first and foremost a marketing thing and why I was really hopeful that one day we would

00:10:19 ◼   ► be able to respond to reviews, is a very small percentage of your users can have a disproportionate

00:10:26 ◼   ► impact on your appearance in the app store.

00:10:31 ◼   ► You know, in terms of, I don't have to have actually looked at what the numbers are, but

00:10:35 ◼   ► I imagine it's at least hundreds, if not thousands, to one for people who actually leave a review

00:10:41 ◼   ► in the app store, and amongst those, the vast majority leave just star ratings rather than

00:10:48 ◼   ► words.

00:10:49 ◼   ► So you're ending up with a fraction of a percentage, probably, of your users that are leaving these

00:10:56 ◼   ► written reviews that get responses.

00:10:58 ◼   ► And the vast majority of my support, like my actual customer support, is going to come

00:11:04 ◼   ► through support links and things within the apps itself, that they're not going to be

00:11:08 ◼   ► coming through the app store.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And it's like, my goal, in a weird way with these, is like, it's damage control in some

00:11:16 ◼   ► ways, because if someone writes a glowing review, five stars, this is awesome, like,

00:11:20 ◼   ► there's nothing really for me to do, and like, throwing in a, like, thanks, that's awesome,

00:11:24 ◼   ► like, that feels a little weird and, like, empty.

00:11:28 ◼   ► If there's a five star review that has a question in it, answering the question maybe makes

00:11:31 ◼   ► sense, you know, but mostly what this is, is a tool for me to clear up misunderstandings

00:11:37 ◼   ► or clear up issues where, you know, somebody is just saying something that's untrue or,

00:11:45 ◼   ► you know, like they're missing the point or they didn't find the feature, like, it's a

00:11:48 ◼   ► way for me to communicate, not to that person, I mean, I want to tell that person, but like,

00:11:52 ◼   ► that's one person out of, you know, out of thousands that I can hopefully help, which

00:11:56 ◼   ► is, you know, nice, but it's not nearly as impactful as the, you know, hopefully hundreds

00:12:01 ◼   ► or thousands of people who will come to your App Store page and you can communicate to

00:12:05 ◼   ► them whatever that message is.

00:12:07 ◼   ► And so, don't get too stuck either on, like, the, you know, it's like training this individual

00:12:14 ◼   ► person, like, it's such a small proportion of your actual users that it probably matters

00:12:19 ◼   ► less there, you know, and if anything, it's like, if you want to train your users to get

00:12:23 ◼   ► in contact with you when they have problems or wherever that is, it's like, be responsive

00:12:26 ◼   ► to your email, I suppose, like, and make that a place that people can feel like they can

00:12:31 ◼   ► vent their, you know, their unease or problems they have in the app, but like, yeah, I wouldn't

00:12:37 ◼   ► get too wrapped around the axle about like, ooh, it's like, you know, trying to be clever

00:12:41 ◼   ► about this, it's like, no, just look at your reviews and see which ones you can add value

00:12:46 ◼   ► to in responding to.

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00:14:53 ◼   ► So I think it probably makes sense now to dive into just a little bit of the kind of

00:14:57 ◼   ► what are the good ones, good reviews to respond to, and which are ones that we should just

00:15:02 ◼   ► let be.

00:15:04 ◼   ► And the first ones that come to mind on the "let it go" side of things is being very careful

00:15:10 ◼   ► to get sucked into snarkiness or people who are just like writing reviews that are mean

00:15:20 ◼   ► or angry or aren't really on topic.

00:15:26 ◼   ► And in general, as with most things on the internet, arguing with people on the internet

00:15:30 ◼   ► is never really a good idea.

00:15:34 ◼   ► And so whenever I see these kinds of reviews, it's probably best to be like, "You know,

00:15:37 ◼   ► there's not much that I could gain from diving into this."

00:15:41 ◼   ► Maybe if it was the number one, if it showed up as the top review in the app store, it

00:15:46 ◼   ► might be something that would be worthwhile trying to at least show an engagement there,

00:15:51 ◼   ► but trying to go back and forth with somebody who clearly is just kind of mad and was using

00:15:57 ◼   ► this review as a way to vent that is unlikely to be productive.

00:16:04 ◼   ► Whereas probably good reviews to talk about are ones where there's a clear misunderstanding

00:16:10 ◼   ► or question.

00:16:11 ◼   ► And as I've been browsing a little bit in these, these are the areas that I think are

00:16:16 ◼   ► the best opportunities for us.

00:16:19 ◼   ► When you look at a review and someone is saying...

00:16:21 ◼   ► I mean, in some ways, it's like the old HostageStar situation where someone's like, "Oh, man,

00:16:27 ◼   ► it's a four-star app.

00:16:28 ◼   ► It would be five-star if it did X."

00:16:29 ◼   ► And if it actually does do X, if it's just like, "Oh, sorry the UI didn't help you find

00:16:36 ◼   ► the feature," if you go to the third tab or you go into settings, you can then turn that

00:16:40 ◼   ► on.

00:16:41 ◼   ► That's a great example of a place that you can...

00:16:44 ◼   ► As from a marketing perspective, that's useful because if someone was going to say, "Oh,

00:16:49 ◼   ► I like this app, but according to this review, it doesn't actually do this kind of feature,"

00:16:53 ◼   ► and, "Oh, the developer says it does.

00:16:56 ◼   ► Great."

00:16:57 ◼   ► Or even probably moreover, it would be, "Because these do...

00:17:01 ◼   ► I think the written reviews stick around beyond multiple versions, I think?"

00:17:07 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:17:08 ◼   ► It's...

00:17:09 ◼   ► And that could obviously change over time, but right now, I'm pretty sure...

00:17:12 ◼   ► I think they don't, actually, unless they're edited.

00:17:14 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:17:15 ◼   ► But I'm not positive on that.

00:17:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:17 ◼   ► But it's also worth clearing up, too, if someone had a problem that was then fixed in a subsequent

00:17:20 ◼   ► release.

00:17:22 ◼   ► In general, just saying that is probably a helpful thing.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Yeah, because it is a funny thing, because you just want to find these places where you

00:17:31 ◼   ► can have these positive engagements.

00:17:34 ◼   ► I don't think...

00:17:35 ◼   ► I don't know what you think about this, but there's a lot of...

00:17:38 ◼   ► I remember people were asking initially or talking about it of, "Should we respond to

00:17:43 ◼   ► every review?

00:17:44 ◼   ► Should each review have a response below it?"

00:17:46 ◼   ► Oh, geez.

00:17:47 ◼   ► That's a simple answer.

00:17:48 ◼   ► No.

00:17:49 ◼   ► That's really easy.

00:17:50 ◼   ► A lot of times, those responses just end up being like, "Thank you," or, "Good point."

00:17:55 ◼   ► That kind of response, I don't think, is actually productive.

00:17:59 ◼   ► That I think it just kind of is distracting, probably.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Maybe I'm wrong.

00:18:04 ◼   ► Maybe people would love to see all these little...

00:18:07 ◼   ► Someone says something nice about you, and you say, "Thank you."

00:18:09 ◼   ► I guess that's polite.

00:18:10 ◼   ► It's the polite thing to do, is to say thank you, and someone says something nice about

00:18:14 ◼   ► you.

00:18:15 ◼   ► But it seems counterproductive in a lot of ways.

00:18:19 ◼   ► The main benefit, in a weird way, and this is just the way my mind works, I suppose,

00:18:23 ◼   ► is by doing that, you are increasing the amount of space on the screen that the positive review

00:18:31 ◼   ► took up, so it emphasizes it slightly.

00:18:36 ◼   ► If someone has a five-star review...

00:18:40 ◼   ► One of the issues that we have here is that, again, what I said earlier, whatever most

00:18:46 ◼   ► apps do or the most popular apps do is going to be what people assume and expect.

00:18:52 ◼   ► I think one of the big problems is that most people actually use are made by big companies,

00:18:57 ◼   ► and the big companies are either going to not respond, or they're going to have somebody

00:19:01 ◼   ► whose job it is to basically be a canned response, similar to if you @mention on Twitter, some

00:19:07 ◼   ► big brand like Comcast or whatever, then they're going to have some intern whose job it is

00:19:11 ◼   ► to try to placate you with a canned response.

00:19:15 ◼   ► We're going to have that on the app store reviews, too.

00:19:18 ◼   ► If people get used to that, anything you say, in a general response to a positive one, they're

00:19:26 ◼   ► going to assume is not genuine.

00:19:28 ◼   ► They're going to assume that this is just a form letter that you say to everybody, which

00:19:31 ◼   ► it actually might be.

00:19:34 ◼   ► I don't think that looks good to people.

00:19:36 ◼   ► People see right through that, and again, they're going to be coming to your app with

00:19:40 ◼   ► the assumption that this is a canned response.

00:19:43 ◼   ► One of the reviews that I gave, I was trying to placate somebody who one-starred me, and

00:19:48 ◼   ► their review showed up pretty high.

00:19:51 ◼   ► They were complaining about some of the design changes I did in 3.0.

00:19:57 ◼   ► It took me a while.

00:19:58 ◼   ► I wrote this response.

00:19:59 ◼   ► It took probably 15 minutes to write, even though it's like two sentences.

00:20:03 ◼   ► That's because the famous thing like I forgive my letter for being so long.

00:20:06 ◼   ► I would have written a shorter one, but I didn't have time.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I started writing a whole bunch of different ways to address this.

00:20:12 ◼   ► It took me a good 15 minutes to come up with the two sentences that I actually thought

00:20:16 ◼   ► I should say here.

00:20:18 ◼   ► It was kind of a general statement of like, "I'm sorry this design isn't working for you.

00:20:23 ◼   ► I try to please as many people as I can, but sometimes that's not possible," something

00:20:26 ◼   ► like that.

00:20:27 ◼   ► The guy edited his review and clearly thought that was a canned form response, even though

00:20:33 ◼   ► I had never written it to anybody else before.

00:20:35 ◼   ► It took me 15 minutes to compose those two sentences.

00:20:38 ◼   ► He just assumed because it kind of sounded like a canned response, like, "I'm sorry.

00:20:42 ◼   ► I couldn't help you here," or whatever else.

00:20:46 ◼   ► He probably assumes that any response that is kind of like that on an App Store review

00:20:51 ◼   ► is just a canned response.

00:20:53 ◼   ► There's no thought behind it, even though in this case there was tons of thought behind

00:20:56 ◼   ► it.

00:20:58 ◼   ► You have to take that risk too.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Again, what are people going to expect from the entire App Store as a whole is going to

00:21:04 ◼   ► impact the assumptions they go into when they see your response.

00:21:10 ◼   ► I don't think a basic like, "Hey, thanks for reviewing us."

00:21:14 ◼   ► I don't think that is productive.

00:21:17 ◼   ► I don't think people want that.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I think if you did that, people would not receive it as well as you might think.

00:21:23 ◼   ► It might seem overly eager or creepy or just kind of desperate.

00:21:29 ◼   ► I don't think that's a good look.

00:21:30 ◼   ► >>

00:21:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:31 ◼   ► I think that's probably, in general, I think this is an area where probably less is more.

00:21:38 ◼   ► It's one of these things that I think we could easily get carried away with using.

00:21:43 ◼   ► It's time spent.

00:21:48 ◼   ► It's a wonderful tool for us, and there are areas, especially for those top reviews, having

00:21:55 ◼   ► good answers for those makes a lot of sense.

00:21:58 ◼   ► But I think this very easily could become this rabbit hole of trying to squeeze too

00:22:03 ◼   ► much out of this feature is almost certainly going to become counterproductive.

00:22:09 ◼   ► It's going to be something that is taking time away from the actual thing that will

00:22:13 ◼   ► make your app a five-star app, which is making your app better.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Convincing one person to give you one more star is nice, but making your app better with

00:22:27 ◼   ► a new version that is going to address the problems that people are having, that's a

00:22:32 ◼   ► much more robust and sustainable solution rather than getting into lots of little issues

00:22:39 ◼   ► with this.

00:22:40 ◼   ► And especially, it's one of these things that some people are writing reviews for very different

00:22:44 ◼   ► reasons.

00:22:45 ◼   ► It is something that we don't control, and especially because it's not this venue where

00:22:51 ◼   ► it's this nice threaded conversation.

00:22:54 ◼   ► You can say something, and then they can say something, and they're doing it by updating

00:22:59 ◼   ► their review.

00:23:00 ◼   ► And so you can end up with these very disjoint situations if you go too far down that road.

00:23:05 ◼   ► So in general, less is more probably.

00:23:07 ◼   ► And I think the question of how far back to go, like I heard, I think it was on Core Intuition,

00:23:13 ◼   ► I think it was Daniel Jelkow was saying that he was responding to reviews from years ago.

00:23:19 ◼   ► That just kind of blows my mind.

00:23:20 ◼   ► I think in general, keeping this fairly current is something that makes sense, that responding

00:23:25 ◼   ► to reviews as they come in makes some amount of sense.

00:23:30 ◼   ► And in this initial period, maybe responding or at least reading and deciding if you want

00:23:36 ◼   ► to respond to all the reviews for the current version seems about reasonable.

00:23:41 ◼   ► But beyond that, I probably wouldn't go too much farther back.

00:23:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, and kind of expanding a little bit on the less is more angle, again, keep in

00:23:48 ◼   ► mind, as you mentioned, that you're posting this response, but then the user who wrote

00:23:54 ◼   ► the review is prompted and will likely edit the review.

00:23:59 ◼   ► And so you have to make sure that if somebody, assuming that you're not gonna be keeping

00:24:03 ◼   ► on top of every single response you write to see if the person edited it and then see

00:24:06 ◼   ► if you need to edit your response and everything, like that's not productive.

00:24:10 ◼   ► So keep in mind, though, that your response might not make as much sense if the user's

00:24:18 ◼   ► review is heavily edited after you gave the response.

00:24:21 ◼   ► And so write the responses with that in mind.

00:24:24 ◼   ► So for instance, one of the responses I wrote, and I haven't actually done that many of them,

00:24:28 ◼   ► honestly, but one of the responses I wrote was one of the top reviews was asking about

00:24:32 ◼   ► battery life, saying the new version seemed to use more battery life.

00:24:36 ◼   ► And so in my response, I didn't really specifically call out anything in particular about the

00:24:44 ◼   ► question that was asked.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I gave a more kind of general response about battery usage in the app.

00:24:51 ◼   ► And I said basically, here's the kinds of things that make any podcast app use more

00:24:56 ◼   ► battery power.

00:24:58 ◼   ► And here, playing fast, using the screen brightness and the speaker and everything else.

00:25:02 ◼   ► And I was like, I've tested Overcast, I tested Overcast against other podcast apps, and I

00:25:06 ◼   ► try to make sure it's always comparable or better, but if you've figured out anything

00:25:10 ◼   ► else, please let me know, and I'm always trying to find out any areas I might have missed,

00:25:15 ◼   ► something like that, right?

00:25:18 ◼   ► And so I gave an answer that no matter what the review is edited to, that will still basically

00:25:23 ◼   ► make sense as a standalone written piece there.

00:25:27 ◼   ► And I think it's important to do that because again, whatever you respond to, the user who

00:25:33 ◼   ► wrote the review can then edit the review to say anything.

00:25:36 ◼   ► So if you just say, I agree, the person who responded to the review is saying, this app

00:25:41 ◼   ► sucks.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Or the person who edited the review is saying, this app sucks.

00:25:44 ◼   ► And then your response is there saying, I agree.

00:25:47 ◼   ► So you have to always make sure that you are accounting for the fact that the thing you're

00:25:51 ◼   ► responding to can change at any time to say anything.

00:25:54 ◼   ► And make sure that your review still makes sense in that context.

00:25:58 ◼   ► >>COREY Yeah, and it's just, yeah.

00:26:01 ◼   ► I mean, the nice thing is in iTunes Connect, you can sign up to get notifications when

00:26:05 ◼   ► users change reviews that you responded to.

00:26:09 ◼   ► So at least you can track that down a little bit.

00:26:11 ◼   ► Also there's a filter in iTunes Connect.

00:26:13 ◼   ► But still, it's definitely good advice to keep that in mind, that you don't control

00:26:17 ◼   ► the other end of this.

00:26:18 ◼   ► And this is all in the public.

00:26:19 ◼   ► It's all public facing, not just like on a public website even, it's like right on your

00:26:23 ◼   ► App Store page.

00:26:25 ◼   ► The last thing that I wanted to just touch on briefly, I think, is the mental health

00:26:30 ◼   ► aspect of responding to reviews.

00:26:33 ◼   ► >>TIM And this is probably worth saying, that I went through and did a little bit of responding

00:26:38 ◼   ► to reviews.

00:26:39 ◼   ► But after that initial wave of just making sure I understand how this process works and

00:26:44 ◼   ► what it looks like, just like I do for my customer support, I've outsourced the actual

00:26:51 ◼   ► day-to-day operation of responding to reviews to someone else.

00:26:55 ◼   ► I have someone else who responds to my first level customer support, and now I have someone

00:26:58 ◼   ► who is on a very part-time basis, but is responding to the reviews in the App Store.

00:27:05 ◼   ► And the main reason why I do that, I mean, it's nice from a time perspective, it frees

00:27:11 ◼   ► me up a little bit and so on, but the main reason why I do that is because I find reading

00:27:19 ◼   ► reviews of my own products can be very detrimental from a motivation, from a happiness, self-worth,

00:27:27 ◼   ► all kinds of very significant things can happen.

00:27:29 ◼   ► And this is one of these things where it's so, reading one really mean, pointed review

00:27:35 ◼   ► about yourself, as always, is the thing that sticks with you.

00:27:40 ◼   ► It's not the thing that, if someone writes this glowing five-star review about how much

00:27:43 ◼   ► they love the app, that's nice.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And I wish it stuck with me more, but it's almost always these mean, intentionally vindictive

00:27:52 ◼   ► kind of reviews that people will write.

00:27:56 ◼   ► So that's why, for me, I decided, in the same way that I haven't really been reading my

00:28:00 ◼   ► App Store reviews very much over the last few years, it's like, this is not a reason

00:28:04 ◼   ► for me to get back into that game.

00:28:06 ◼   ► I remember what that did cognitively to me, and so it's like, you know what, I will just

00:28:12 ◼   ► pay a little bit of money to have someone else do that, because for them, it's not personal.

00:28:16 ◼   ► For them, it's not that same thing when they're, if someone's attacking the product that I

00:28:22 ◼   ► made, it feels like they're attacking me.

00:28:25 ◼   ► Whereas, if someone else is slightly more separated from that product, it's more just

00:28:31 ◼   ► a job, it's a thing, and it almost has more of a comedy to it, perhaps, so it softens

00:28:38 ◼   ► the blow.

00:28:39 ◼   ► So just something to keep in mind, that while this is a useful tool, while this is something

00:28:42 ◼   ► that I'm glad we have, be careful and really speak cognizant of the impact that it is having

00:28:48 ◼   ► on you, and be careful about, then, how you do that, and when in the day you do that,

00:28:53 ◼   ► or how you're feeling emotionally.

00:28:56 ◼   ► If this is something that you're doing, and you're feeling really sad or down that day,

00:29:00 ◼   ► maybe don't go read your App Store reviews.

00:29:02 ◼   ► That's unlikely to make you feel better.

00:29:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would say that's good advice in general.

00:29:08 ◼   ► In general, you don't need to read your App Store reviews very often or very closely.

00:29:13 ◼   ► I think it's important to do what we said earlier, view them in the same way that the

00:29:18 ◼   ► public views them.

00:29:19 ◼   ► So look at your store page occasionally and see which ones are on top, and see what your

00:29:24 ◼   ► average is.

00:29:25 ◼   ► And I don't think you need to go much further than that, in both reading them or responding

00:29:29 ◼   ► to them.

00:29:30 ◼   ► I have found the same thing, that reading my App Store reviews is almost never a good

00:29:34 ◼   ► thing for my motivation or my mental state, and so I mostly just don't do it, and I'm

00:29:39 ◼   ► very happy not doing it.

00:29:41 ◼   ► And that will probably continue.

00:29:43 ◼   ► So anyway, thanks everybody for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

00:29:46 ◼   ► - Bye.

00:29:47 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]