Problem: user has left review of iPhone app which is simply incorrect
Question: is there a way to make contact with the reviewer and a) explain how what they've said is incorrect and help them with their issue or b) challenge the review?
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No, not at all. Encouraging people to contact you in the app description can reduce "the app doesn't work" reviews, but that's about it. It's unfortunate and pretty severely flawed, but there's no way to contact the reviewer and no way to challenge or respond to reviews. Reviews from people who've used the app and indicate they've not had the problem might help, though they're sometimes regarded as developer spam by readers. It's a tough situation. |
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You shouldn't be affected negatively by bad reviews. You should seek for such valuable feedback instead. The more you will be exposed, the more reviews you will get, including bad ones. And bad ones usually provide you with the information your need to improve your product. Including incorrect reviews. This may be an indication that something is not clear in the software or in its documentation.
Take note of the bad review, and improve your software accordingly. Encourage your user to send you feedback. Challenge them with yourself, not with your users. Your should thank the users that take their valuable time to write reviews. Tip: To minimize bad reviews, do everything in your power to maximize good reviews, by learning from bad ones. |
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Unfortunately no is the short answer. The best thing to do it glean as much information from the (undoubtedly terse) review as possible and try to make sure it won't happen in the future. In my apps I added multiple places where a user can send feedback either by email or via a website. The form prompts people for various pieces of relevant information. Result: almost no discernible change in the number of reviews or support emails. The few support mails I do get are usually completely unpopulated -- just the machine generated content. For whatever reason, people find it easier to post a bad review to iTunes than to contact the developer. I find this depressing as there's nothing I'd like better than to be able to improve my software, but that's how it is. |
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The fact that someone took the time to review your app is actually pretty important. Whether you're loved or hated, you have exposure--and that alone can mean the difference between someone picking your app and an app with no reviews or all mediocre reviews. That said, take the review as you would any sort of criticism. Check to see if the comment holds water, and if not ignore it. If you seem to be getting the same misunderstanding, perhaps you need to look at how the app is listed to see if that could be contributing to the misunderstandings. Other than that, no system is perfect, but negative feedback is better than no feedback at all. Try to look at it as a good thing. The worst thing that can happen (and I've seen this) is to have a comment war between you and the person posting a comment that doesn't apply. |
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