In-app feedback: Why it matters and how to get it

In Q3 of 2022, 27.1 billion apps were downloaded from Google Play alone. Considering the fact that your app is one of the billions in existence, how will it stand out? A fantastic way to ensure your app has good reviews in the app stores, excellent retention rates, and meets user expectations is to collect in-app feedback. Let’s review why in-app feedback matters, what areas of your app it can impact, and the different methods of collecting user feedback.

In-app feedback provides app marketers and developers with essential information regarding the user experience. When used in tandem with behavioral data, user feedback offers a glimpse into the decision-making process of users in regard to in-app actions such as purchase decisions, churn, new feature adoption, and much more. For example, by asking users for real-time feedback, you can be proactive about potential points of churn to identify and resolve issues before a user leaves the app for good.

In addition to providing user insights, in-app feedback shows users you care about their experience, their likes and dislikes, and their overall user journey.

Areas mobile app feedback improves:

• Retention rate: Examine customer feedback to improve user satisfaction and increase user lifetime.
• New features: Get immediate insight on whether or not users like or dislike a feature you’ve recently introduced to your app.
• Customer support: Not only can customer support agents respond in real-time to user feedback, but they can also learn from users’ responses what is needed.
• Ranking in app stores: If users are providing great feedback, why not ask them to rank and review your app in the app stores to increase your app ranking?

There are several different feedback tools an app can employ along the user journey to capture various user insights. We cover these methods and include examples.

App rating prompt

Apps use this feedback method to increase ratings on the app stores. The prompt is usually limited to a scale from 1-5 stars for users to rank the app. Once users submit their ratings, they are taken directly to the app store linked in the prompt.

Feedback widget

A feedback widget allows app developers to easily integrate feedback features into their apps such as survey creation, text analysis, and analytics with minimal to no coding effort.

Popup survey

A popup survey is an excellent feedback tool apps can use at different touchpoints of the user journey. For example, you can ask your users if they found the onboarding process helpful once they completed it. Then, once a user has been using your app for a while, you can have a popup survey asking them about their experience. Or, if a user requests to delete their profile in the app, a popup survey can be used to collect information about why they are leaving the app.

The following three survey types are the most widely-used metrics for user satisfaction, both in apps and in the business world at large.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score is the percentage of users likely to recommend your app to their friends and coworkers. On a scale of 0 to 10, users are asked, “How likely are you to recommend this app to your family and friends?” App marketers can use this app survey to predict lifetime value (LTV) and retention rates.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

The Customer Satisfaction Score measures the degree to which users are satisfied with your app, a service within your app, or an in-app experience. The CSAT scale can be from 1-3, 1-5, or 1-10. For example, after an in-app chat with customer support, a user may be asked this CSAT question: “How would you rate your overall satisfaction with our service today?”

Customer Effort Score (CES)

Unlike the first two, the Customer Effort Score deviates from satisfaction to determine how difficult an in-app action is to complete. Typically on a scale from Very Easy to Very Difficult, CES is sometimes also measured by Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. For example, a fintech app might ask, “How easy was it to set up your profile?” to determine if its account setup can be improved.

1. Pay attention to timing

   Forget sending an email or a push notification asking a user to rate your app. Asking for user feedback in-app allows you to capture users’ responses when they’re engaged with your app. But even within your app, timing still matters. For example, if you ask a user how their experience is while they wait for a support agent to help them, they’ll likely provide a negative response. However, user feedback will be more balanced if you ask a user how their experience was after a resolved support issue. Similarly, it’s best to ask if the app demo was clear immediately after the user has walked through it and not three days after.

2. Brevity. Always.

   Keep your surveys or in-app questions short and to the point. The longer your survey is, the higher the chance users will drop out. In summary, value users’ time.

3. Specific questions = specific answers

   Ask specific questions if you’re looking for specific answers. For example, don’t ask, “What things do you like about this app?” when you could ask, “Do you like this particular feature?”

4. Unify all sources of feedback

   From in-app user feedback to emails to social media comments, make sure your company consolidates all user feedback into one place or dashboard. Why? Your users will have different methods of communicating their feedback, with no one method being more valid than the other. Viewing each area of feedback separately will only serve to silo these areas and hamper having a holistic view of user feedback.

5. Respond to feedback

   When a user provides feedback, they are offering their time and their valuable opinion. Minimally, ensure your app’s feedback process involves a “Thank you” screen, but when a user shares feedback—particularly negative feedback—always respond promptly. Users want to know their feedback has been listened to and will make an impact on their future user experience. The more responsive your app business is to user feedback, the better.

6. Share reviews as social proof

   As mentioned earlier, asking users to rate your app in the app store is valuable to increase your brand’s visibility. Similarly, sharing user reviews in-app, on social media, and in ads for your app. Social proof matters, with 88% of consumers saying they trust user reviews as much as personal recommendations.

It’s clear that in-app feedback can be employed for user acquisition when used as social proof. However, user feedback can and should be incorporated into retention strategies. If you set key metrics to be routinely used as benchmarks, like NPS orCES, then it’s easier for your app to be proactive about user churn. In-app feedback fills the unknown knowledge gap regarding what your app provides and your users’ expectations. In meeting users’ needs and wants, your app’s retention rate will increase. To get practical retention strategies, download Part 2 of our guide: Scaling your app to 1 million users.