14 DAY TRIAL // Windows Phone developers will be pleased to know that Microsoft has started a massive rollout of a new feature that would allow them to respond to customer reviews.
In fact, this is not a new feature, but Microsoft only deployed it to a limited number of developers since April, so beginning today this ability to reply to Windows Phone customer reviews will be available for more people who create apps for this operating system.
The information has been recently confirmed by lots of developers via WPCentral, so apparently Microsoft is now enabling the feature to all Windows Phone developers, but in stages.
Even though not all Windows Phone devs will be able to reply to customers reviews, it’s almost certain that this ability will be enabled for them by the end of the year.
Microsoft already has a short guide aimed at developers who already have the ability to respond to customer reviews enabled, so they know how to use this feature.
Basically, if you are a Windows Phone developer, you must sign in to Dev Center and go to Dashboard. Then go to the Apps section and select an application, then Reviews and pinpoint the one you would like to reply to. Click Respond, write you message and then click Send.
There are some warnings that Microsoft published on its official website, so developer can take notice before responding to a customer review. Here they are:
“- Don’t include any marketing content or ads in your response: your reviewer is already your customer. Your response should be directly related to the specific app and review.
- Don’t include any profane, aggressive, personal, or malicious comments in your response. Always be polite and keep in mind that happy customers will likely be your app’s biggest promoters.”
Keep in mind that every user that finds your response inappropriate can report it through the Report Concern link in the Details section of the application’s Store description.
This means that Microsoft can revoke any developer’s right to access the ability to respond to customer review for various reasons.
Obviously, this goes both ways, so if you find a customer’s review of your application violates Content policies, you should submit a support ticket and Microsoft may or may not remove that review from your application’s Store page.
This is a very important feature that would enable developers to directly interact with the users of their applications, thus improving support for those apps. Hopefully, it will be rolled out to all devs sooner rather than later.