Chrome web store lets devs and reviewers have a chat

The Chrome Web Store has been updated recently to allow developers to respond to user reviews to their apps. User reviews are a driving force for free and freemium software on desktop and mobile and the ability to respond to good or bad reviews is an appreciated one. The feature has been a given in mobile app stores such as Google Play or iTunes, but has not been implemented in the Chrome Web Store until today.

Developers are already making use of the feature which was announced in a blog post by the Chromium blog. With the right to reply, developers can now communicate freely with reviewers in the Chrome web store and thus they can stregthen their relationship. Reviewers often leave poor reviews because they could not properly use the app or because they experienced a bug that developers did not know about. Having the opportunity to reply to bad reviews and find out what happened and how it could be fixed lets developers and reviewers generate a two-sided conversation that is more useful than a one-sided one.

The Chrome Web Store, as any other store that allows reviews, can occasionally become annoying from all the troll reviews or bad reviews that do not point out why the product was not to their liking. Developers can now easily get to the bottom of things and keep the users of their apps happy and informed.

The ability to respond to reviews in the Chrome Web Store was not added because developers needed it, rather it was added for customers who are not familiar with the Support system of Chrome. Although reviewers had the opportunity to report bugs and provide feedback that developers could respond to through the Support Tab in Chrome, Google found that many people still used the review or comment section to voice their problems.

To make things easier for everyone, the Chrome Web Store will now allow devs to respond to reviewers and mitigate issues that reviewers did not report through support. The move comes in an attempt to unify the Chrome ecosystem as well as familiarize customers and developers with each other and to tr and minimize the number of bogus reviews that go unanswered and negatively impact other people’s opinions.