TikTok has become a legend among Entertainment apps. Recently TikTok became the leader of the Top Free apps in November for iOS users with an impressive number of downloads worldwide - 9M. Overall, in 2019 TikTok got 650M unique installs for both platforms.

The app allows users to make short videos with unique and quite creative effects or just do lip-syncing which makes itself a trendy content, especially for social network users. TikTok is notably loved by youngsters from 16 to 24 years old: the number of downloads and active users is growing rapidly and now outperform the results of other social networks.

For such famous and popular apps, it becomes even more critical to react to major bugs or feature requests which users are talking about in the most accessible communication channels for them - in app stores. Before TikTok expansion, Snapchat was a thing for young users and they are still competing for the audience, so it is really important to hear the users. The App Store and Google Play reviews are a valuable channel of user communication being the users’ voice. Having such a huge audience makes it hard to work with but at the same time reputation management issues rise to the forefront: monitor competitors’ reviews to find out which problems they have and adjust your roadmap accordingly, bugs complaints or even new feature requests or new version reactions.

We conducted a research powered by the AppFollow Review Management Tool with the automatic Review Translation feature in order to understand the mood of TikTok users from all over the world, as well as which app’s features they liked the most and what problems they faced in 2019. In this research, we analyzed featured reviews in the countries with the highest number of the TikTok app downloads - the USA, India, Germany, Russia, and Brazil.

What users say in the US

In the USA TikTok has 12M monthly active iOS users which makes it the second country by TikTok usage in the world and 4.4M MAU for Android. Most of the featured reviews in the US for iOS devices are negative and have a rating of 3 stars and lower. 3 of 6 reviews have an update and a rating change through the time and all of them are long ones. Long reviews usually contain a lot of useful information as they are left by loyal users who invest their time in writing them.

1 of 6 featured reviews is positive and with a 5-star rating, but other contains complaints on different topics and bugs:

From this review we can see that the user loyalty has declined as his complaint about the issues with his account was ignored - the review rating was changed to the lower one.

Another 2 featured reviews contain a complaint about TikTok support and again it has to deal with no well-built communication system between the app and users:

The next 2 featured reviews contain some UX-complaints reporting ruined user experience:

“...Some filters are a little glitchy and filters may not work but I am glad that we get to save videos filters and sounds so we don’t have to spend a lot of time scrolling through content to find this specific sound or video. If Tiktok is reading this I wish for Tiktok to help these issues that annoy users like me and others I would also like to this policy where when your on a video there is no “swipe up to see another video” because whenever that happens on a specific video your watching it just ruins the whole thing…”

“...Musically was great before the new update and in my opinion, it still is amazing, but there are a few things that definitely keep me off of the app more…”

Unfortunately, Google Play doesn’t allow us to see the review breakdown by country, only by language - so we took a look at English reviews, even though they could come not only from the US users.

Most featured reviews for Android are positive and has has a rating of 4+ stars. But one of them is negative and reports some UX and feature problems:

“...I would rate this 5 stars but, I have problems, maybe because I am an android user. When it was musically it was more fun, more unique sounds, no copyright involved and it was more entertaining…”

Overall, the Sentiment Score is more than positive but there are lots of bug and crash reports which even such big players on the app market should pay attention to and fix them fast.

iOS:

Android:

What users say in India

India is in the first place for TikTok MAU for Android - 53.5M users. All featured reviews which were left by Indian users in Hindi for Android are positive - the overall Sentiment Score is good. But still, we can see the main review topics:

• Bugs
• Support requests
• App freeze

iOS users left more particular reviews.

“...App is very creative and excellent but nowadays my all videos views are being freeze and due to freezing likes are not being gain...”

The review itself has a 5-stars rating but it still contains a complaint - therefore, it is critical to read positive reviews as well, they might have a high rate because of the user’s loyalty, better not to ruin it.

“...No response from tik tok on ID complaint was done 1 month ago...”

“...if you would have asked me to rate the app 4 days ago I would have given all 5 stars but ice facing a problem and I’ve reported so many times yet I don’t get a feedback...”

The next ones are negative and have lower than 3-stars rating - again about the absence of reputation management and support. The positive review has a feature suggestion:

“...My suggestion is, u guys have to allow musically users to chat with anyone…”

Sometimes there are really useful feature requests and ideas that can be gathered by app product managers or developers directly from users.

Overall, TikTok has a high Sentiment Score in both app stores in India and it is higher than in the US.

iOS:

Android:

What users say in Russia

You have to be careful with Russian users as they seem to be straightforward and won't be shy to hide their real thoughts. It gives an idea that cultural features should be considered by app developers for the product release. Most of the featured reviews from iOS users of TikTok are negative with a 1-star rating. The complaints are mainly about ads and updates, but it is an alarm for developers to work with Reputation Management and make users loyal again after carefully replying to their queries.

Android users were more particular this time leaving a review with a feature request or improvement:

“...the maximum number of characters, well, can not be 150 for normal communication, no matter how! It should be from 200, and preferably from once 500 and then everything will be fine for everyone...”

There are also 2 cases when users lowered their review rating:

If TikTok worked with featured reviews and replied to them - maybe these guys would stay loyal and didn’t ruin the overall app rating as well.

The sentiment analysis showed the lowest results for iOS users - there is definitely a need to work with those complaints and reputation. It directly influences the conversion rate for new users.

iOS:

Android:

What users say in Germany

In Germany, Android featured reviews picture is not that bad, all the reviews are quite positive but some contain a feature or improvement requests:

“...What I do not like so much (which is why I give 'only' '4 stars) is because you can not use your own music...”

“...I uploaded an edit that took a long time. This was privatized by TikTok because the sound is supposed to be banned in my country. However, I did not "make" the sound from TikTok, but myself…”

The iOS featured reviews are mostly positive but report about some issues:

“...My brother has had TikTok for a long time, he never had a problem until this year...But two days ago when he almost got his 10k, his channel was finally closed so he can never use it again....”

“...I've already reported several times before 1 week or even ago someone because they stole my work…”

“...My followers will no longer appear on my profile…”

“...the new update ... has destroyed the app in my opinion come full. I think the app was rebuilt mainly for Samsung phones because of the effects…”

These all are pretty important problem reports for developers as it shows the technical problems users are facing.

Overall, the user mood is quite good though.

iOS:

Android:

What users say in Brazil

iOS users in Brazil are expressing their opinions about the new app update - the most important time to monitor user feedback is right after it was launched, developers can see the bugs and react instantly or product managers can test their hypotheses.

For Android, we can analyze reviews in the Portuguese language - almost all of the currently featured reviews have rating 3-stars or lower. Users are complaining about crashes and errors.

Overall sentiment mood is quite positive for both app stores.

iOS:

Android:

Conclusion

As we could see in the conducted analysis, working with app reviews is an important thing for app developers. Moreover, Reputation Management is an essential part of every app or game growth. What users think about your app, how likely they recommend it, and what issues they have — these are the questions you should care about most.

Most users are complaining about the absence of customer support and bugs, also, we noticed that some users lowered their app rating since they didn’t receive any feedback. But at the same time, users love TikTok for its creativeness and humor.

Some companies still don’t consider feedback from the app stores as somewhat useful or don’t have a sufficient workflow to work with them. But here’s the thing: unlike email and chat conversations, app store reviews show what your customers say about you in public. It directly influences your app conversion rate as at least 70% of users read the reviews before downloading an app. Even though TikTok has a huge audience but there are no limits to growing more by working with its users and improving the app.

Remember, a company’s rapid reaction increases its chances to get a new loyal customer. Our research shows that 74% of users who got a developer reply to increase their rating, and 60% of users who didn’t get a response decrease their rating throughout a week.

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