Soso lifts its App Store rating from 3.73 to 4.75 by turning conversations into reviews

Soso is one of our own apps: a period tracker built for tween girls, available to download. This case documents how we recovered its App Store rating between April and June 2026.

The challenge: a wave of negative reviews

In April, a wave of negative reviews, apparently spam or from competitors, dragged Soso’s App Store rating down. On April 26, it stood at 3.73.

For any app, the rating weighs on the decision to download. For a health app made for girls, it weighs even more: often it’s a parent who decides, and the rating is one of the first trust signals they see on the app’s page.

Reviews can’t be deleted. The way out was volume: bring the voice of users who were already happy with the app into the store, until it outweighed the negative wave.

The turning point: support as an asset, not a cost

Inside Soso, girls have a channel to talk to the app about their periods and their bodies. Instead of seeing that support as a cost, we started treating it as one of the most underused assets Soso has.

The shift was in posture: instead of just answering, answer to make the user love the brand. And the end of a conversation that solved her question is exactly when she’s most likely to say she likes the app.

1. 01 Conversation A girl asks Soso a question.
2. 02 Question solved She leaves the conversation happy.
3. 03 The ask, at the right moment The native prompt shows up there, not in the middle of a task.
4. 04 Positive rating Someone who was just helped rates well.
5. 05 Higher rating The app's page earns more trust.
6. 06 More downloads More girls arrive and start new conversations.

What we did

1. The ask at the end of every conversation

   At the end of April, we started asking for a rating after every successful conversation, using the App Store’s native rating prompt. Someone who has just been helped is the person most willing to speak well of the app.

2. The right trigger

   We changed the prompt’s trigger so it would reach the happiest users at the right moment. That matters because iOS limits the native prompt to three appearances per person per year: each one has to come after a good experience, not in the middle of a task.

3. More visibility for the channel

   In May, we gave the conversation channel more visibility inside the app. More conversations meant more right moments to ask, and the ratings curve followed.

When the ask happens

Before · the conversation ended with no ask

Opens the app Uses the app Talks to Soso Question solved Rating request nothing happens

After · the ask right after the question is solved

Opens the app Uses the app Talks to Soso Question solved Rating request

The results

In June, Soso’s rating was back at 4.75, reversing the effect of the negative wave. Volume moved to a new level: in the first weeks of May, the app was getting about 6 ratings a week; by the end of June, it got 38, six times more. In two months, that added up to 188 new ratings.

New ratings per week · weeks starting May 2, 2026

6

5

7

14

26

33

27

32

38

May 2May 9May 16May 23May 30Jun 6Jun 13Jun 20Jun 27

New ratings per week · weeks starting May 2, 2026

Week starting	Ratings
May 2	6
May 9	5
May 16	7
May 23	14
May 30	26
Jun 6	33
Jun 13	27
Jun 20	32
Jun 27	38

And the rating held: in October, four months later, it’s still around 4.7.

Downloads came along. With the rating back near 5, daily downloads moved to a new level from May onward, following the jumps in ratings volume. The rating wasn’t the only factor: in the same period, we also rewrote the app’s title and subtitle, as we covered in this post.

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The reviews became an asset outside the store too: today, they’re featured on Soso’s website.

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The takeaway

Support usually goes on the spreadsheet as a cost. At Soso, it became the engine that recovered the app’s rating. The lesson applies to any app:

1. Find the happiest moment

   Every app has a moment when people leave satisfied. At Soso, it’s the end of a conversation that answered her question. In yours, it might be a finished task or a goal reached.

2. Ask there, with the native prompt

   With only a few appearances per person per year, when you ask matters more than how often.

3. Treat support as a growth channel

   Answering well is what makes people love the brand. That’s the moment to ask.

This is the kind of App Store Optimization work Beyond Analytics does, on our own apps and our clients’. If you want to apply the same approach to your app, get in touch.