Garmin Connect support team, and other developers,
A week ago on 4 August 2022, I received a review from a particular individual who rated my app as 1 out of 5 stars, and left a negative comment. The individual didn't contact me, or ask any questions, and his/her negative review is pretty basic. They didn't include any relevant details or explain what didn't work, but they did state it doesn't work. My ERA viewer isn't showing any new crashes. I left a cordial reply to the review and I hope they get around to writing me back.
So I got to thinking about it. Because the target community I develop for is so small, I figured I would try to reach out and see if I could find who this person was online, and contact this individual to follow up and figure out why they had trouble with my app. With orienteering, people's actual names are posted online as an actual record of one's stats, kind of like with cross country running sometimes. There was a chance I could find this individual if I searched. So I searched their name and orienteering. No results.
So, then I continued to search the internet, and after a few dead end pages, or profile pages I didn't or couldn't look at, I came across another review by this same individual on Garmin Connect, recently. Except it wasn't for my app, but for someone else's app. Low and behold, they also left a pretty basic, negative review (in Dutch this time), for someone else's app, called "Maps" by another developer. The other app developer replied in a similar manner, but, like me, it seems as though their negative review will stay, and nothing will come of it, at least presently. The one similar thing is that both of our apps are in-depth apps concerning navigation, but for entirely different purposes, which makes me question this user's sincere need to use these apps. Was this person just trashing other apps for the sake of trashing other apps? They are apparently translating their reviews into other languages.
What is up with some of these bot-like negative reviews, and is there anything we as developers can do about them? Can I flag it for someone to follow up, and see if this individual is just posting negative reviews without consequence? Is this really a bot that gave me a negative review? Certainly, from the competition/ie apple watches, or other platforms, seeing very basic negative reviews for our free apps would make me think twice about buying a Garmin watch... Anyway, any ideas of what to do?
***Alright, I read another forum post from 5 years ago, and another from 3-2 years ago ( https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/discussion/210388/suggestions-for-improvements-to-user-review-process-and-flagged-reviews#pifragment-1298=3 ), and it seems the correct steps are to flag the review, and note the issue. The other developer has apparently dealt with this issue before, it's too bad. I have flagged the review, and will post if any updates. I'm not as concerned with this, but my app has only one other written review, so it means at lot that I fix it, since a lot of customers probably trust the written reviews more than the star ratings. I also flagged the other negative reviews this one individual posted, because they looked pretty hokey.
*** Thank you Jim, Brandon and Peter for the thoughtful feedback. This is useful and I will apply it going forward. I know that on some level, it's a good thing that people can post whatever they want. Perhaps this user is really having issues with my app, and hasn't followed up yet. Thanks again.
-----
The negative reviews are all from the same user over the past few weeks, and are remarkably similarly-worded despite being written in different languages and concerning different apps, see below links... this annoys me 
"I loose my time. Probably the app is for young people or IT. Don't work after installing."
"Dno jak większość aplikacji. Nie działa. To już piąta od Garmina włączając płatne a Garmin nie bierze odpowiedzialności za nie swoje aplikacje". (translation: Bottom like most applications. Did not work. This is the fifth one from Garmin, including paid ones and Garmin is not responsible for its applications.)
"Premium when you need dont work. I loose my money."
"I loose my time. Probably app is for young People or IT. After installing don't work."
