How Sykes Holiday Cottages achieved a 4.8 rating and 100% review response coverage

Background

The Sykes Holiday Cottages app has quickly become a powerhouse for customer engagement, rebooking, and loyalty. What makes the app truly stand out is that it’s not just built for customers—it’s built with them.

Designed in-house using real consumer insight, user feedback, and direct conversations with holidaymakers, the app fills a crucial gap in the UK holiday rental market: a fully featured, intuitive mobile platform that supports guests at every stage of their journey—before, during, and after their stay. This commitment to listening, learning, and evolving ensures that Sykes is always one step ahead in delivering the experience today’s travellers expect.

The app integrates directly with Sykes’ exclusive loyalty scheme, Bloom, helping customers unlock offers and competitions, track rewards, and discover tailored property recommendations. Features like wishlisting, last-minute alerts, and push notifications help engage guests before, during, and after their trips. This integration has been a key driver of repeat bookings and deeper engagement, with the app playing a central role in Bloom’s growing success.

For a brand of Sykes’ scale, staying close to customers through reviews isn’t optional—it’s a core part of how they build trust, improve the product, and foster loyalty.

👉 Download the Sykes Holiday Cottage App here

Challenge

As the largest player in their space, Sykes believes strongly in being available to customers and responding to their feedback. The app is a central platform for conversations with guests, who regularly share feature suggestions, booking feedback, usability issues, and real-time insights from their stays.

Before using AppTweak, Sykes managed reviews manually, checking store consoles only every few weeks. With a small team balancing ASO, paid campaigns, and wider marketing responsibilities, consistent app review management was difficult to maintain.

As a result, only 57% of reviews were responded to in 2024, including negative reviews that can impact store reputation if left unaddressed. The manual process also made it hard to spot recurring issues quickly or route feedback to product and research teams in a structured way.

Sykes needed a reliable, scalable workflow to monitor user feedback, respond consistently, and stay close to their customers—without overwhelming an already busy team.

Solution

With AppTweak’s App Review Manager, replying to app reviews became a consistent part of Sykes’ strategy.

A more efficient, centralized workflow

Instead of checking the stores intermittently, the Sykes team could now log into AppTweak each day, read new reviews instantly, and respond within minutes. Having reviews from the App Store and Google Play in one place made this process significantly easier.

Filters, saved views, and sentiment analysis helped Sykes prioritize by topic or urgency. Templates, bulk actions, and GPT reply suggestions streamlined replies while allowing the team to maintain a human tone.

Sykes intentionally opts for personalised, individual replies to reviews. App Review Manager makes this approach possible at scale.

Better insight for product and marketing

With review insights available at a glance, the team could surface usability issues and improvement opportunities faster. Mentions of specific features or friction points were now passed directly to product teams, creating a tight feedback loop.

User feedback is also used to inform campaign messaging and ensure Sykes speaks the language of its customers—in a way that reflects real user sentiment.

Strengthening customer connection

Because the app is central to the Sykes holiday experience, maintaining a consistent presence for their community is core to the brand. App Review Manager made this practical and sustainable, even for a small team.

Results

Moving review management into AppTweak quickly transformed how Sykes handled feedback, engaged with customers, and tracked user sentiment.

• Sykes has reached and maintained its highest average app rating (4.8) on both stores, supported by a strong product, active community, and consistent, high-quality replies.
• Review response coverage increased from 57% in 2024 to 100% in 2025, ensuring no feedback goes unanswered. Replies now happen within days instead of weeks.
• Trends and recurring themes are now visible instantly and shared with product teams, helping to strengthen Sykes’ overall app experience.
• The team gained a practical workflow that fits alongside ASO, paid campaigns, and wider marketing responsibilities.

More than anything, AppTweak’s App Review Manager helped Sykes demonstrate what they value most: listening to customers and building stronger relationships through every touchpoint.

What’s next?

Looking ahead, Sykes is excited to explore more granular sentiment analysis and review monitoring to better inform product and marketing decisions. With AppTweak, Sykes now has the tools and insights to scale its app marketing strategy confidently, both for immediate campaign optimisations and long-term strategic growth.