Validity and trustworthiness

Millions of buyers scour the internet each year to read user reviews for software tools and services that could meet their most pressing business challenges. Customer reviews represent a critical element in today’s software purchase cycle.

Buyers turn to sites like Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice to ensure they reference the most accurate representations of the products under consideration. Our database of user-generated reviews content complements vendors’ product listings and descriptions highlighted on their spotlight pages. Those objective reviews, coupled with vendor-supplied collateral, provide buyers with a holistic description of products and instills confidence to create a shortlist of options.

That wealth of information brings buyers back to the Gartner Digital Markets network of sites and software vendor listings again and again. We’re seeing more traffic than ever on our three buyer-facing sites — 9 million visits per month, to be exact — and that results in more impressions for our basic listing vendors while also driving more qualified leads to vendors who leverage a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign.
 

Data analysis and marketplace comparisons

Just four years ago, not all vendors were convinced of the power of user reviews and the need to actively recruit them. That’s still true for a few vendors today, but we continue to see some pretty solid numbers to consider: 57% of vendors whose product listings feature reviews receive more traffic, and 75% receive more leads, than those listings that do not.

During that time, we listened to vendor feedback when it came to the challenges of collecting user reviews. Our Review Collection Service is a direct result of that feedback. We continue to improve those offerings as the crowdsourced reviews and research landscape evolves and through ongoing vendor feedback.

Now we’re excited to help vendors progress to the next stage in leveraging user reviews: Incorporate the reviews and data vendors worked so hard to recruit into every facet of their sales and marketing strategy.

Thanks to our robust library of more than 1 million user reviews, we can provide vendors with data-rich tools and resources like Reviews Insights, which helps vendors filter, sort and analyze reviews to gain actionable intelligence about their products. Data-rich tools like Reviews Insights enable vendors to sort, filter and analyze reviews to gather actionable intelligence specific to their product(s).

Reviews Insights data helps vendors immediately impact their businesses across departments, from product managers who use insights to prioritize product roadmaps to sales teams who can better engage and close leads with more tailored messaging.

We have come a long way from simply helping vendors better understand the value of customer reviews, and are proud to have the chance to continue to help vendors see just how impactful reviews can be to their bottom line.
 

The future of crowdsourced reviews

And that’s just the beginning! As you can imagine, crowdsourced reviews and research aren’t going away anytime soon. In fact, their importance in today’s purchase process will only continue to grow. My team and all of us at Gartner Digital Markets look forward to improving the suite of offerings we provide our vendors to take advantage of all of that game-changing data and information.
 

Connect with one of our reviews experts today.