Do product review sites like G2 really matter?

A look at the practices followed by review sites and buyer behaviour

Vikram Goyal

Published in

Agile Insider

5 min readJun 30, 2023

Lately, I noticed concerns being raised on social media around the sanctity of peer review sites such as G2.

For context, G2 Crowd, Trustpilot, Reviews.io, Capterra are websites that allow software buyers to share their experience of using a product or service. This allows others to make an informed decision regarding purchasing the product.

So, I decided to take a look at the problems highlighted with the review websites, how they tackle those problems and dig deeper into the need for review websites.

Problems highlighted with product review websites like G2

Selection Bias — Companies only ask the happy customers to leave a review for them. This leads to high ratings for every product in the category.

B2B review marketplaces like G2 used to be useful.
Now companies do an NPS survey and ask the 8+ people to write a “review” for $100. So it’s all testimonials. Everyone is rated 4.5 and higher. — Peep Laja

Users incentivized to give reviews — Since reviewers are often incentivized with minor monetary benefits, they might be inclined towards talking only the good things about a product.
Fake Reviews — Users who have not used the product or service right a review.

G2 has written at length about the practices it follows to avoid the above mentioned issues. Here’s a look at what they say.

Practices followed by G2

In this article by G2’s Chief Product Officer, she details out the G2 review moderation process that will discourage and remove reviews that are:

1. Segmented and submitted through a practice that solicits exclusively from high NPS raters or those who are expected to leave positive reviews only
2. Awarded an incentive with the condition of the reviews being positive ones
3. Not tagged with our Incentivized Review mark when solicited as such
4. Fake or suspicious from a non-user or non-customer of the product

It is important to note that incentivizing reviews is meant to compensate the writer for their time and not to push them to write an overtly positive review without highlighting any shortcomings.

To avoid fake reviews, G2’s moderation policy involves the following: the team manually checks a review before its published, “Validated Reviewer” label indicates how reviewer was authenticated and “Validated Current User” label indicates that the user submitted a screenshot of being logged in or reviewed in-app.

FTC guidelines for review platforms

Review platforms are expected to be compliant with the FTC guidelines for them. (FTC refers to the US Federal Trade Commission)

Here is a link to the FTC guidelines.

It has guidelines along three aspects of the review process:

Review Collection: Don’t ask for reviews only from people expected to leave positive reviews, don’t offer incentives on the condition of reviews being positive, don’t prevent people from leaving negative reviews.
Review Moderation: Have reasonable processes in place to verify authenticity of reviews, don’t edit reviews to alter message, don’t subject negative reviews to greater scrutiny.
Review Publication: Publish all genuine reviews, don’t display reviews in a misleading way.

The above guidelines do provide clear principles to follow for online review platforms. Failure to comply can put the platforms at risk of people lodging complaints.

Why review websites matter?

In the physical world, we often rely on “word of mouth” recommendations before purchasing a product or service. But while purchasing digital products and services, its not always easy find a personal connect who can give you a completely unbiased review. That’s why reviews play a crucial role in helping users make a purchase decision.

Personally, I won’t order food or book a hotel without going through its reviews. The same holds true for purchasing software as well.

Reasons why review websites matter:

Prospects feel more confident after reading authentic reviews about a product or service — 92% of B2B buyers are more likely to purchase after reading a trusted review
Help the customer identify whether your product is the right fit for their use case — A good review website can go much beyond showcasing reviews to you. It can help you filter reviews based on industry/company size/region, showcase the specific features which are considered strong/weak, see the product’s ratings on parameters such as ease of use etc.

User Ratings on G2 for Asana across various parameters

Help prospects evaluate you against competitor products — A review website showcases you ratings across multiple products that do a similar job. When you are evaluating multiple competing products, it allows you to compare the ratings of those products.

For example, here is a detailed comparison page of Asana vs Trello. It shows comparison across pricing, ratings and features in various categories. (Similar comparisons can be found for any competing products)

Allow startups to build credibility and generate social proof — For startups and new categories where the customer awareness is not a lot, the review platforms can provide a crucial way to gain mindshare among prospects. Buyers can be assured that reviews are from genuine customers and this increases the likelihood of them purchasing from an upstart. (No wonder that many companies display trust badges received by G2 prominently on their websites)

G2 Trust badges like these are placed prominently on websites

Review websites rank high on search results — If you google “reviews of product X”, the top search results are those from product review websites. So, its important to have reviews and rating on these websites.

All the above shows that review websites create a win-win for both the buyer and seller.

How the software review websites could become better?

All said and done, the current review process is not perfect. There are issues with companies cherry picking only happy customers for reviews.

Here’s how the review website could become more convincing for buyers:

Ability to directly talk to existing or past users — The users could be paid for the time they spend talking to prospects.
Community Led Approach — A community of experts helping each other make buying decisions. Where you can ask specific questions about a product and get honest answers.

There are already products in the market that are leading the change with the above approaches.

It would be interesting to see how the space of peer review websites unfolds.

But until then, review websites like G2 continue to rule the charts. And it would be advisable for your company to chart a strategy to be on top of the review game.