Skip to main content

Can you trust the reviews? A critical look at the Salesforce AppExchange.


My mom published this article on LinkedIn, and I just have to share.  It is quite clever.  Enjoy!

 While researching Salesforce data backup providers on the AppExchange, I discovered something intriguing. I navigated to a random profile for a person who wrote a review and was surprised to find that the profile contained no information other than the person's name. How could I verify that this review was from a real customer?

 This is the review:


The user's profile: https://success.salesforce.com/profile?u=0053A00000DLnOiQAL

Did this user create a Salesforce profile solely for the purpose of writing a review? Possibly.

 The Experiment: Search for "backup" in the Salesforce AppExchange and sort by rating. Use 6 top rated data backup vendors and determine what percentage of the reviews are from "Trustworthy" vs. "Questionable" profiles.

 The Question: Can you trust Salesforce AppExchange reviews?

 I started with my own company by researching every profile for every review that Capstorm has received since entering the AppExchange in 2011. If a profile contained anything other than 1 review, such as a comment or idea vote, I flagged it as "Trustworthy." Profiles like the example, with no photo, groups, location, comments, questions, etc, were flagged "Questionable." I also counted a profile as "Trustworthy" if the person's review contained their company name or if the profile name indicated a specific business, such as "Capstorm Admin." Here are my findings:
To clarify, a "Questionable" review is not necessarily fake. The person crafting the review could be logged into a developer environment or may desire to remain anonymous.

Next, I took the same critical profile examination to OwnBackup's reviews and found a high percentage of "Trustworthy" profiles.

Sesame Software Relational Junction for Salesforce was next, and the findings were very interesting. Slightly more than half of the most recent 20 reviews were from users with "Questionable" profiles. Oddly enough, 26 reviews appeared to come from one single profile.

Odaseva: The majority of the 23 reviews were from "Trustworthy" profiles.


Undo Button: Slightly more than half of the reviews, or 53% were from "Questionable" profiles.

Conclusion: It is reasonable to assume that a proportion of reviews for any application will be generated from developer or anonymous accounts that contain very little data. Thus, allow for a reasonable percentage of reviews - say 30% or less - to come from empty profiles.
Can you trust reviews on the Salesforce AppExchange? Yes, around 70% of the time.

Comments

  1. akhilOctober 17, 2021 at 12:43 AM

    Nice article and very good information. For Salesforce Dumps (Admin, Developer, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud etc…) Click Salesforce Dumps

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousApril 20, 2022 at 7:00 AM

    We provide Salesforce implementations as well as build AppExchange apps around salesforce
    Visit : https://cloufi.com/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sarah JordanMay 30, 2022 at 4:51 AM

    Thanks, admin, for sharing such incredible content on this topic. Now I have got everything I need about it. Here’s another informative piece of content Salesforce Field Service , you may find here more information.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Service Cloud Specialist Superbadge - 4,5,6,7

Part of doing the Service Cloud Specialist superbadge is trying new things, so I am putting up picture of new things that I've tried recently.  One of my favorite new things this week was taking a shower with my whole block collection.  Mom put me in the shower, and I sneaked out to grab the block bin and dumped it in.  I'm concerned to share photos because of the slight nudity, however, I can assure you that it was a glorious adventure.  Instead, I'll share my favorite Saturday new thing- walking to the coffee shop for a sprinkle donut!  Back to the superbadge... Challenge 4 Case Routing If you haven't taken the Onmi Channel module yet, now is a good time! I kept that particular module open one on screen while I walked through this step.  It is hard to give many hints about this step without giving away too many details - so - the best advice is to read through the challenge and label each step with the corresponding Salesforce term.  (IE - "The...
191 comments
Read more

Business Administration Specialist Superbadge- 3 & 4

This afternoon, I added a genius wig in an attempt to look a little older and more experienced.  The free lemonade offer worked!  I made two dollars today!  A huge thank you to Jocelyn Fennewald , Salesforce MVP, for pointing out the "remove all columns" option within the report creator.  When you start a create a new report, simply click to start with a clean screen.  If you are familiar with report and dashboards, this challenge should only take 30 or so minutes to complete.  Below are tips and gotchas for each report / dashboard.  If you need more help, leave a comment! Reports Accounts by Market To create the "Market" row grouping, use a bucket field. Make sure that the correct date range is selected. High Value Residential  This report includes: 1 filter, 1 grouping, and 1 summarized field.  Rated Accounts by State The record count for state and account rating are automatically added. Note the filter.  ...
134 comments
Read more

Service Cloud Specialist Superbadge - 1,2,3

A confession - I know next to nothing about service cloud.  While I was excited that a new superbadge was available, it made me a little nervous that I had to do all of the prerequisites and tackle new things like macros.  New things - new year - let's get started! (Right after I finish guitar practice) If you are also a service cloud novice, the Omni-Channel Basics is a crucial prerequisite even though it is not officially required. Challenge 1 App Appearance  This, like all superbadges, requires a careful read through the instructions prior to any clicking.  I found it helpful to take a separate notebook and write down the steps that I would need for each challenge step - for example -  My rough notes for challenge 1: Create 2 profiles  Tweak service Console 3 new items on utility bar Allow access for new profiles Create User  Beware - After editing the service console, you might have to edit the new profiles.  I found i...
155 comments
Read more