Reviews on the Marketplace: can you trust them?

Many apps on the Atlassian Marketplace have great reviews with a full 4-star rating. Of course, many of them deserve such a high rating. But can we trust them all? Should a warning light come on when we see a new app on the Marketplace with two excellent reviews? How do other vendors get reviews and ask customers for them?

Customer perspective: What is the truth about reviews?

Reviews are a great way to share your opinion about your app usage. As a customer (potential, current, or future), you can recommend or complain about the product. Other people's opinions are very important when you are looking for a solution to your needs. Atlassian publishes a short article that explains how to leave a helpful review.

Unfortunately, some vendors post fake reviews, and many employees give four stars just because they are the makers of this addon. We understand their perspective because every vendor wants to have the highest possible rating. But let's face it - this approach is unfair as reviews and ratings are not left by real customers. It may mislead customers.

Let's take a look at two examples below. Both apps were released a few days ago in a cloud version, but the app on the right also has Server and Data Center versions, released much earlier. So far, the active installation rate has reached 88. What does this mean? The four reviews posted are most likely true, because the app is not a freshman and probably has a few customers.

The second app does not come with any other hosting, so it is a brand new app on the Marketplace. But it already has the highest ratings (stars) without any comments. Interesting, isn't it?

Vendor perspective: Why are reviews so important to vendors? 

As an app developer with quite a lot of experience (it has been for eight years!). I can say that the reviews make sense and are great when they come from real customers. It proves that the app is helpful for Jira users. They often contain suggestions on what to add or change in the addon. We, as vendors, sincerely appreciate feedback because it helps to improve the quality and scope of our apps.

Honestly, even a very satisfied customer usually does not have time to write a review. A frustrated and dissatisfied client is more likely to leave a negative assessment. Therefore, getting a positive review is not easy. And that, unfortunately, generates fake reviews. Because the creator wants to take shortcuts. If you are a vendor and have just received a suspicious review, report it to Atlassian. They react very quickly to any reports of irregularities.

From the vendor's point of view, the problem with false reviews still exists. Unfortunately, there is currently no good solution to eliminate them. Recently, the following information has appeared in the Reviews tab: 

To comply with recent regulations and authenticate Marketplace reviews, we are taking steps to ensure that all app reviews published on or after May 25, 2022, are submitted by actual users of the app.

Before submitting a review, people will have to confirm that they are a current user of the app or have used it in the recent past.

This is one way to fight false opinions. Of course, sometimes there are ideas that only clients can publish reviews (for example, people with evaluation licenses could not share their opinion). The question is, do we want to be that strict? However, we would rather trust every Marketplace review.

What does Appsvio do to receive reviews?

We just ask for them politely. Nothing more. When we solve a support ticket and the customer is satisfied with our support, we encourage him to leave feedback. Clients praise us for a quick response to a problem, the release of new functionality they request, or a valuable demo. And it works! Below are our favorite reviews.

Scheduled Templates for Jira cloud

Feature Bundle for Jira Service Management cloud

Conclusion

Reviews are a great place to see how users perceive a product. However, remember a few general rules:

• Do not trust the opinions of apps that have just appeared on the Atlassian Marketplace.
• First, test the addon itself, give your opinion about it and compare the results with the app's rating - remember that the review does not only apply to the app but also to support, contact with the vendor or documentation.
• Ask the vendor for additional confirmation that the author of the review is really their customer.
• Write a review for each app you test to share your real opinion with other Marketplace users and vendors - whether it is positive or negative. Your voice matters!

Credits:

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash