A good way to gain insights from this field is provided by G2 (formerly known an G2 Crowd). Our guide will tell you, how you can use this practical platform to detect the needs of your target group and learn from the mistakes of your competition.
The website G2 (formerly known as “G2 Crowd”) provides a platform that lets you read and write reviews for a range of different B2B software solutions. It comes with different categories like “Video Conferencing”, “Accounting” or “CRM”, so that you can quickly find the products that are relevant for your case.
The special feature of G2: Reviewers have to cover particular points in their reviews. That includes negative aspects and the question, what problems they want to solve with the corresponding solution.
How does G2 helps you with getting new customers and improve your product?
It’s quite easy: Since every review has to include some critical points, you can easily overwiew the challenges that your potential customers face while using the products and services of your competitors. If some issues occur more often, you can start there and make it better.
Our step-by-step guide will show you how to do it!
Getting started with G2 is simple. On their website g2.com you can start easily without any registration and begin looking for interesting solutions.
In our example we suppose that we want to launch an new software for customer relationship management (CRM). For this we want to take a look on existing solutions, their customers’ satisfaction with it and – what’s most relevant – their problems.
To find solutions that might be interesting for you, G2 offers a variety of options on their start page.
On the category pages – in our case CRM Software – you can find a number of products. These can be filtered and sorted by different aspects. For example there is a ranking by the highest rating and one by the aspect “Easy to Use”.
The Tab “Highest Rated” lists the products and services with the highest ratings. You can also see, in which categories the product scores best and by which branches it is used mostly.
The tab “Easiest To Use” shows solutions listed by their ease of use. This list also shows, whether the services are used by small, medium-sized or big companies.
The tabs “Free” and “Resources” are interesting as well. The first one concentrates on free options – that are especially interesting for small companies at their beginning.
The “Resources” Tab shows you (if available) reports, articles and answered questions.
A variety of useful filters help you to find the right reviews. These are, among other options, filters for the size and branch of the companies for which the reviewers work, as well as filters for their position. You can also filter by regions and keywords. G2 can even show you reviews made by your LinkedIn contacts.
To see what concerns users from your branch, take a look on reviews with only a few stars. Here you can expect some criticism and suggestions for improvement.
Then look for patterns: Are there more users who complain about the same problems? Did they experience the same issues with other products? If there are such points, you should write them down. These are aspects on which you can work to do them better than your competition – your audience will be thankful.
Besides the review pages, G2 offers a variety of additional tools, that can help you getting a general or specific market overview.
Do you want to compare different solutions with each other? Go to the category page (e. g. CRM) and set a checkmark in the “compare” column for ervery product or service you are interested in. These will get on your comparison list. The checkboxes to choose products for a comparison can be found in different tabs like “Overview”, “Highest Rated”, “Easiest to Use” or “Free”. You can choose up to four products for your comparison.
On the category pages you can also find an overview in form of a grid. Here are different solutions positioned in a coordinate system, that consists of the dimensions Satisfaction and Market Presence. The first look might be a bit overwhelming, but filters help you gaining clarity.
Besides the reviews for solutions that come mostly as Software as a Service (SaaS), G2 also has a section for different “classical” services. This part isn’t (yet) as extensive as the software section, but can be worth a glance, if you are looking for customer voices about companies that offer services. Websites like Trustpilot can also support you to accomplish this.
Thanks to its many filter options, G2 lets you set your “perspective” individually. This applies not just for branch and position, but also for the company size.
In order to get a market overview with reviews, filters, comparisons and grids, you do not need to register. If you want to share your own experiences or comment somebody’s review, you need to sign up to G2.
The companies’ self-presentations on their pages – often supported by screenshots – can teach you something about communicating value proposition and storylines to potential customers.
G2 offers you high-quality reviews for products and services of your branch. Since every review must answer specific questions – even ones for negative critic – you can uncover potential weak spots in the products of your competitors. Listen to your audience’s voice on G2 and learn from the mistakes your competitors made. Extensive filter options and a mighty comparison tool help you with getting a market overview.
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