Life is not fair. I get that. But when something becomes weighted so much one way I get really, really pissed.
Take for example the infographic released by Capterra today.
http://cdn0.capterra-static.com/infographics/top-20-help-desk-software-v001.png
When you look at the details, this is what you really find:
1. They rated vendors on their social media presence. Do people really buy software for critical business processes because the company has a large following on Facebook? I guess I should follow up on the offers I get every day to buy followers. Is this what the world has really come to, one great big popularity contest? What a horrible data point to use in a ranking system.
2. Users and customers. To start with, this is vendor-provided data with no fact checking. They do not define what a user or a customer is. Are they a company, a representative, or an end user? They do not break out free customers vs paying customers. There is nothing here to help a buyer understand the financial viability of a vendor they are going to rely on for a critical business processes.
If a “user” is a company, my number might be 5K; if we’re talking representatives, then maybe 25K. If we’re talking reps, casual users, and managers, maybe 45K. If we’re talking anyone that has ever touched my software, we are into the high six figures. Without proper definition of the data point, this number is far from useful. Of course everyone is going to give the highest number they think fits.
3. What is the most interesting is that it is a software review site. They put no weight into the actual reviews that live on their site. Minus Team Support, the total number of all product reviews do not total the number of reviews iSupport has alone. These are reviews by real customers that can each be verified. Weight in their ranking system: ZERO.
This is not the first time nor will it be the last that someone gets it so wrong. I just have to hold out hope that people are smarter than marketing executives think they are.
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