Press

Needless to say that the current COVID-19 crisis is in its full swing. While most businesses are suffering heavy losses, some sectors are thriving. According to survey data from TrustRadius, most tech buyers expect to spend more as a result of trying to adapt to the new measures and move to work remotely. B2B software sales are expected to increase. Ad spend is down across all channels, however, instead of stopping ad spend, marketers should refocus their efforts to more resilient channels such as social media, paid search, and email.

As consumers have shifted how they shop and what they buy during the COVID-19 pandemic, business buyers are also altering their spend. An email survey conducted in mid-March by software reviews site TrustRadius asked software buyers worldwide about how they expect COVID-19 to impact their spending. Four in ten noted that they will spend more at least initially in order to make sure their employees can work from home with limited hiccups.

67% of software buyers worldwide plan to increase spending on web conferencing software during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a TrustRadius survey from mid-April. The fact that Zoom’s DAU count has swelled by more than 100 million, despite its security and privacy issues, suggests the bulk of the growth comes from casual users seeking a convenient, free videoconferencing platform to communicate while under quarantine.

Social distancing means video conferencing and remote work platforms are having a moment. And it’s not just Zoom. Software review site Trustradius says that interest in telemedicine, typically a sleepy category with low levels of activity, jumped 616% since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Web conferencing is up 445%, and interesting in video platforms is up 327%.

The coronavirus may have shaken our world to its core, but it’s still Women’s History month. So let’s look at some news and information women entrepreneurs need to know. This report on women in technology from TrustRadius addresses critical issues for women in the technology industry in 2020.

What causes the gender pay gap? Men and women have different explanations. According to a survey of 738 tech professionals conducted in February by software review site TrustRadius, 45 percent more women than men in tech think that discrimination and bias are the cause of the pay disparity, while three times as many men as women blame a difference in job performance.

TrustRadius recently published the 2020 Women in Tech Report in which men, women and non-binary respondents share their perspectives around gender dynamics in the workplace. Findings show that women are indeed feeling left out at work, whether it’s because they’re being paid less than their peer (or even less experienced) male colleagues or due to the overall office culture that favors men.

When asked about managing teams in the tech industry, Jennifer Griffin (VP of Customer Success at TrustRadius) shared the following advice with Built in Austin: “Find a mentor or a sounding board. Sometimes you know exactly what you need to do, but having a sounding board can help you solidify your ideas or help you look at the issue from a different perspective.”

Fake reviews are killing our ability to google for the truth. In an interview with Forbes’ John Koetsier, CEO Vinay Bhagat says “About 40% of the reviews we reject are completely just suspicious. They look outright fraudulent.” That’s why TrustRadius introduced a new ‘TRUE’ program to ensure that reviews are Trustworthy, Responsive, Unbiased, and Ethical.

TrustRadius recently launched a new vendor initiative, called TRUE (Transparent, Responsive, Unbiased, Ethical), where vendors pledge not to cherry-pick reviews or attempt to game the system. This move confirms that the leading enterprise review sites have shifted their focus from the headlong race to accumulate reviews inventory, in favor of concentrating on getting to the truth.

TrustRadius’ Vice President of Research Megan Headley believes that everyone, even managers and star performers, can benefit from performance reviews. In discussing her winning strategy with Built in Austin, Megan shared advice on how to prepare for performance review conversations and how to give constructive feedback with employees.

As the most trusted review site in the business technology industry, TrustRadius maintains an ongoing commitment to high-quality, detailed, and unbiased reviews that help buyers make great decisions. Today, TrustRadius announces the next wave in the transparency revolution: TRUE, a program which recognizes technology vendors that are: Transparent, Responsive, Unbiased, and Ethical.

TrustRadius fielded survey questions to vendors as well as buyers, and used this to point out where there was a lack of alignment. “Only 33 per cent of vendors say they think it is very important for buyers to understand the cons before buying,” the authors noted, compared with 77 per cent of buyers. “This gap is increasing year over year.”

By misjudging the impact of consensus decision-making and over-focusing on the divide and conquer strategy, many vendors are on the wrong track when it comes to developing strategies to manage their brands on peer review sites. And this means wasted investments in attempts to guide buying decisions.

The 2020 B2B Buying Disconnect highlights the findings from the 4th annual report by TrustRadius. Designed to explore the evolving relationship between technology buyers and vendors. This year TrustRadius surveyed a total of 1.5K respondents. 1,036 technology buyers and 449 technology vendors took aligning surveys.

The role of millennials in B2B buying decisions, and their distinctive attitudes and behaviors as business buyers have become major topics of interest for B2B marketing and sales professionals over the past five years. Since 2014, numerous research studies – including studies by the IBM Institute for Business Value, Google/Millward Brown Digital, Merit, and Heinz Marketing/SnapApp – have focused specifically on this subject.

“Share your toys” was a phrase that many of us heard from adults growing up. For DevOps teams around the country, that sentiment never really dies. We spoke with DevOps experts from Austin’s Iodine Software and TrustRadius, who shared the importance of working within key site reliability engineering team principles — like making data-based decisions — and the benefits of incorporating DevOps into departments across the business.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has now found himself answering questions about user privacy as part of a congressional hearing more than once, including this week. Alphabet, Twitter, and Amazon executives have also sat in the same hot seat. In that same vein, consumers are largely on board with the regulatory scrutiny of so-called big tech. A survey performed by Trust Radius earlier this year found that only 29% of the respondents trusted Google. That’s far better than Facebook’s rating of a mere 5%. Apple and Amazon earned the trust of 27% and 25%, respectively.

Omnichannel customer engagement and customer review management are table stakes for B2C brands that want to win and keep customers. Now they’re becoming important for B2B companies, too. That’s because B2B decision-makers are bringing purchasing habits from their consumer lives to work—and they’re changing the way B2B Marketing works in the process.

Customer reviews play a key role in helping people decide what to buy on consumer-focused marketplaces like Amazon or app stores, and the same tendency exists in the B2B world, where nearly half a trillion dollars is spent annually on software and IT purchases. TrustRadius, one of the startups capitalising on the latter trend, with total feedback sessions today standing at close to 190,000 reviews, has now picked up a Series C of $12.5 million led by Next Coast Ventures, with existing investors Mayfield Fund and LiveOak Ventures also participating.