The short answer is “No”! While I recommend to everyone, who is interested to learn more about Configure/Price/Quote (CPQ) products, to go to Software Review Sites like G2Crowd.com, capterra.com and trustradisus.com . These sites have some interesting information but they do not replace engaging a trusted CPQ advisor when you investigate or select a CPQ tool!

These sites are good to get a first, high level understanding of the CPQ market, vendors, capabilities and to see some real user feedback. While we rely in many parts of our lives on online reviews, to simplify our lives, I think CPQ prospects would make a big mistake if they would do the same with CPQ Software Reviews. At least at this point in time.

When I think about online reviews I think first about companies like Amazon, Netflix, Yelp, Flixter, Expedia etc. Every time I look for a product or service I check online ratings for it. This saves me time if I trust the Reviews. That is obviously easier if these online reviews are for simple, one-time decisions that do not require a long explanation and that usually don’t have a long and lasting impact.

Example: On Amazon the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey has been reviewed by 3511 people. The average rating is 4.5 out of 5 stars. When I’m interested in this topic I can reasonably  conclude that this is a good book.

With a CPQ tool this is different! Usually people need some more explanation on what a CPQ tool is and what they can expect to get out of it.  They probably also have some more questions that need to be addressed (e.g. “In what industry is it mostly used?” , “For what business audience was the tool developed?”). To dig deeper into any questions around CPQ I suggest you talk to an experienced CPQ advisor.

Nevertheless Online Software Review Sites offer valuable information that you should use.

Here are some positive areas of online Software Review Sites

  • Provide good general information about CPQ Software
  • Provide option to compare CPQ Products to one another
  • Provide option to filter CPQ Products by capabilities (e.g. Web Based, Installed)
  • Learn what actual users are saying
  • Enable potential CPQ customers to do some investigation on their own before they contact a vendor or consultant

Here are some of the areas that I think need more work to make CPQ Online Reviews more valuable

  • There are not enough reviews on most sites. Even if there are more reviews the reader has to be careful to note that a number of reviews may be from different people at the same company etc.

Conclusion: More CPQ vendors, clients and online Software Review Sites have to work together to increase the value of these reviews

  • While there are sometimes large numbers of CPQ vendors on a site (e.g. G2Crowd = 40, capterra = 69, trustradius = 82) , some (e.g. SAP, Valooto, ConfigAir) are missing
  • Pricing information is very limited for a large number of vendors. It seems the goal is to get a prospect to contact the CPQ Vendor and then discuss price.

Conclusion: While some companies may be fine with adding more price information on the web I would expect that many are not. In any case some List Price or average discount information for different customer segments (e.g. A US Customer who is interested in 50 Software Licenses, in the High Tech Industry, in the Houston-Texas Area gets on average a 20% discount) could be made available and would probably be helpful for customers to estimate financial impact of owning that tool

To summarize: Online CPQ Software Review Sites are a good source of information and you should visit them and learn what they have to offer. While valuable they do not replace an experienced CPQ advisor.

Since we just recently released our CPQ Leadership Series I add a link to that page ( http://staging.novuscpq.com/resources/cpq-leadership-series/ ) since information like this could be added to existing online Software Review Sites.

Note that we plan to add many more CPQ Leadership Series Documents (20+) over the coming weeks.