G2 Qs: Rachel G. Discusses the New Custom Questions Feature

Product updates are always met with excitement, possibility, and a whole lot of questions. Thankfully, our Associate Product Manager, Rachel G., agreed to fill us in on the newest addition to the G2 Review Form: Custom Questions.

Rachel gives us the lowdown on Custom Questions, including how it works, the benefits of implementing it, and how G2 customers can leverage the feature to drive product development and marketing roadmaps. 

Interview with Rachel G.

Brittany King: Hi Rachel! Thanks so much for making time for me today. I’m excited to get the scoop on the newest G2 Review Form feature straight from the source. 

Before we get started, why don’t you tell us about yourself and your role here at G2?

Rachel G.: Sure, that sounds good! I’m Rachel, the Associate Product Manager on the user-generated content team at G2. I love working on this team because I see the direct impact our work has on our customers and in the market. 

The product team focuses on collecting as much content as possible, including reviews, discussions, review replies, and review updates. Basically, anything we can collect to give buyers as much relevant information as possible when they come to G2 to review software and make purchasing decisions. 

The core product we manage is the G2 Review Form, which is really cool because it's the backbone of our company. After all, G2 is a software review site and we wouldn't be here today without the review form. 

This past quarter, we've been focused on running numerous A/B tests on the form to see how it impacts user behaviors. These tests help us make data-driven decisions to improve the form and implement changes that are best for our users.

BK: I think it’s safe to say that hard work has paid off, considering your team just made an exciting change to the review form. Tell me about the new Custom Questions feature and what the experience looks like.

RG: Yes, it’s very exciting! This new feature is the direct result of us implementing customer feedback to improve the review form.

The Custom Questions feature is as simple as it sounds: our customers can now add questions to the form that are unique to their product and not included in the standard G2 Review Form. 

“Custom Questions helps you better understand your users, inform marketing strategies and content, and uncover deeper product insights.”

Rachel G.
Associate Product Manager at G2

The experience will not change from a design and a user experience (UX) perspective for those who are leaving a review and filling out the form. Custom Questions have the same look and feel as the standard questions on the form. 

For now, Custom Questions will not be required for users to answer. These questions are for internal use only, so the questions and the responses will not display publicly on the G2 product profile.

But the questions will display above the terms of use questions in our form, so they’re in a highly visible place. Also in this first release, customers can only add two multiple choice or binary questions. 

As part of our guidelines, we ask that customers don’t include questions that collect personal identifiable information (PII), mention other companies, or repeat any existing questions currently on the form. 

BK: I was researching some info on user insights and saw that 78% of business professionals think consumer feedback data is the most important driver of innovation. And actually, the same survey states that 90% of consumers believe “listening to customers” is the most important way for companies to fuel innovation. 

Clearly, we all agree consumer feedback is important. But can you explain how different job functions benefit from Custom Questions? Say, for instance, you in a product role and me as a marketer?

RG: From a marketing perspective, Custom Questions can help you understand your users and collect data for segmentation and account-based marketing strategies. It also saves valuable time and resources traditionally dedicated to hiring market research firms to address these questions.

Rachel discusses the benefits of Custom Questions

For a product person like me, one major benefit is that you can gain product insights. You ask specific questions about your product to understand user sentiment. 

For example, you could add a question when a feature is launched and then collect feedback to better understand how people use it in their roles. So you can find out if users find a feature helpful, if they don’t find it helpful, or gather insight on how they feel about it before it even launches. 

There are a lot of benefits to Custom Questions. Not only will it help customers better understand their users, but it also allows them to collect data for segmentation purposes and identify key product personas. Both marketers and product managers can collect product-specific insights and walk away with ideas for strategic planning and roadmap innovation.

I also want to add that we’re currently seeing a 77% user response rate to Custom Questions, which is pretty good for nonrequired questions. 

“G2 customers should feel confident they can collect the data they need to inform product development and strategies with Custom Questions.”

Rachel G.
Associate Product Manager at G2

BK: Wow, the fact that you’re seeing such a high response rate on a brand new feature is amazing. And giving customers the ability to collect these unique insights is incredibly valuable. I imagine they’ll be extremely eager to get it up and running. 

Which leads me to an important question: who’s eligible to use Custom Questions and how can they access it? 

RG: Any current paid customer is eligible to set up Custom Questions today! It’s part of our existing packages and doesn’t cost extra to use. However, in this first iteration, customers will not be able to enable this feature themselves.

For anyone interested in setting it up, they can simply contact their representative who will help them add the questions to their form. Although Custom Questions is not a self-enabled feature yet, customers will still be able to access reporting in my.G2. 

Right now, the reporting is fairly basic and shows the question, the breakout of responses, and the response rate. In the next month or so, we’ll be adding filters and a CSV download option so customers can export the data and filter by factors like user role, industry, and star rating. 

Custom Questions currently only include binary or multiple choice questions. But the next phase will include open text and free response, which were other highly requested features from our customers. 

BK: As an add-on benefit to our paid plans, Custom Questions is definitely going to empower our customers to extract even more value from their G2 profiles. This can truly help them gain more insights into their users and product. 

Can you give some examples of the types of questions customers might want to ask their users? 

RG: Sure! So one example is a time-to-value question, like “How quickly did you realize business value using our product?” Responses to this question can be extremely helpful in marketing materials and when talking to prospective customers. 

Another example is a product usage question, such as “Which feature in our product do you use the most or find the most valuable?” That could be a really good indicator for audience segmentation and better understanding what type of users you want to market to. 

Rachel talks Custom Questions best practices

I recommend partnering with your internal product and marketing teams to determine what data points they're lacking and want to collect through the review form. I also strongly recommend only updating your Custom Questions about one time per year to ensure you collect sufficient data to operationalize.

BK: Earlier you mentioned that Custom Questions was created in response to our own customers’ requests. I guess you could say that Custom Questions is a good case in point for the value of customer feedback data. 

RG: Oh, absolutely. Custom Questions was the number one most requested feature received from customers. We knew it was a must-have addition to the form after listening to customer feedback and understanding the value that can be derived from this feature. So we added it to our roadmap.

Rachel explains how Custom Questions came to fruition

A big part of any product manager’s job is to be the voice of the customer. You need to know the customer’s pain points, their needs, and how they use your products so you can advocate for them when talking to product developers. Whenever a product manager is in front of a customer, we use that opportunity to discuss these items. 

For us, adding Custom Questions to the review form was a no-brainer. And we’re so excited to see the value our customers gain from it. 

Open the door to deeper customer insights. Contact your rep today to enable Custom Questions on your review form.