Do you trust client reviews?

A recent client of mine achieved a new title: the worst configured Salesforce implementation I’ve ever seen.

Talk about things NOT to do:

• Hardcode user content in apex that needs to be regularily updated
• Deploy apex classes that don’t meet the required 85% overall coverage
• Create custom fields when standard ones are suitable (including creating email fields that are text)
• Create multiple individual flows that perform the same behavior
• Create an ecommerce platform using site and VisualForce pages
• Overload a custom object to both collect orders and manage fulfullment

This is was implemented by a previous vendor. What’s even more interesting is this vendor is a summit Salesforce partner (the highest available), has a 4.9+ star review on the AppExchange, and more than 75 reviews.

Given this, how can you trust reviews? And if you cannot trust reviews, how do you evaluate a potential vendor?

The takeaway
Salesforce knows this is an issue and is currently changing how vendors are rated and recommended.