Over the past few years a group of review web sites have been created with the objective (nominally) of helping consumers and businesses sort through the moras of opportnities to spend money. Some of these are clearly suspect and seem to simply harvest data from third-party sites which they can monetise in some way. Others, for example Trustpilot springs to mind, clearly have a valid business model, at least that's what some people think given the company's $1.5 Billion valuation in 2021!

In the App developer world there are several sites that attempt to provide a B2B service, nominally via independant and validated ratings and reviews of vendor's services. Inevitably these sites need to sustain a commercial organisation and this leads to 'sponsorhip' opportunities, so if they're not careful these sites risk get into murky territory somewhere between paid for advertising and genuine reviews.

At Exploding Phone we have chosen to nail our colours to the Clutch review site mast. Yes, there are plenty of opportunities to hand over your cash to the Clutch team however, even if you choose not to do so, there still seems to value in swimming in the Clutch ecosystem. Specifically the Clutch team invests time in conducting independent interviews with customers and their black-box system of then ranking suppliers seems to have a high degree of credibility in the market.

Over the last 4 or 5 years we have invited all our customers to participate in a Clutch review once the initial project goes live. And yes, this includes the rare ones where the wheels might have not been as tightly bolted on as we would have liked.

Recently we received our 22nd review from a UK based supplier of construction materials: Selco Builders Warehouse. As with most development project there are many elements driving (or inhibilting) the success of the project, and the Selco project was certainly made more challenging due to the small matter of a global pandemic. Nevertheless we got there (or at least to the deployment of V1.0) in the end and it was gratifying to recieve another 5* customer review.

If you're considering shortlisting Exploding Phone as a potential app development partner we'd encourage you to take a look at our Clutch reviews. Sure, not all the feedback is perfect but perhaps what comes through is a sense of who we are, that is, a team of engineers (and a designer) that enjoys building apps and delighting our customers.