The Importance of Gartner Peer Insights for Technology Providers and Users
The strategic plans of organizations and projects considered to be of low priority had to be revised; medium and long-term goals had to be accelerated to take place in a few weeks; also, strategies never thought of have been implemented in the short term. Organizations and their leaders realized that if they did not implement the required changes, business continuity would be affected. So much so that, according to the Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey, 82% of CEOs have some initiative related to digital transformation, in comparison with 62% in 2018.
In these times of high competitiveness, one of the greatest advantages offered by organizations is the relationship approach with customers. More and more people in companies consider their responses during the entire consumption process, from identifying the purchase need to after-sales.
Gartner itself brings what they call the Total Experience as one of the 10 strategic technology trends for 2021. Total Experience combines multi-experience, Customer Experience (CX), Employee Experience, and User Experience (UX) to transform business results. The goal, according to Gartner, is to improve the overall experience, in which all these areas intercede, from technology for employees to consumers and users.
Taking into account that employees are giving more value to the user experience with the products and solutions available on the market, Gartner launched Peer Insights, so that users could share their impressions and opinions about IT suppliers.
Gartner Peer Insights is a free evaluation and review platform for Technology solutions and services, covering more than 300 markets, aligned with the categories from the Magic Quadrant and Market Guide reports, including 3,000 suppliers. Each review submitted by users is verified by the Gartner team to ensure that their perceptions and views at each of the different stages of the purchase process are completely authentic. And to ensure that reviews are impartial, Gartner does not allow vendors to offer any financial incentives to users who evaluate their products or services. However, Gartner itself offers gift cards and does not prohibit vendors from doing so either. It is important to note that the value of gift cards should not exceed USD 25.
Each of the reviews submitted by users is verified in a process composed of several steps, including the definition of the user and organization profile, in addition to their role and responsibilities. This verification, which usually takes a few days, is done based on the inspection of the verified corporate email and LinkedIn profile. Additionally, the user cannot be an employee, consultant, reseller, or competitor of the vendor and product to be evaluated.
After submission, user reviews are assessed to determine whether they meet Gartner Peer Insights requirements related to context, quality, and relevance.
Some characteristics expected by Gartner are:
- Comments consistent with the respective scores.
- Variance of scores in the review, considering it unlikely that a user will have the same score for all aspects of a product or service.
- Scores are logically consistent, taking into account general and specific scores.
- Demonstration of experience in relation to the product or service being reviewed.
The reviews must also be authored by the user, with generic comments, and must not contain data that allow the user to be identified. Comparisons with competitors and financial data are not allowed either.
It is important to emphasize that, after the review is published, personal data of users, such as the name of the user or organization, are not displayed, only the industry in which the company operates and its respective size, geographic region, and revenue data.
Gartner recognizes the importance of user insights, so much so that it included them in the methodologies for evaluating the Magic Quadrant processes in order to assist customers in their effective decisions in a specific market. For vendors, Gartner Peer Insights allows them to use feedback from their consumers to reinforce their strengths, display quotes from customers, and highlight their position in the market.
For this, Gartner offers resources through the Technology Provider Tools portal that can be used to encourage customers to send their reviews, including best practices, customer communication templates, and tools. These resources allow providers to generate their links for requesting reviews and obtain indicators for measuring the success in using the tool, for example.
By using a platform like Gartner Peer Insights and its resources, it is possible to offer the user a free environment to evaluate their impressions and, thus, help others to choose IT products and services. As for vendors and providers, the platform allows them to check the general satisfaction towards what they offer to the market, in addition to being able to offer upselling, acquisition of other products and services of the company, and even refer them to others. The practical result of this is, in addition to more satisfied customers, a better perception of these products and services on the market, which leads to an increase in revenues and customers. In short: this is one of the secrets to the success of any organization.