Voice of the Customer (VOC) Overview

The Voice of the Customer is a document that applies a methodology to aggregated Gartner Peer Insights’ reviews in a market to provide an overall perspective for IT decision-makers.

Vendors have to meet specific inclusion criteria to be included in a Voice of the Customer document and then are categorized into four quadrants based on User Interest and Adoption (X-axis) and Overall Experience (Y-axis).

The information below is a guide to ensure that you understand and are setting appropriate expectations with your internal teams about your company’s potential placement in the Voice of the Customer document.

The Voice of the Customer tentative publication dates can be found year round in the Voice of the Customer Publication Calendar. This calendar updates frequently, so if you do not see a market you are currently listed we encourage you to check often.

The Gartner Peer Insights Voice of the Customer (VOC) document follows a timeline for publication as listed in the VOC Publication Calendar. Voice of the Customer (VOC) documents are produced when the Gartner Peer Insights team determines that there is end-user interest, sufficient data available on the platform, and production capacity. It is important to note that Gartner reserves the right to selectively publish a Voice of the Customer document based on our determination of the value of that document to our end users.

You can also view Voice of the Customer status announcements in your GPI Vendor Portal Dashboard in the Voice of the Customer Status section.

When a specific Peer Insights market is approaching a Voice of Customer review eligibility deadline, the Voice of the Customer Status section within the Dashboard in the GPI Vendor Portal will update to show eligibility towards inclusion in the Voice of the Customer in that market.

The information shown on your Voice of the Customer Status Dashboard is dynamic and is presented as directional guidance only. Review totals may change at any time as part of our ongoing moderation and auditing activities. Please note that information displayed on your dashboard is not final. Peer Insights will audit the results once the review eligibility deadline passes and final results will be officially announced in the published VOC document.

As a reminder, you must meet the following inclusion criteria to be considered for the Voice of the Customer:

Note: Reviews for legacy products, reviews from companies with revenues less than $50M USD, and reviews from reviewers with an exclusive partnership with the product or vendor being reviewed are not eligible.

For more information, please review the VOC Methodology.

It is important to note that even though your VOC Dashboard may show you currently meet the inclusion criteria, the information shown in the Dashboard is not final and may change after sourcing periods close as part of our moderation and auditing process.

Please note that Voice of the Customer calculations are strictly confidential.

If you are only a few reviews away from meeting the inclusion criteria, we would encourage you to aim for above what is needed when inviting your customers to leave a review. It is entirely possible that reviews may get rejected as part of the moderation and audit process, and we cannot grant an extension to the review eligibility window under any circumstance.

Since October 2015, more than 644,000+ reviews across more than 692+ markets have been posted to Gartner Peer Insights. In markets where there is enough data, the “Voice of the Customer” document is published on Gartner.com and synthesizes Gartner Peer Insights’ reviews into insights for IT decision makers. This aggregated peer perspective, along with the individual detailed reviews, is complementary to Gartner expert research and can play a key role in the buying process, as it focuses on direct peer experiences of implementing and operating a solution. In this document, only vendors with 20 or more eligible published reviews (and 15 or more ratings for “Capabilities” and “Support/Delivery”) during the specified 18-month submission period are included. Reviews from vendor partners, and reviews from end users of companies with less than $50M in revenue, and reviews submitted for products marked as Legacy are excluded from this methodology.

Vendors in the “Voice of the Customer” document are categorized into four quadrants based on User Interest and Adoption (X-axis) and Overall Experience (Y-axis). Vendors from any of the four quadrants may be the best fit depending on your business needs. Read the full Voice of Customer Methodology.

The “Voice of the Customer” report includes vendors who have products listed in a particular market, and have received 20 or more eligible reviews along with 15 or more ratings for the ‘Capabilities’ and ‘Support/Delivery’ sub-ratings over the 18-month analysis period.

Qualifying for Customers’ Choice

Gartner Peer Insights recognizes vendors who meet or exceed both the market average Overall Experience and the market average User Interest and Adoption score through the Customers’ Choice distinction.

When will a Voice of the Customer document be published for our market?

Gartner reserves the right to selectively publish a Voice of the Customer document based on our determination of the value of that document to our end users. All active markets on the Gartner Peer Insights platform are candidates for Voice of the Customer (VOC) analysis reports but we will only consider a Voice of the Customer document in markets where there is a certain level of market maturity (representing vendors and number of reviews) on the Gartner Peer Insights platform. For more information, see the detailed methodology and Voice of the Customer Publication Calendar.

We encourage all vendors to implement year-round sourcing efforts so that reviews are up to date and always representative of your offerings. This will also ensure that your organization has well-represented reviews that fall into a potential review eligibility window.

If you currently meet the Voice of the Customer inclusion criteria but there is still time remaining in the review eligibility window, we encourage you to continue inviting your customers to leave reviews!

A great way to continue your review sourcing is to ask for reviews from customers within a broader market coverage than what is currently published on GPI.

For example, if your organization currently has a high number of reviews within specific industries, company sizes, or regions, asking for reviews from customers outside of these high volume categories may increase your review diversity towards the Voice of the Customer report.

It is also important to note that the Voice of the Customer is a market-based document. This document synthesizes Gartner Peer Insights content in a specific market during a specified 18-month period - Your organization’s performance in this document is relative to the overall market performance, and not only takes your organization’s reviews into consideration, but also how the market is performing.

As always, keep an eye on the Voice of the Customer Publication Calendar and your Dashboard to monitor any VOC-related announcements, so that you and your organization can best prepare for the VOC.

As a vendor listed in a Voice of the Customer document, you and your organization will have the following benefits:

Please reference our How to use the Voice of the Customer report as a reprint article for more information.

For support/advice on how you could promote a VOC report, please reach out to your GPI Program Manager or to PeerInsightsVendorSuccess@gartner.com.

Other Helpful Resources!

Need additional assistance? Reach out to your Program Manager or email peerinsightsvendorsuccess@gartner.com for assistance!