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Peer Insights Voice of the Customer FAQs

Questions regarding Voice of the Customer

Updated over 9 months ago

About VOC and markets

What is the Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’?

Since October 2015, more than 605,000+ reviews across more than 615+ 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.

What will you do to recognize vendors?

Voice of the Customer reports are published on Gartner.com, and highlighted within the Gartner Peer Insights site experience. Vendors who are Customers’ Choice are also noted on the live site with the Customers’ Choice badge for the specific market. We encourage vendors to drive awareness of their achievement through various marketing channels, including reprinting the VOC report to strategically support lead generation and content marketing efforts. We provide digital marketing collateral and templates to help with marketing efforts in the Marketing Tools Resource.

Does this replace the Magic Quadrant (MQ) view of a market?

No, Gartner Peer Insights complements Magic Quadrant and Critical Capabilities reports by offering perspectives solely about what a vendor’s customers think of its products. Based on end-user feedback, our clients value having a holistic view of Gartner expert opinion and end-user perspective when evaluating vendors and their products in a market.

How will this data be used in the MQ? Will receiving the distinction put us in the Leaders’ quadrant?

The raw data from Peer Insights reviews is made available to our analysts, but it is only one factor among many that they consider when creating an MQ.

Publication/schedule related

Will I get this document to review before it publishes on the site (like we do for the MQ)?

The data used in the report is entirely based on end-user reviews and ratings that are available on the Peer Insights site. As a courtesy heads-up, we will share a draft directly with the vendors included in the document approximately 1 week ahead of report publication.

Is there a minimum criteria required in order to publish a Voice of the Customer document for a 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 Peer Insights platform, and 5 or more vendors represented in the document. Only vendors with 20 or more reviews during the 18-month submission eligibility period are included in a Voice of the Customer research document. For more details, please go to the Voice of the Customer Methodology page.

Which markets are/will be covered by the Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ report?

All active markets on the Gartner Peer Insights platform are candidates for Voice of the Customer (VOC) analysis reports. Please 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. Currently 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 Roadmap.

How do I access the Roadmap of markets for Voice of the Customer?

The Voice of the Customer Publication Calendar can be found in the Resources tab of the GPI Vendor Portal. Kindly note that this list and schedule are tentative and subject to change at the discretion of Gartner Peer Insights. It is updated frequently, so be sure to check often.

Are Voice of the Customer documents published for all markets? How do you determine which markets will go for Voice of the Customer?

All active markets on the Gartner Peer Insights platform are candidates for Voice of the Customer (VOC) analysis reports. Please 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. Currently 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, and more than 5 vendors represented in the document. Only vendors with more than 20 reviews during the 18-month submission eligibility period are included in a Voice of the Customer research document. For more information, see the detailed methodology and Voice of the Customer Roadmap.

Is the Voice of the Customer still an annual document under this updated methodology? Is there any opportunity for a Voice of the Customer document to refresh more 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. See the Voice of the Customer Publication Calendar for a full calendar of upcoming markets.

How do I know when the 18-month window starts for my markets?

The review eligibility dates for upcoming markets are noted within the Voice of the Customer Publication Calendar. Alternatively, the 18-month period is retrospective from the deadline displayed on the VOC Dashboard page on your GPI Vendor Portal for the market.

Reprints / Quote requests

Can we leverage this document as a reprint? What is the price to reprint this document?

The Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer’ document is able to be licensed as part of the Gartner reprint program to support your sales enablement, lead generation, and content marketing strategies. This Peer Insights research document reprint follows the same policies and pricing guidelines as any other research note reprints (e.g., MQ, Critical Capabilities). Existing Reprints clients may use an existing document “slot” for Peer Insights content. Please contact your Account Executive for more details.

The document provides valuable synthesized insights from our reviews that complement the analyst perspective in a format your clients could easily share with their investment committees.

If I can get this information from the free Peer Insights site, why should I buy the reprint?

We developed the VOC document as we heard consistently from end-users that they need a better shortlisting tool in a format they could easily share with their investment committees. The research note synthesizes the key insights from all the peer review ratings information available on the site using our proprietary methodology.

Although the data is available on site, the images that synthesize the information are not available. For example, the User Interest and Adoption axis in the main quadrant is only available through this document.

The VOC report includes a smaller set of eligible vendors, and shows their ratings over a fixed period of time (last 18 months) vs. the GPI site which is continuously changing as reviews come in.

Many vendors who license the reprint of this report often use it for lead generation. Lead generation is only available via the reprint, and is not offered to vendors as part of the regular GPI site engagement.

Purchasing a reprints license gives you access to a dedicated program manager who will handle all of the legwork for quote request approvals and help you to track the reprint impact.

Methodology Related (Includes Customers' Choice Distinction Questions)

Which VOC methodology is currently used? Will the methodology change from year to year?

What is the inclusion criteria in a VOC?

To be included in the “Voice of the Customer” report for a Gartner Peer Insights market, a vendor must have a product that aligns to that market as determined by Gartner Peer Insights and have 20 or more eligible reviews during the specified 18-month submission period. Please refer to the VOC methodology for full details.

How and when is market average calculated?

The market averages are determined by all eligible reviews submitted in the full 18-month review period, and therefore fluctuate throughout the entire review eligibility period as reviews are moderated and published. For more information, see the detailed methodology.

Does the overall market rating on the Y-axis use the same calculations as what we see on the live site?

Voice of the Customer Y-axis calculations use only eligible reviews submitted in a specified 18-month time period with a lower weight for the oldest 6 months of that period. The star rating displayed on the Gartner Peer Insights reviews page shows either past 12 months or an all time average for all reviews excluding partner reviews, with a lower weight for earlier years. Thus, the ratings shown in the point-in-time Voice of the Customer report may differ from what is displayed on the live Gartner Peer Insights reviews page. For more information, see the detailed methodology.

Is there a limit to the maximum number of vendors that can be listed in a Voice of the Customer document for a market?

Yes, there is a limit. The Voice of the Customer document was specifically created to help end-users shortlist vendors in their buying/selection process. Currently, Gartner Peer Insights limits the number of vendors included in the document to 25. If more than 25 vendors meet the inclusion criteria, then 25 vendors with the highest number of eligible published reviews will be included. If two or more qualified vendors with the same number of eligible reviews tie for the 25th position, all vendors in the tie will be included in the document.

For more details, please go to the Voice of the Customer methodology page.

What is the User Interest & adoption score?

Please refer to the Voice of the Customer methodology here for full details

How are vendors/products included in a VOC report?

A dedicated Peer Insights content team evaluates whether a technology provider’s products and/or services align with the Peer Insights markets based on a series of market guidelines defined by Gartner experts and GPI experts. The Peer Insights markets are periodically reviewed throughout the year and in anticipation of an upcoming VOC report to ensure alignment is maintained. For more details, refer to the Peer Insights listing guidelines.

Are reviews for products that are no longer sold included in the VOC analysis? What about reviews for products that are in beta test?

Reviews for products that are in production / general availability, along with beta products are included in calculations for the Voice of the Customer. Reviews for legacy products (that are no longer sold by the vendor) are not included in these calculations.

Why are you excluding reviews from companies that are less than 50M USD in annual revenue?

Gartner Peer Insights was developed with the global enterprise customer in mind. We define enterprise customers whose company sizes are greater than 50M USD in annual revenue.

For how long is the document considered current?

The Voice of the Customer document and Customers’ Choice distinction will be current for 15 months or until the next version of the Voice of the Customer for the market is published. Documents that are no longer current will remain visible on Gartner.com with an “Archived” tag..

Right now, the reviews included in the VOC can be sourced by Gartner as well as invited by the vendors. Aren’t vendor-sourced reviews inherently biased because vendors select their best clients and offer them incentives to write reviews?

Our interviews with reviewers suggest that most of them are motivated by a desire to give back to the broader IT community. We’ve decided to include honest vendor invited reviews and incentivized reviews as part of the relevant data set used to determine inclusion on the Peer Insights site and therefore in the VOC document. Offering “nominal incentives” as a means of encouraging the submission of reviews (regardless of whether they are positive or negative) is widely considered common industry practice. Simply put, incentives help motivate software users to leave reviews. Were we to only publish those reviews that did not receive an incentive: (i) our online community would have less guidance to help inform their purchasing decisions; and (ii) there would be a risk that the incentive practice would simply move “underground” and not be disclosed. This underground activity would be difficult to police. In addition, our vetting process for reviews is extensive, and we investigate any anomalies to ensure that users can trust the reviews published on Gartner Peer Insights. If you ever have concerns about the accuracy or validity of a review, or concerns about a vendors’ sourcing practices, please email PeerInsights@gartner.com with supporting context.

Can I see my status for eligibility towards Customers’ Choice in a specific market?

When a specific Peer Insights market is approaching a Voice of Customer review eligibility deadline, the vendor VOC Dashboard on the GPI Vendor Portal will update to show eligibility towards inclusion in the Voice of the Customer report for that market. We do not disclose potential document position (Customers’ Choice, Strong Performer, etc.) in the VOC Dashboard. This information is dynamic, updating daily. Please note, the information shown in the Dashboard is not final and may change after sourcing periods close as part of our moderation and auditing process.

Are vendor ratings rounded/truncated in the VOC?

Yes. The market average Overall Rating is calculated by averaging all eligible vendors’ Overall Ratings. All vendor ratings and the market average Overall Rating are then truncated to the tenths place (e.g., ‘4.512’ becomes ‘4.5’). Vendors whose truncated scores meet or exceed the truncated market average are positioned in the upper-half quadrants, while vendors below the truncated market average are positioned in the bottom-half quadrants. These truncated scores are used to position vendors in the Voice of the Customer quadrants and are listed in Figure 2 in the Voice of the Customer document.

Are more recent reviews weighted more heavily in VOC calculations and scores?

Reviews from the first 6 months of the 18-month submission eligibility period will be given 50% weight in all calculations for both axes. This means that one review from the first 6 months will have half the impact of one review from the next 12 months in determining a vendor’s X-axis and Y-axis scores. The 18-month review period allows for a larger sample size of reviews and greater confidence in each vendor’s placement on the quadrant. The 50% weighting for reviews in the first 6 months allows more recent reviews to factor more heavily in determining a vendor’s placement.

How is sensitivity to review volume managed?

An asymptotic function is applied to reduce sensitivity to small changes in review count and review market coverage, especially for vendors with a large number of reviews. This means that for a vendor with a low review count (e.g., 20 reviews) who adds 10 more reviews will see a larger increase in review volume and review market coverage than a vendor with a high review count (e.g., 100 reviews).

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

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