This week, Gartner ran its semi-annual update for tech vendors on the Peer Insights business, promising improvements to the dashboard experience and underlining its importance as a source of insights for buyers.

Highlights include besting the 600,000 review mark and Gartner confirming that GPI is increasingly integrated with its core research and advisory business. Also, survey improvements in the works are intended to increase the relevance of review content and improve the reviewer experience by refining the questions.

There was no confirmation from Gartner GPI VP Shannon Wedding on whether Gartner will follow G2’s lead and add questions on the inevitable infusion of AI into enterprise software.

More Voice of the Customer reports ahoy

Gartner is taking a more fluid approach to the Voice of the Customer: Customers’ Choice series of reports. Until now, the publication schedule for these reports has been unpredictable. VoC reports sit behind the Gartner paywall for paying customers and look and feel very much like flagship MQ research – “it’s a quadrant, and it says Gartner on it”.

A true highlight for vendors is another in the occasional series of Gartner-funded $25 gift cards for reviewers. It’s clear that vendors get more traction when offering customers a token “thank you” for taking the time to share their insights because being rewarded for doing something appeals to the human psyche.

Yes, there’s a qualifier – but Wedding assured us that the exclusion is for “fewer than 10” of the top, most-populated review categories. That’s fair. By now, surely everything that can be said has been said – probably multiple times – about IT Service Management, Online Meeting Solutions, or Endpoint Security.

Don’t do it, kids

No GPI update would be complete without some warnings to vendors even considering gaming the system. The clear message from Gartner: Don’t do it. It’s really not worth having all your reviews deleted, as underlined by comments on the lively – and polarizing – chat channel during the webinar. The TL;dr – don’t even think about offering a double incentive for your reviewers.

This is an abridged version. The full version is available to clients – and on request. Destrier supports vendors large and small in evolving their strategic approach to enterprise peer reviews. If you’d like to find out how we could help your brand cut through, let’s connect.