Whether you’re browsing for restaurants with the highest ratings, assessing the audience score to figure out your next favorite flick, or reading product reviews on a potential big tech purchase: aggregated peer reviews play a crucial role in modern everyday life. Which platform comes to mind first when starting your research depends on who you trust to give you honest, accurate reviews of the provisions, media and electronics you consume regularly.
This level of trust is even more crucial when it comes to your business. Verifying the validity of the ease and effectiveness of your next software splash carries considerably more weight than figuring out where to score the next best local burrito bowl. Luckily, there are a bevy of complex peer review systems that rely on transparency and authentic authorities in a given field.
One such trusted tool for selecting the right software for you is Gartner Peer Insights. Gartner’s aim is to act as your industry insider, providing a transparent rating system that supplies the information you need to make an informed decision. Here’s a breakdown of what separates Gartner from the pack:
How are the actual ratings calculated?
First there is an overall average out of five stars, similar to many review sites. Ratings are based on user reviews, the default rating excludes reviews by vendor partners, as stated above, and older reviews (a year or more) are weighted less—decreasing by half every year. This ensures the most recent reviews of the most current versions of each platform hold higher esteem in the overall rating. Next to the overall average rating is the percentage of those who are willing to recommend the product to others.
Beyond these two more superficial ratings are a plethora of detailed subcategories, including: customer experience, product capabilities, excerpts of the overall written reviews that highlight the most helpful “Favorable” or “Critical” feedback, specifically outlined likes and dislikes, product features and individual ratings—the whole nine yards.
The amount of detail is staggering, and presents plenty of options to dig in and do substantial research on your next prospective product. Particularly in the showcased “Favorable” and “Critical” section, which you can analyze extensively to discover the feedback that matters most to you. The site also allows you to compare multiple software options, initiating a comprehensive, side-by-side comparison (pictured above).
What makes Gartner Peer Insights trustworthy?
Gartner features a thorough, multi-tier process that requires reviewers to self-identify with their job role and title, along with specific details regarding their organization. In order to supply feedback, a user must be an IT professional in some capacity with an identifiable corporate email. Users must also log in with a confirmed Gartner or LinkedIn profile to verify identity, employer, and company role.
Reviewers must certify that they are not employed by either the vendor or a vendor’s competitor, employed by an organization with an exclusive relationship (consultants, system integrators, exclusive partners, etc.) to the vendor, and attest to their feedback being solely based on their experiences and beliefs with the product or service. Gartner Peer Insights’ readers also have the ability to contact Gartner directly if they feel there’s any irregularities with reviews.
There’s also a lengthy moderation process to ensure credibility. Each review is itself reviewed (how meta) to determine if it meets what they refer to as “Gartner Peer Insights’ standard for context, quality, and relevance.” Feedback that does not meet this standard is followed up on for additional information, and if prerequisites still aren’t met, that review is tossed into the ether never to be read or aggregated again.
What are other users’ thoughts on Gartner Peer Insights?
Some in the peer review community believe Gartner has plenty of room for improvement when it comes to streamlining the platform’s navigation and more seamlessly integrating its other tools. Users have also expressed that Gartner Peer Insights could increase accuracy with a bump in numbers to its review community, and by increasing engagement by offering alerts for newly released software and/or software reviews.
Using TrustRadius, a separate yet similar peer review tool that allows users to peer review other peer review platforms, Gartner Peer Insights scored a 7.8 out of 10. Reviewers lauded the abundance of information available, along with the detailed and honest reviews at their disposal.
While users generally gave Gartner solid reviews, some bemoaned the lack of notifications for new software reviews, would like more integration with other Gartner tools, wished the site was a bit easier to navigate, and hoped the overall peer review community would continue to grow, among other (mostly) constructive criticisms.
Overall, Gartner Peer Insights provides pertinent info to do the research and make an informed choice regarding your next software purchase—even if there may be a few slight snags along the way.
Bottom Line:
Gartner Peer Insights is a robust tool for peer-based software insights, offering in-depth information despite some room for navigational improvement. It's poised to help you make well-informed software decisions.
We're eager to hear about your experience with Gartner Peer Insights. Join the conversation and share your thoughts on LinkedIn or comment directly on our internal post. Your insights are invaluable to us and the wider community.