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Hi everyone! We had a request from our analyst relations team that was a curveball to me...so wanted to get this group’s take and hopefully learn from your experiences with Gartner!
The situation: One of Zoom's newer products has us in a new market. In order to position ourselves well to be part of next year’s Magic Quadrant, one Gartner analyst encouraged our analyst relations team to have our customers call the Gartner analyst team to discuss their experience with the Zoom product. They said that it is common practice for vendors' customers to reach out to the Gartner analyst team to discuss their vendors.
Has anyone had experience with this? My team does a lot of work to get customers to leave reviews on Gartner Peer Insights and we often set up customer references for analyst reports...but have never gone down the path of asking our customers to take the initiative to call an analyst firm on our behalf or when we're not brokering the intro.
Also, our analyst team insisted that it is easier for our customers reach out if they have a “Gartner seat” that gives them the ability to reach out on their own. Any tips on how to identify who has a “Gartner seat” so it is a smoother outreach process?
Anyone run into this before that can share best practices? TYSM!
Hi Megan! I own both advocacy and AR for my company so adding some thoughts here. In general, I am not a huge fan of having customers reach out to Gartner directly to discuss product experience, mostly because IF something negative is said to Gartner, it can obviously affect standing. In the past, I have asked a Gartner analyst what types of questions they would be interested in asking our customers and either getting those answers in writing or on video.
Following out of curiosity because I've never encountered this! I also drive reviews and provide a list of references when we're submitting for an MQ. I've never asked our customers to proactively call up Gartner on our behalf.
You could also see if your AR folks can set up a call where you join WITH the customer to (a) set up intros and (b) make sure the call doesn’t go off course. I agree with getting the questions or topics in advance and having a prep call with your customer(s) to outline the call and what to expect.
Thanks - as someone who crosses AR and CMA...have you received this advice from Gartner before? Any info on the "Gartner seat"?
I haven’t, but I have had customers on calls with Gartner in the past :). Personally, I’m not sure how you would tactfully ask or find customers with Gartner seats (I.e., a customer who pays for Gartner reports, etc). Instead, I’d propose pre-arranged calls with some of your top customers.
is this something you've come across with your clients before? I saw that you work closely with AR at Grammarly in another post...have you come across this?
this is a new one for me, personally. I'm going to touch base with my larger team though! I'll let you know if I hear of any advice for folks in your situation.
Hey, ! I've never heard of that happening for Magic Quadrant reports, but I've reached out to our AR manager to check. Like you, they've leveraged our reviews, so I run a review campaign before the reports are written. We've had that request from other AR vendors before (Forrester, InfoTech Research) but not Gartner. I'll follow up if our AR Manager shares anything different.
in the case of forrester, infotech etc...do you broker that conversation and intro? Or are you asking customers to proactively reach out to the analyst?
We broker the conversation. I wouldn't feel comfortable asking our customers to reach out to Gartner. I'd offer to facilitate a conversation.
Hey just confirmed with my team. Our experience has never been that customers are asked to reach out to Gartner proactively. If customers are connecting with the Gartner analysts it's always in response to a report where Gartner is requesting specific references, which we provide. With GPI serving as the avenue for customers to provide "proactive" feedback. Sorry to not be of more help!
Thank you! I'm going to advise my team to go back to Gartner to make sure we're not misinterpreting the ask. Seems like you guys are scratching your heads as much as we are with this request.
