Blog – Are You Customer First Compliant?

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Are You Customer First Compliant?

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Last Updated: November 1, 2022

 

Let’s talk about Customer First program compliance! The Customer First program represents an organizational commitment to unbiased, representative reviews by programmatically asking all customers to complete a review on Gartner Peer Insights. Committing to honest, unbiased reviews is just one part of the program – Customer First program vendors must be compliant with the program’s key requirements at all times.

 

If you’re in the Customer First program, check out the list below to ensure you are still meeting the requirements of the program.

 

If you’re interested in joining the Customer First program, the list below is a great way to ensure you are meeting all the requirements of the program before even submitting your Customer First Agreement Form.

 
  • Have a “Write a Review” Widget inserted prominently on your public website. It is mandatory for Customer First vendors to include a widget on the company’s public website with a link to “Write a Review”! A widget placed on your external site gives the opportunity to all of your customers to access the link to write a review. Since there is also a “Write a Review” link embedded in the widget, reviewers are directed to leave a review for the approved Customer First market. Vendors should maintain their widget and keep it on their website for the entirety of the time they are enrolled in the Customer First program. If the Gartner Peer Insights team finds that your widget was removed, they reserve the right to remove you from the program. Please reference our Widget User Guide for more information on Peer Insights Widgets.
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  • Are actively engaged with Gartner Peer Insights. New vendors should have attended an Onboarding Session, implemented at least one Gartner approved programmatic sourcing strategy, have sourced reviews from their customers before applying for the program, and be in frequent communication with their Peer Insights Program Manager. A vendor’s commitment to honest reviews starts with the vendor being up to date with all things Peer Insights!
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  • Source 25+ published reviews in a market in the past 12 months. Your reviews should be representative of the wider base of customers that you have if you are proactively engaging your customer base via programmatic strategies continuously throughout the year. We determined from end-user feedback that 25+ published reviews sourced from your efforts is a great start to showing prospective customers what the average experience looks like for your solution in a market. In order for our team to track your participation (and for you to be able to see the Readership Analytics reporting aligned to the Customer First program) you will be required to use our custom review sourcing links to ask your customers for review. As part of the program, organizations that commit to the Customer First Program will be able to “unlock” Readership Analytics data after soliciting 25+ published reviews in a market, in a year.
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  • Continuously source reviews. You should not stop your sourcing efforts after joining. Don’t forget, you joined the program because you found value in asking all customers for honest reviews. The Peer Insights Vendor Success team encourages vendors to source reviews year-round, and as a Customer First participating vendor, it is expected that if you are engaging in the program and asking all customers for reviews, that you would have continuous flow of reviews submitted throughout the year. Please note that the Gartner Peer Insights team reserves the right to remove a vendor from the Customer First Program if they find a vendor is not upholding their commitment to the program. Please find more information about the Customer First Program here.

Technology providers commit to making the reviews industry even better by joining the Customer First Program but it is important to uphold that commitment from the day you join and beyond. If vendors are found breaking their commitment and are no longer compliant, the Gartner Peer Insights team reserves the right to remove vendors from the Customer First Program. For more information, please reference our Customer First Program FAQ’s and Readership Analytics FAQ’s.

 

To discuss participation details and requirements, please reach out to your aligned Program Manager or email us directly at PeerInsightsVendorSuccess@gartner.com.