Competitive intelligence: knowing what your competitors' buyers say

Three groups usually use competitive intelligence:

• Product and marketing want to know what competitors ship, how they position it and what they charge.
• Sales wants battle cards: how to answer "why not them?" and where each competitor is weak.
• Leadership wants to know where the market is moving.

For sales, the most useful source is often the least formal one: what competitors' own users say in public. A pricing page tells you what a competitor charges. A thread titled "anyone switched away from Tool A?" tells you which of their customers are ready to leave, and why.

The ethics are simple. Use public information, never misrepresent who you are to get it, and never disparage a competitor in front of a buyer. Buyers notice, and it rarely helps.

Here are sample sentences mentioning a placeholder competitor, "Tool A", scored 0 to 100 for buying intent the way HearBuyers scores posts:

• Sample, score 93. "Tool A just raised prices again and we're done. What are people moving to for a team of eight?" A switcher with a reason and a team size.
• Sample, score 60. "Is it me or has Tool A support gotten slower?" A complaint that could turn into a switch later.
• Sample, score 15. "Tool A's new feature is actually great." Useful for product intelligence, but this person is staying.

Posts like the first one are why sales teams care about competitor monitoring. Posts like the third are useful for your roadmap.

• Collecting without using. A folder of screenshots nobody reads isn't intelligence. Tie each finding to a decision or a battle card.
• Relying on stale facts. Competitor prices and features change. Date everything you record and check it again later.
• Trashing competitors in replies. When you answer a switcher, explain what you do differently and let them draw the conclusion.
• Watching only big competitors. Buyers often compare you with a spreadsheet or a tool you've never heard of.

• Share of voice: how much of the conversation each brand holds.
• Win-loss analysis: learning from deals you won and lost.
• Social listening: watching public conversation at scale.
• Voice of customer: what buyers say they need.

Start with one competitor. Run the switching from a tool search recipe on X with their name, and read what this week's switchers are saying.