User reviews of Gong present a mixed picture, with significant variation in satisfaction levels across different platforms and use cases. While some users express disappointment with processing delays, noting that calls can take up to 60 minutes to become available after recording, others report high satisfaction with the platform's ease of use and AI integration. Professional review platforms like Gartner and G2 show consistently high ratings, with users praising Gong's versatility in analyzing call content to help coach representatives and improve messaging strategies.

Otter.ai reviews reveal notable limitations alongside its utility as a transcription service. Users consistently report that the platform struggles significantly with multi-speaker transcripts, with some describing it as "absolutely horrible" at capturing conversations involving multiple participants. Despite these transcription accuracy issues, reviewers acknowledge that Otter.ai offers useful tools and maintains an easy-to-use interface, though the service has limitations in capability and usage that affect its overall effectiveness.

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Gong excels as a comprehensive conversation intelligence platform designed primarily for sales teams seeking deep analytics and coaching capabilities. Its strength lies in providing rich call analytics, talk ratios, and AI-driven insights that help improve sales performance and deal forecasting. However, Gong comes with a significant price tag and occasional processing delays, while its extensive integrations still require workarounds for some productivity tools.

Otter.ai serves as an accessible AI note-taker that focuses on live transcription and meeting summaries across various use cases beyond sales. Its main advantages include ease of use, real-time transcription capabilities, and a generous free tier that makes it approachable for individuals and small teams. The platform struggles with verbose, unstructured transcripts and limited language support, though its basic integrations cover common workflow needs.

Gong is best suited for established sales organizations with substantial budgets who need comprehensive conversation analytics and sales coaching tools. The platform works well for teams that require detailed pipeline visibility and can justify the high annual costs with improved sales performance. Its advanced features make it overkill for general meeting transcription or non-sales use cases.

Otter.ai appeals to individuals, students, small businesses, and teams across various departments who need straightforward meeting transcription and note-taking. It works particularly well for organizations seeking an affordable solution for general meeting documentation without complex sales analytics requirements. Both tools, while offering numerous integrations, fall short of providing truly seamless workflows that help users efficiently act on meeting insights and complete follow-up tasks.

Why users switch away from Gong or Otter.ai

Users switch away from Gong primarily due to its high cost structure. The platform requires significant financial investment with annual platform fees around $5,000 for small teams plus $1,400-$1,600 per user annually, with additional onboarding services costing approximately $7,500. This enterprise-only pricing model with no monthly payment options creates a barrier for smaller organizations or those seeking more flexible billing arrangements.

Technical performance issues drive user departures, particularly around call processing delays and transcription accuracy problems. Users report experiencing lags in call processing that can disrupt workflow efficiency, while occasional transcription inaccuracies affect the reliability of the conversation intelligence data that forms the core of Gong's value proposition.

Platform limitations also contribute to user switching, specifically the lack of a dedicated desktop application and overly restrictive privacy features. Users must access Gong exclusively through web browsers rather than having a native Windows or Mac application, while the privacy features designed to redact information like phone numbers sometimes hide useful data from recorded calls, reducing the platform's analytical effectiveness.

Users switch away from Otter.ai because the transcripts are overly verbose and lack structure, making it difficult to quickly locate key takeaways from meetings. The platform generates lengthy, unorganized outputs that require additional time to parse through for actionable information.

Transcription accuracy issues drive users to seek alternatives, particularly when dealing with complex audio situations. Users report mistakes in both speech-to-text conversion and speaker identification, which undermines the reliability of meeting records and notes.

The assistant's meeting management system creates operational problems by spamming calendar invites and joining unwanted meetings when not properly configured. Additionally, the free version's 40-minute limitation on Zoom meetings and the platform's limited language support (primarily English with only Spanish and French available) restrict its usability for diverse user needs.

FAQs

Would Gong work for in-person meetings? What about Otter.ai? Yes, both tools work for in-person meetings. Gong supports capturing face-to-face meetings via its mobile app, which is useful for live meetings or field sales. Otter.ai can also transcribe live in-person conversations through its app.

What do users say about the quality of transcriptions? For Gong, users report occasional transcription inaccuracies and some lags/delays in call processing. For Otter.ai, users note that accuracy can suffer with complex audio, and there are sometimes mistakes in transcription or speaker identification. However, users also mention that Otter.ai captures a large amount of meeting information effectively.

Do these tools help a user follow up with action items from the meeting? How so? Yes, both tools help with follow-up. Gong has an automation engine with AI-driven workflows that can generate follow-up tasks automatically and trigger deal alerts. Otter.ai's "OtterPilot" feature auto-generates summaries, follow-up emails, and CRM updates to help with post-meeting actions.

Do these tools integrate with software like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Linear? Yes, both integrate with major CRM platforms. Gong has extensive integrations with 250+ tools including Salesforce and HubSpot CRM, among others. Otter.ai integrates with HubSpot via its OtterPilot feature, though its integration ecosystem appears more limited than Gong's.

Another alternative: Circleback

Circleback provides best-in-class AI-powered meeting notes and automations. We support over 100 languages and automatic participant identification in both in-person and online meetings.

• Automatically-identified and assigned action items

• AI-enabled search across all meetings

• Automations with 100+ app integrations

• Industry-leading security with SOC 2 Type II, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and HIPAA compliance

• Ability to capture both online and in-person meetings with desktop and mobile apps