So you want to know what people really think about your competitors? You’re in the right place. If you work in sales, marketing, product, or anywhere you need to keep tabs on the competition, you already know that what gets said on sales calls is gold—if you can actually find and use it. This guide is for anyone who’s tired of guessing and wants to cut through the noise using call data.
Let’s walk through how you can use Convin to track, analyze, and actually do something with competitor mentions from your calls—without drowning in dashboards or wasting hours in manual review.
1. Get Your Basics Set Up
Before you can analyze anything, you need to have your calls flowing into Convin and your keywords set up. Sounds obvious, but a lot of teams miss the basics and end up blaming the tool instead of their setup.
Checklist:
- Integrate your call platform: Connect your dialer/meeting tool (Zoom, Teams, Salesforce, etc.) to Convin. This should be a one-time thing, but double-check it’s pulling all the calls you care about.
- Confirm transcript quality: Poor audio = useless transcripts. If your reps use speakerphones in noisy cafés, Convin (or any tool) will struggle. Test with a few calls—if the transcript is garbage, fix your recording setup before moving forward.
- Set up competitor keywords: Create a list of competitor names (and common mispronunciations). Convin can only flag what it’s told to look for. Think: “Acme Corp,” “Ack-mee,” “Acme Widgets,” etc.
Pro tip: Don’t overdo the keyword list. Stick to real competitors and realistic misspellings. If you add too many, you’ll just get noise.
2. Tag and Track Competitor Mentions
Now for the fun part: actually seeing where and how competitors come up. Convin lets you automatically tag calls when certain keywords are mentioned. Here’s how to make it work for you—not just for show.
Steps:
- Create Competitor Tag Rules: In Convin, set up rules so that when a competitor’s name pops up in a transcript, the call is tagged.
- Test the tagging: Pick a few recent calls where you know a competitor was brought up. Make sure the tags fire correctly. If not, adjust your keyword list.
- Set up notifications (optional): If you want to be pinged every time a hot competitor is mentioned, set up email/slack notifications. But beware—this can get annoying fast.
What works: Simple, focused rules. The more granular, the better (e.g., “Competitor X pricing” vs. just “Competitor X”).
What doesn’t: Relying on broad keywords like “price” or “feature” will flood you with irrelevant data. Stick to actual competitor names and unique selling points.
3. Find the Patterns—Don’t Just Count Mentions
It’s tempting to just count how many times Competitor Y comes up and call it a day. That’s surface-level. The real value comes from digging into how and why competitors get mentioned.
How to Analyze:
- Pull up tagged calls: Use Convin’s search to filter all calls tagged with a competitor.
- Skim the transcripts: Look for context. Is the competitor brought up by the rep or the customer? Is it early in the call, or during objection handling?
- Spot trends: Are you losing deals to a specific competitor? Are customers mentioning features you don’t have? Write these down.
Pro tip: Don’t trust the “top competitor mentions” chart blindly. If you see a spike, listen to a few actual calls. Sometimes it’s just one prospect who name-dropped a competitor ten times, not a real trend.
4. Dig Into the Details—What Are Prospects Actually Saying?
Market intelligence is about the why, not just the what. Once you’ve got a batch of competitor-flagged calls, focus on the actual language prospects use.
Things to Look For:
- Objections: Are prospects saying, “Competitor X is cheaper,” or “They have feature Y”? This tells you what your market really cares about.
- Triggers: Is the competitor mentioned after the rep says something specific? Sometimes your messaging is causing prospects to think of the competition.
- New positioning: Are prospects confusing you and a competitor? That’s a signal your brand message isn’t clear—or theirs is too similar.
What works: Copy-pasting key quotes into a doc or spreadsheet. Real words from customers are more useful than “sentiment analysis” scores.
What doesn’t: Over-relying on AI-generated insights that don’t reflect actual customer language. The tech is good, but it’s not magic.
5. Share Insights That People Actually Use
You’ve got the data—now make sure it lands with your team. Nobody wants another 30-slide deck or a 10-page report nobody reads.
How to Share:
- Slack/email summaries: Post a weekly highlight with the top 2-3 competitor insights. Include direct quotes, not just stats.
- Win/loss debriefs: Bring a few key call clips to your next team huddle. Hearing the actual prospect is way more impactful.
- Update battlecards: If you spot a new objection or competitor feature, make sure it’s added to your sales enablement docs.
Pro tip: Don’t wait for “perfect” data. Share early, share often. The goal is to get the team talking about what real customers are saying.
6. What to Ignore (and What to Watch Out For)
Not every competitor mention is a crisis—or even relevant. Here’s what to skip, and what to watch.
Ignore:
- Mentions with no context: If a prospect just says, “We talked to Competitor Z,” but says nothing else, move on.
- Old or irrelevant competitors: If you keep seeing a competitor who’s basically dead in the market, don’t waste time.
- One-off anecdotes: Don’t change your whole sales strategy because of one weird call.
Watch out for:
- False positives: Sometimes, transcription errors tag a competitor when they weren’t actually mentioned.
- Rep-driven mentions: If reps keep bringing up competitors unprompted, ask why. Sometimes it’s insecurity, not actual market pressure.
- Volume vs. impact: Lots of mentions doesn’t always mean lost deals. Look at outcomes—are you actually losing to these competitors, or just hearing their names?
7. Iterate and Keep It Simple
You’re not going to get it perfect right away. That’s fine. The main thing is to start, stay focused, and make it a habit.
- Revisit your keyword list: Update it as new competitors pop up, or as old ones fade away.
- Adjust your process: If you’re getting too much noise, tighten your rules. If you’re missing mentions, loosen them.
- Ask the team: Sometimes the best insights come from reps saying, “Hey, I keep hearing about this feature—should we add it to our tracking?”
Bottom line: Analyzing competitor mentions with Convin isn’t rocket science, but it does take discipline. Don’t let dashboards lull you into complacency. Listen to the calls, keep it simple, and use what you find to actually change how you compete. Iterate as you go—don’t wait for perfect. The best teams are the ones who act on real-world feedback, not just pretty charts.