Leveraging customer feedback for growth
How to use the feedback you are getting from your customers
Hey PMs,
First, I am excited to start as a mentor for the Products Lab program at the Institute of Product Leadership eMBA program. This is India’s premier institute for PM training. I will be coaching 3 product teams for a year as they navigate the various aspects of getting a new product to market.
Separately, I started working on a new idea with a friend. I will be using my own medicine in getting this venture started. Currently, I am validating the problem statement in our target segment. I reached out to people in my network and asked about the problems they are facing. I am using the techniques mentioned in the book “The Mom test”. My next step is to talk to about 10 more people outside of my network. That will bring the total to about 20. I hope to even get a committed customer. All this while we have not even written a single user story, let alone code.
So the first medicine I am applying here is the Riskiest Assumption Test (RAT).
I wrote about this in detail here.
The biggest risk for me right now is do I know the persona and is the pain point valid. I know there is a pain point because both of us have encountered this in our past jobs. And some people we spoke to have also iterated. But I want to be doubly sure that the persona feels the same. Not only that, its a pain point they want to solve today. Not a nice to have.
Should I not build an MVP first? No.
I want to first validate the problem statement. What if we build the MVP, only to find that the problem is too small or not important. We will build the MVP once we know the problem space. The MVP will help validate if the solution is valuable enough. It will have no bells and whistles or SSO or fancy dashboards. I will pick that one valuable thing or two, and build that first.
I’ll continue to share my build journey here. I have no idea at this stage if this will work or not. But that’s what the journey is. To figure out what your target persona will find of value.
Speaking of discovery and customer feedback, as a PM this is one of your superpowers. Even as your company grows, you should continue to get customer inputs.
Why?
There are numerous reasons for what you would do the with that customer feedback. And it goes beyond improving your product.
1. Product Enhancement
When collecting feedback from customers, one of the most valuable aspects is understanding how your product can be improved. Whether it's fixing bugs, adding new features, or enhancing existing ones, customer feedback guides your product development efforts. By carefully analyzing customer suggestions and pain points, product managers can prioritize their roadmap effectively.
For instance, if multiple customers express frustration with a particular feature's usability, it might signal the need for a redesign or additional training resources. Ultimately, leveraging customer feedback for product enhancement not only improves customer satisfaction but also strengthens the product's competitive edge in the market.
Sales Messaging Ideas
Customer feedback provides invaluable insights into the language and pain points that resonate most with your target audience. By incorporating this feedback into your sales messaging, you can tailor your pitches to better address customer needs and concerns.
For example, if customers like a specific aspect of your product, such as its ease of integration, highlighting this in your sales pitches can help differentiate your offering from competitors. Additionally, identifying common objections or areas of confusion raised by customers allows sales teams to proactively address these concerns during the sales process, increasing conversion rates and fostering trust with potential buyers.
Messaging and Positioning
Effective messaging and positioning are crucial for articulating your product's value proposition and resonating with your target market. Customer feedback serves as a goldmine for refining and optimizing your messaging strategy. By understanding how customers perceive your product and what pain points it addresses for them, you can craft messaging that speaks directly to their needs and aspirations.
For instance, if customers consistently praise your product that sets it apart from competitors, incorporating this into your messaging can help reinforce your positioning. Furthermore, addressing any misconceptions or areas of confusion highlighted by customers in your messaging can help clarify your offering and alleviate concerns, leading to more effective communication and stronger brand positioning.
Blog/Content Ideas
Customer feedback is a rich source of inspiration for creating relevant and engaging content that resonates with your target audience. By mining feedback for common pain points, questions, and areas of interest, you can develop blog posts, articles, and other content that directly addresses these topics.
For example, if customers frequently ask about best practices for using your product or request in-depth tutorials on specific features, creating content that fulfills these needs not only provides value to existing customers but also attracts potential leads searching for solutions to similar challenges. Additionally, sharing customer success stories or case studies that highlight how your product has helped real customers overcome obstacles can serve as powerful social proof and inspire confidence in your brand.
Improve Support
Customer feedback is instrumental in identifying areas where your support infrastructure can be strengthened to better serve customers. By closely analyzing feedback, product managers can pinpoint recurring issues or pain points that indicate gaps in support services.
For example, if customers frequently report difficulties with using a particular feature, then you may want to add to your backlog. Or if customers are not able to complete a task, then support should be trained to handle such requests. Moreover, feedback can highlight specific areas where self-service options, such as knowledge base articles or video tutorials, can be expanded to empower customers to resolve issues independently. By actively addressing customer feedback to improve support, businesses can enhance the overall customer experience, increase satisfaction levels, and foster long-term loyalty.
Streamline Onboarding and Customer Success
Customer feedback plays a vital role in optimizing the onboarding process and ensuring the long-term success of customers. By soliciting feedback from new users about their onboarding experience, product managers can identify pain points or areas of confusion that may hinder adoption and retention.
For instance, if customers struggle to configure settings or understand key features during onboarding, providing clearer instructions or interactive tutorials can help streamline the process and accelerate time-to-value. Additionally, ongoing feedback from existing customers can provide valuable insights into how well your product meets their evolving needs over time and where additional support or resources may be required to drive continued success. By leveraging customer feedback to continuously refine and enhance the onboarding and customer success journey, businesses can increase adoption rates, reduce churn, and decrease time to value.
Documentation and FAQ
Customer feedback serves as a crucial guide for optimizing product documentation and frequently asked questions (FAQs). By listening to customer input, product managers can identify areas of confusion or information gaps in documentation and FAQs that may impede users' ability to fully leverage the product.
For example, if customers frequently ask similar questions about a particular feature or struggle to find relevant information in the documentation, it may indicate the need to revise or expand the documentation to provide clearer explanations and guidance. Additionally, feedback can help prioritize which topics or functionalities should be covered more extensively in documentation and FAQs based on customer needs and usage patterns. By continuously iterating on documentation and FAQs in response to customer feedback, businesses can empower users to resolve issues independently and optimize their experience with the product.
As you can see, there are so much value in talking to customers and getting their inputs beyond product enhancement. You are helping the customer receive a much better experience and value across the life cycle, which eventually helps them to retain.