9 Practical business reasons to segment your feedback data (and why it matters)

Anyone who has ever spoken to a Receptive employee knows that we love segmentation. We talk about it all the time. But how can we not? Segmentation is at the heart of our reporting.

Why do we love segmentation so much? Simple. When it comes to building SaaS, all feedback is not created equal (sorry democracy).

So without further ado, here are 9 practical business reasons to segment your data for maximum insight.

1) Understand where your requests are coming from

While collecting feedback from all of your customer segments is crucial to building an awesome product, it’s important to understand where your feedback is coming from so you can prioritize appropriately. Feature requests ranked by popularity can only get you so far.

It’s only when you begin to drill down into where requests are coming from that you can start to identify quick wins, high value features, and industry-specific game changers. Chances are, the demands of your high value accounts will be vastly different to those of your freemium customers.

2) Identify perfect upsell opportunities

Segmenting requests by account and user allows you to easily identify upsell opportunities as you map out your next big releases.

As you release new features, identifying what matters to specific accounts enables you to better target your messaging and make upgrading look a lot more enticing.

3) Identify target markets

From a sales perspective, one of the best things about feature request segmentation is the ability to identify new and existing target markets.

Whether it be by companies who fit your integration portfolio or by in-demand features from industry-specific customers, feature requests can reveal a lot about the direction your product is heading in and the customers who will pay for it.

4) Single out causes of churn

While customers sometimes just aren’t the right fit, there could also be underlying causes to them saying goodbye. Maybe it was that high-effort/low-return integration they kept asking for, or maybe it was a couple everyday niggles that hadn’t been addressed.

Either way, segmenting your feedback by churned users can help you identify trends and take steps to reduce churn in the future. It might even help you win customers back.

5) Hone in on reasons for failed conversions

Another way to increase your ARR is by segmenting feedback and feature requests of from your free trialers.

While priority should still be given to your customer accounts, analyzing requests and feedback from this group can reveal a range of insights. Maybe it was a missing feature that caused them to leave, or maybe it was targeting the wrong market.

Identifying the cause earlier on can lead to better prospecting and (hopefully) better conversion rates.

6) Improve communication with your customers

We’ve all received generic product update emails from companies — you know, the ones that tell you about this super exciting, huge feature that’s going to change your life forever? Except that it won’t. Why? Because you never cared about that feature in the first place.

The spray and pray approach may work for some, but in an era of increasing demand for personalization, you can’t afford not to tailor your messaging accordingly.

That’s where segmentation comes in. By understanding where your requests are coming from, you can ensure that people who really care about something are kept in the loop, and can get input from the right people for use cases and when beta testing.

At Receptive, we introduced personalized customer engagement emails that auto-email feature progress and release updates to customer and internal teams, so they are kept in the loop about what matters most. The results have been astounding, with some of our customers seeing a 40% increase in engagement!

7) Location, location, location

Knowing where in the world your feature request is coming from can sometimes be just as important as knowing who it’s coming from.

Inventory management companies may find that new regulations in one country can affect how a customer segment uses your product.

Likewise, restaurants in Beijing may have very different demands on a POS system to those in New York.

Every SaaS product has unique and industry specific demands, and pinpointing these characteristics can help make your product an industry standard.

8) Build the right features the first time around

When prioritizing feature requests, one of the most important factors to consider is the effort versus value.

Segmenting features in this way will allow your development team to focus on what will add real value to your organization and contribute to your wider business strategy — after all, in an industry with limited resources, no one wants to waste time or effort.

9) Listen to your internal teams

Segmenting by industry can bring a lot of insight, but what is often overlooked when it comes to prioritizing feature requests is demand by internal teams.

Having a system that allows your internal teams to provide feedback and ideas from themselves and on behalf of customers can yield fantastic results. Your sales team can help you identify those deal-making features that will help them close accounts, while your customer success team can help you identify a bug that is irritating customers.

Segmenting by internal teams can give you a lot of insight into where issues are coming from, what your weak points are and where new opportunities lie.

Conclusion

Feedback is a goldmine of ideas and insights, and introducing segmentation is the key to unlocking real, actionable data that can help you grow your business.

Originally published on Receptive.io