Don’t just listen-react to customers' needs.
Listening to customers became a static process where there is no reaction result. Where is the act?!
How many emails did your receive with various headlines: “We would love to hear your feedback on this one,” “Can you rate on 1–5 how much did you like the feature”, and the golden one “How do you like our product so far?”
You received dozens of them. How many did you send?!
We value your feedback
Did you ever wonder that there is a user on the other side who took time to write you quality feedback and in return, he/she expects some reaction such as an email reply (not automatic one) where you highlight that their feedback is received, analyzed and that you would like to discuss further their opinions.
How many emails like that did you send?
Most probably, not so many.
It is a golden rule in marketing to collect feedback from users/customers but this became obsolete because it finishes already on the first step — listening. It is done because it has to be done. Simply because it is said in all marketing guides: collect feedback, gather feedback, listen to your customers. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that. On the contrary, this is totally correct. Always collect and listen but never forget to do the following step- react to that feedback and acknowledge your users.
The golden rule- listen and talk
Imagine this scenario. You are having a focus group with let’s say, ten people. You stand up and ask everyone to share their feedback about their experience with your product. All ten of them stand up, talk, and share with you their honest experience with your product. They took their time and energy to help you. During this time you don’t say a word, and you just stand there quietly and listen. Once all ten of them finished their sharing session you just stand up, walk away and never get back to them except with an automatic reply — Thank you, we value your opinion.
It doesn’t matter if you do it in person or via email, or via an e-call or a regular call. When someone talks and shares with you their opinion they want to see something more than an automatic and cliche reply.
Do you really want to hear their feedback?
Don’t collect feedback because you have in your plan to do it every month just to gather some results, spend some time to get analytical results, and share it with your team.
Do a quality user listening very once in a while when you make some major change, do a quality listening with your new and long-term users. You will know when you want to hear some feedback from your users because when you ask yourself: “I wonder how our users feel about this”. This is the right time.
Once you decide to run a quality listening session, do it right. Send a survey, create a focus group, or have some questionary. On each and every received feedback from your users reply with a quality reply to acknowledge their effort and keep them part of your product journey.
Remember — your product doesn’t exist without your users.
