Most people agree that feedback matters.
It’s always important to hear what your customers think.
What’s more challenging to clear up is why.
When it comes down to it, why is it essential to go out of your way to hear from the people using your product?
Why does collecting customer feedback matter?
Collecting customer feedback shows that you care about what customers have to say. It shows that you’re committed to learning from customer input. This can help you build a better product and increase customer loyalty.
GATHERING CUSTOMER FEEDBACK SHOWS YOU:
- If your product is doing its job
- How well it’s doing its job
- If you have a clear understanding of the actual problem your customers are facing (and are solving it)
I reached out to Sarah, one of the founders of Canny, to get her input on why customer feedback matters. She says feedback is a good indicator of how well your product solves a problem.
“Collecting feedback ensures you have a pulse on what your customers want.
Sarah Hum, co-founder at Canny
From there, you can identify the most impactful things to work on. Keep doing that, and your team will build the best product you can.”
At its heart, collecting feedback matters because it helps you build a better product. You’ll be building something that actually solves a real problem.
What happens if you don’t gather customer feedback?
Avoiding feedback means you’re missing out on a huge learning opportunity.
You might waste time creating features your customers don’t need. Or, you’ll solve problems that aren’t real problems.
Plus, your customers might think you don’t actually care about what’s working for them. This can make them less likely to stick around, so your customer retention will drop.
Let’s get into more detail on why collecting customer feedback matters.
1. YOUR PRODUCT WILL SOLVE A REAL PROBLEM
Collecting customer feedback can actually make your job easier.
By giving you feedback, customers are giving you direction.
When you have a clear sense of what customers want, it’s easier to make confident decisions. It shows you where you need to iterate, and helps end guesswork.
Let’s say you aren’t hearing from customers. What’s your process for rolling out new features or making changes?
It’s likely one (or several) of the following strategies:
- You’ve always had some ideas about what features you need to build, and these ideas set the direction
- Similar or competitor products have XYZ feature, so you assume your customers want it too
- You and your team brainstorm often and develop ideas for how to improve your product
These aren’t bad strategies. You should definitely continue doing all these things.
You’re already familiar with your space and competitive landscape. So, your ideas are probably good ones.
But, wouldn’t it be easier if your customers could tell you what to build?
Okay, so it won’t be quite that easy.
You might worry that customers will ask you to “build a faster horse.” Or, that they’ll ask for features that don’t align with your goals.
The key here is letting customer feedback serve as direction. It’s not the be-all-end-all.
Your customers won’t always have a clear solution. They might not actually be able to identify a solution at all.
Instead, let their feedback point you down the right path.
It’s still on you to come up with the solution. And, it’s important to note that feedback is only one piece of the puzzle. You’ll still be balancing feedback with competitor research and your own ideas.
But, you’ll be able to learn more about the problem from the source. This helps you feel confident about what direction to take.
2. YOU’LL GET SPECIFIC DIRECTION ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PRODUCT
Collecting customer feedback makes your job easier.
By giving you feedback, customers are giving you direction.
When you have a clear sense of what customers want, making confident decisions is easier. It shows you where you need to iterate and helps end guesswork.
Let’s say you aren’t hearing from customers. What’s your process for rolling out new features or making changes?
It’s likely one (or several) of the following strategies:
- You’ve always had some ideas about what features you need to build, and these ideas set the direction
- Similar or competitor products have XYZ feature, so you assume your customers want it too
- You and your team brainstorm often and develop ideas for how to improve your product
These aren’t bad strategies. You should definitely continue doing all these things.
You’re already familiar with your space and competitive landscape. So, your ideas are probably good ones.
But it isn’t easier if your customers tell you what to build?
Okay, so it won’t be quite that easy.
You might worry that customers will ask you to “build a faster horse.” Or they’ll ask for features that don’t align with your goals. Or you’re afraid of getting negative feedback.
The key here is letting customer feedback serve as direction. It’s not the be-all-end-all.
Your customers won’t always have a clear solution. They may not be able to identify a solution.
Instead, let their feedback point you down the right path.
It’s still on you to come up with the solution. And it’s important to note that feedback is only one piece of the puzzle. You’ll still be balancing feedback with customer behavior, competitor research, and your own ideas.
But you’ll be able to learn more about the problem from the source. This helps you feel confident about what direction to take.
3. IT SHOWS YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT’S WORKING AND WHAT ISN’T
Your customers will give you feedback—whether you ask for it or not.
They might start by sending emails to your info@ inbox. Or, they’ll retweet or @mention you to tell you what they think of your tool. Even if you don’t ask for input, you will get it.
By going out of your way to ask for feedback, you show your customers that you care about what they have to say.
Feeling heard is huge when it comes to brand loyalty and keeping customers around:
- 57% of customers said they would stop doing business with a brand if feedback wasn’t addressed
- 67% of customers say they churned based on having a bad customer experience
- The same study found that 11% of customer churn could be prevented by simple outreach
Proactive communication can help reduce churn and improve customer retention rate. It shows you care about customer needs.
This means going out of your way to hear from customers. Don’t just wait for them to come to you. Instead, start actively gathering customer feedback. Canny can help!
It shows you care about what’s working and what isn’t
Your customers are going to give you feedback—whether you ask for it or not.
They might start by sending emails to your info@ inbox. Or, they’ll retweet or @mention you to tell you what they think of your tool. Even if you don’t ask for input, you’re going to get it.
By going out of your way to ask for feedback, you’re showing your customers that you care about what they have to say.
Feeling heard is huge when it comes to brand loyalty and keeping customers around:
- 57% of customers said they would stop doing business with a brand if feedback wasn’t addressed
- 67% of customers say they churned based on having a bad experience
- The same study found that 11% of customer churn could be prevented by simple outreach
Proactive communication can help reduce customer churn and improve retention rate. It shows you care about customer needs.
This means going out of your way to hear from customers. Don’t just wait for them to come to you. Instead, actively seek out feedback.
4. Your team can get ahead of complaints
Collecting feedback lets your customers tell you if something isn’t working. They’ll have a channel to submit direct feedback and bring up issues.
This makes it easier to get ahead of customer complaints.
Otherwise, you’ll end up hearing about problems in a public review on a site like Capterra or social media.
When you go out of your way to collect customer feedback:
- You give customers a direct channel where they can let you know if they have issues
- They’ll be less likely to voice their unhappiness on a public forum (like online reviews or social media)
- You’ll see right away if several customers have the same issue
- If you have a public-facing roadmap, you can also show that you’re working on fixing the problem
All that said, you’ll still get online reviews, and they won’t all be good.
Getting negative feedback isn’t inherently bad. It can show you where you have room to grow.
Even if you have a great product, not everyone will love everything about it.
Handling negative reviews with grace shows you’re committed to improving.
Collecting customer feedback allows for some preemptive “reputation management.” It’s a chance to build a better relationship with your customers.
They’re still going to have issues. You’ll still end up with some negative feedback. But you’ll be able to head some problems off early and show you’re committed to fixing what isn’t working. This will ultimately create happy customers.
Managing feedback from your customers
There are plenty of ways to manage feedback.
WHAT YOU USE TO MANAGE YOUR CUSTOMER FEEDBACK WILL DEPEND ON:
- The volume of customer feedback your product managers are getting
- If you have the budget for a paid solution
- Whether or not integrating with your CRM or project management tools (like Zendesk or Jira) is a priority
- If you’d instead automate some of the process of organizing your feedback, or if you want to do it manually
ON THE LOW-TECH SIDE, YOU CAN START WITH:
- A feedback form or a customer survey to collect customer feedback
- A spreadsheet where you can track customer insights, comments, and requests
- A tool like Trello that can be adapted for collecting feedback
- An inbox folder where you store feedback that comes in via email
These options might work if you’re starting out. That said, none of them work particularly well at scale.
Customer surveys can help you collect customer feedback. But how do you action it?
Same with customer interviews – you can get valuable customer insight through them. But how do you get them to work?
A spreadsheet is unwieldy and difficult to manage. Tools like Trello and inbox folders work in a pinch but aren’t built for gathering feedback. They become messy and disorganized fast. It’s hard to track patterns and clearly see what’s most important. And, these solutions keep valuable feedback isolated and separate from your workflow.
Finally, you can’t close the feedback loop easily without a dedicated tool. And that is critical for customer satisfaction. After all, if a customer submits feedback but never hears back from you, they won’t bother sharing their available insight again.
Tim Soulo, CMO of Ahrefs, initially used various methods to track customer feedback. He says the process was “quite random” and included a mix of Google Sheets, Slack, and other tools.
Ahrefs has now used Canny to manage requests from over 1000 customers.
“I know if we stopped using Canny today, tracking feature requests would be a disaster.”
– Tim
If it wasn’t immediately obvious, we think you should also use Canny. It was built with collecting customer feedback in mind.
Using a tool for managing product feedback allows you to stay organized and track common requests. You can integrate the feedback you get with your existing tools. And, you’ll get actionable insight into what your customers actually want.
Before starting Canny, Sarah realized managing user feedback was an issue for businesses.
“As users, we’ve always cared about the products we use.
Ultimately, we never felt like companies cared about our feedback.
Digging into it, we realized it’s not that they don’t care—it’s that feedback is a complex problem.Sarah Hum, co-founder at Canny
Most teams don’t have the right processes and tools in place to make it easy. So we decided to build it.”
The most important thing? That you’re actively collecting feedback in the first place.
We recently covered how to determine if a feedback tool is right for you on the blog. If you’re unsure if you need a feedback management tool, start there. And, if you’re on the fence, you can always try Canny for free.
Do you actively collect feedback from your customers? Why or why not? Leave us a comment and let us know, or connect with us on Twitter and tell us what you think.
