Collecting user feedback, regardless of how it is communicated, provides you with customer perspectives, opinions, data and reactions to a product, service or experience to be used to shape continuous improvement efforts.
No matter your industry, product or geographic location, your B2B SaaS business is in it to serve customers and help them to be successful. And when your product makes your customers successful, they will reward you with the recurring business that makes your company successful too.
However, if your product or service is falling short of customer expectations, it is better to know how, where and why so it can be improved than to continue delivering the same subpar products that will ultimately lead to churn.
Why is user feedback important?
User feedback is important because it gives you a direct window into the user experience as well as the strengths and weaknesses of your product from those you hope to convert into long-term, loyal customers.
Once submitted, feedback generally can be categorized into five key types, each with its own value:
- Feature requests: Suggestions for how your product or service can be enhanced
- Bug reports: Issues or defects identified by users impacting their ability to properly use your product
- Questions: Information requests that seek more detailed information on how your product works or is administered, among others
- Public reviews: An indirect method to learn about positive and negative reactions to your product, which could influence other potential customers’ opinion of your product
- Praise: Positive feedback from users on a specific feature for the overall product
Regardless of the type of feedback, it is important to have methods in place to collect, organize, prioritize and respond, as appropriate, to this input in order to shape the product roadmap, refine customer support and training resources, and encourage future feedback.
What are some best practices when collecting user feedback?
There are not only different kinds of feedback but also many different methods that can be used to collect it and different times when certain types of feedback are critical to your product’s success. In the SaaS industry, in particular, companies rely on several key methods:
- Net Promoter Surveys: Your customers’ overall satisfaction and their potential to advocate for your product on your behalf
- In-App Feedback: Surveys designed to trigger after a user completes a specific task or passes a certain time threshold
- Microsurveys: Surveys designed to take less than two minutes to complete
- Long-form: More traditional surveys sent outside of your product to collect more comprehensive and detailed feedback
- User-prompted: Open-ended prompts available for customers to share unstructured feedback
Next, there are key best practices to remember when asking for user feedback, including:
- How to ask for feedback: Show gratitude, add personalization and link their efforts to your desire to improve the product so it is more successful for them. Keep your request concise.
- When to ask for feedback: Give your customer time to start using your product before asking for feedback so it is meaningful and after key features or tools are used. Also give them the opportunity to proactively provide feedback and make this process simple and easy.
- Where to ask for feedback: Encourage feedback and showcase your options to do so; do not hide it. However, don’t overuse pop-ups or display forms in the middle of workflow.
Industry-leading customer success platforms include these user feedback tools already built in to their software, meaning they need to be customized for your product in order to leverage the automated visualization and analysis features.
