Effective Strategies for Gathering Customer Insights in Product Management
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Chapter 1: The Importance of Customer Feedback
Recently, I received an inquiry via my website’s contact form regarding Product Management (feel free to reach out with your questions or requests). Alissa, an eCommerce Product Manager and the first in her role at her company, expressed her struggle with the lack of a structured approach to customer feedback. She asked for insights on establishing effective processes and if there are any innovative tools to gather user opinions beyond typical survey platforms like JotForm or SurveyMonkey.
This is a fantastic question, and I believe it’s essential to share my insights while inviting others to contribute their thoughts.
Customer feedback is vital for a Product Manager. Without a clear understanding of customer sentiments towards your product or feature, how can you effectively represent their voice in internal discussions? Engaging with customers regularly is crucial. Aside from direct leadership guidance, actionable insights from customers are invaluable for promoting ideas and securing resources. Most importantly, this feedback is the driving force behind creating products that genuinely address customer pain points.
Chapter 2: Tools for Gathering Customer Feedback
While platforms like SurveyMonkey and Google Forms have their advantages—they're cost-effective and can yield useful quantitative data—they often fail to provide a comprehensive picture. Here are three tools I've found effective for obtaining richer data and insights from users:
Section 2.1: Unmoderated and Moderated User Studies
In today's remote work environment, having customers navigate your experience while voicing their thoughts can be incredibly insightful. Two notable providers for this purpose are www.UserTesting.com and www.UserInterviews.com.
These resources are straightforward to set up. While I lack extensive knowledge of their costs, I've utilized my company's license for unmoderated sessions, where participants follow a provided script while sharing their thoughts. You can guide users with tasks like "purchase this item" and "evaluate this step." A downside is that you cannot ask follow-up questions, so it's essential to ensure your script is clear and coherent. I recommend conducting trial runs with colleagues before committing to a study.
Although these tools have their limitations, with proper safeguards, the insights gained can be groundbreaking and obtained quickly at a reasonable cost.
Section 2.2: User Data Aggregators
Depending on your business size, you might find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data available. Synthesizing this information is crucial, not just for your understanding but also for presenting it in a way that stakeholders can easily grasp.
Tools like CrazyEgg and Fullstory are designed to transform one-off feedback pieces into a comprehensive overview of user data collected over time. They can provide heatmaps to illustrate user engagement on your site, which is especially valuable in eCommerce optimization.
Section 2.3: Face-to-Face Interactions
This may seem obvious, but face-to-face feedback can yield some of the highest quality insights. In the post-COVID era, there are still safe ways to gather this type of feedback.
If possible, invite users into the office or set up moderated live sessions. While these sessions are more complex, they often produce the most valuable customer insights. My personal experience includes visiting local stores to engage with customers and gather their opinions, leading to invaluable insights into consumer perspectives.
Regardless of the method you choose, it’s crucial for Product Managers to engage directly with customers. This feedback is essential for developing a roadmap that maximizes value. Ultimately, having direct user insights is the most persuasive tool you can bring to your organization to foster receptivity to new ideas.
I encourage you to share any effective tools you have used to gather user feedback!
This video, "Gathering Product Feedback As A Product Manager," provides valuable insights on effective techniques for collecting feedback.
In the video "How to Use Customer Feedback on Your Product by UserVoice CEO," you will learn how to strategically utilize customer feedback for product improvement.
About the Author: Ben Staples has over 7 years of experience in Product Management and product marketing within eCommerce. Currently, he serves as a Senior Product Manager at Nordstrom, overseeing product pages on Nordstrom.com. Previously, he held a similar role at Trunk Club, focusing on their iOS and Android applications. Ben began his Product career managing the cart and checkout experiences at Vistaprint, where he also founded the Vistaprint Product Management guild. For more insights, visit www.Ben-Staples.com.
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