What is a product demo?

A product demo is a carefully curated experience designed to help potential users grasp your product value proposition and functionality. In your product demo, prospects get a hands-on look at the core features most relevant to their needs and see how your solution aligns with their goals.

Whether it’s a personalized walkthrough led by Sales, a self-guided tour embedded in a product-led go-to-market strategy, or a recorded deep dive, a demo bridges the gap between curiosity and commitment.

Product demos can be a major step in the user journey. They’re an opportunity not only to showcase functionality but also to connect emotionally, helping users envision how the product will make their lives easier, faster, or more efficient.

Ideally, product demos are customized to a specific user or at the very least, user segment. This allows the demo to be more focused on their specific needs.

For example, a demo for one customer type may spotlight different features than another. When done well, demos are a powerful tool to create interest, build trust, and inspire users to take the next step – be it starting a free trial, subscribing, or arranging a deeper dive with the team.

For Product Managers, product demos are an extension of your work. They reflect the quality, positioning, and usability you’ve crafted, and while you may not always be in the room presenting, your influence on their effectiveness is undeniable. We’ll go into how in a little bit. 

Types of Product Demo 

We’ve already alluded to the fact that there are multiple types of product demos you can choose from. Let’s put them all under the microscope: 

Live product demo

Live product demos are typically conducted by a salesperson, Account Executive/Manager, or Customer Success team member. You might see these people being described as ‘Product Experts’ but they’re typically members of Sales and/or Success.

In a live demo, the presenter customizes the walkthrough to the specific needs of the customer, diving into features that align with their challenges and goals.

These demos can happen virtually or in person, and they allow for real-time engagement – prospects can ask questions, clarify doubts, and explore specific use cases.

Live demos work well in complex or B2B environments where personalized guidance helps prospects grasp the product’s full value.

Self-guided product demo

Self-guided product demos empower users to explore the product at their own pace, without the need for a live representative. This approach is commonly used by product-led growth companies and is often embedded in freemium or reverse trial models.

Self-guided demos are structured to provide an intuitive exploration of the product’s main features, leading users down a path that highlights the core value without direct and human assistance.

Self-guided product demos work best for products that are relatively straightforward and with very intuitive UIs, allowing users to explore without much hand-holding.

Recorded product demo

Pre-recorded product demos provide an on-demand overview of the product’s key features and benefits. Often available on a company’s website or sent as a follow-up in the sales process, these demos cover a curated selection of functionalities and are typically high-level.

Recorded product demos videos are scalable and easily accessible, making them ideal for reaching a broad audience. The drawback is that they lack interactivity and personalization, making it hard to address unique customer needs.

Interactive product demo

All the above types of product demos are a passive way for potential users to understand what you do. In these scenarios, users are being shown the product – kind of like a college seminar or a talk. Sometimes, you can only appreciate the value of something by doing it.

This is where interactive demos come in. Instead of watching a live presentation or exploring a series of self-serve demo videos, an interactive demo gives users access to a preloaded demo environment where they can actually try out the product themselves. Ever been to a department store and played a demo version of the latest video game on those big kiosks?  – this is kind of like that.

By letting you get your hands dirty, an interactive demo is often more engaging and immersive, helping you reduce the time to value.

Do note that an interactive demo is not a product tour. Unlike product tours, which are designed to boost user activation, interactive demos are sales and marketing materials used to show prospects the product’s potential.

By definition, ProdPad’s sandbox environment is an interactive product demo. We offer anyone interested in learning more about ProdPad, the chance to access a live, pre-filled demo environment, where they can play and explore.

Here, our potential customers can kick things around to their heart’s content, without needing to create an account, enter any card details, or speak to anyone on the team. Access is unlimited and forever – it won’t expire – but any ‘work’ they do in the sandbox (e.g. build a new Roadmap), won’t be saved (that’s what they’d need a free trial for).

Look, it’s probably easier if you go take a look for yourself. Like I say, access is free and forever and you won’t need to create an account or set a password or anything. 

Product demo vs product tour

We’ve touched on it briefly, but this is a discussion worthy of its own section. A product tour is not a product demo. I’ll admit, they’re pretty similar, like twins, but you can spot the differences if you look close enough.

A product tour is typically an in-app, step-by-step walkthrough designed to guide new users through essential features and workflows. Unlike traditional demos, product tours are embedded within the product and triggered once a user signs up or starts a trial. They’re particularly useful for product onboarding, helping new users quickly understand core functionalities and reach early success milestones.

In short, product demos are all about selling the product, while a product tour is designed to help users succeed within the product and get the most out of it. They’re both pretty important but don’t you dare get them mixed up ever again .

What type of product demo should I use?

So you know the different types of product demos. How do you know which one to use? As a Product Manager, you don’t run your demos, but you do have a say in how they should be delivered. Here are the three main things you need to consider:

1. What’s your go-to-market approach?

If you’re following a product-led growth strategy, your product itself drives user acquisition and conversion. It’s your primary piece of marketing material. In this case, interactive, self-serve product demos and tours can be your most effective tool, as they empower users to explore and engage independently. These tours provide an in-app experience that highlights the product’s core features, allowing users to see its value firsthand and make quick decisions.

You’re also likely using SaaS pricing models like freemium or reverse trial, making it well suited to self-serve or prerecorded product demos.

For a sales-led approach, where the user journey is guided by sales representatives, a structured demo video or live demo walkthrough often complements the sales process well. These videos can serve as a consistent, scalable resource that the Sales Team can use to deliver a polished overview.

2. Are you high-touch or low-touch?

Are customers connecting with your teammates from different departments at every step of their journey, or are you keeping an eye on them from far away? The amount of touchpoints you have with users impacts the best type of product demo.

In a low-touch onboarding model, users navigate their journey primarily through self-serve resources. Automated, self-guided product tours or video demos are essential here, offering users the flexibility to explore at their own pace and revisit material as needed. These options are scalable, helping users get up to speed without needing assistance.

For a high-touch onboarding model, live, personalized demos are often a better fit. High-touch approaches rely on relationship-building and tailored support, often catering to enterprise or high-value clients with specific needs.

A live product demo by a Sales Rep or Customer Success Manager can help users see how the product can be customized for their requirements, fostering a strong initial connection and trust.

3. How complex is your product?

The more complex your product is, the more likely users will need in-depth guidance to reach your desired activation point. Interactive product demos that break down key features in digestible steps can help make complex products easier to grasp.

Alternatively, if you have a high-touch approach to onboarding, a series of recorded video demos covering various use cases and workflows can provide an accessible knowledge base for users to revisit whenever needed.

For very complex products with intricate workflows, consider combining multiple formats: live demos for personalized introductions, supplemented with an online library of video walkthroughs or interactive tutorials that allow users to go back and review specific features as they deepen their usage over time.

Who’s responsible for a product demo? 

Well, this is kind of the whole point of this article. A Product Manager does many things – so many that we listed all the possible Product Manager tasks – but, presenting product demos is something you likely won’t actually deliver yourself – at least not externally to prospective customers.

For live demos, it’s typically the Sales Team running the show. They’ll be scheduling and customizing these interactive presentations to highlight how the product solves specific customer challenges. They’re the ones building rapport, adapting the pitch on the spot, and aiming to convert potential users into active customers.

For self-serve or automated demos, your users are left to navigate the product on their own, Here, the demo’s quality and intuitiveness are what will help users grasp your product’s value – without any human assistance. Your users are on their own.

This doesn’t mean that you should sit back and relax though. As a Product Manager, you can still very much get involved in your product demos, and do various things to ensure they’re as good as they can be. 

How do I make my product demo better? 

So, we’ve figured out that product demos aren’t completely out of your hands. Cool. So, what can you do as a Product Manager to improve them? Here’s our full list of tips and tricks you can try to make your demos better without having to get behind the camera and present them yourself. 

Craft the demo narrative

Product demos need to tell a story. As the expert on your product’s unique selling points and the customer needs, you should collaborate with Sales and Marketing to shape a demo narrative that resonates.

Instead of simply listing features, focus on storytelling: craft a journey that aligns the product’s capabilities with the audience’s challenges and aspirations. This ensures the demo delivers a memorable experience that highlights real-world value.

Don’t leave your other teams to create these without support. Provide material like user stories, write them internal PR documents, and even consider sharing the discovery work you did to validate the product or the major features in the first place. This will all help them understand the value of your product and the reason potential customers should care about it.

If your teammates don’t know why your product is so good, they won’t be able to share that with potential customers.

Share customer insights on pain points

You’re in tune with the pain points that brought users to your product in the first place. You spent countless hours in product discovery to learn that. By passing on these insights, you can help the Sales team tailor demos to address top concerns directly, making the demo feel more relevant and engaging for potential users. The result? A demo that doesn’t just show off features but actually speaks to the user’s needs.

Build complete demo environments and sample data

A realistic demo environment that’s reflective of your final product – complete with meaningful sample data – is essential for showcasing how your product works and why it’s valuable.

Work with your team to create demo accounts that highlight ideal use cases, guiding prospects through scenarios they can envision themselves in. This helps users connect with the product’s utility right from the start.

It can be tempting to leave features out of your interactive product demos, but this can lead to a frustrating experience. Give users enough to see the potential of your product.

Regularly refine the demo content

The needs of prospects evolve as the market changes. So should your demos. Keep a pulse on industry trends, competitor moves, and emerging customer demands. Updating demo scripts and sample data regularly to reflect these changes can keep your demos fresh and compelling, making sure your product stands out in a competitive landscape. Following data-driven Product Management practices can help you monitor and stay ahead of the curve. 

Set up a feedback loop with Sales and Customer Success

Feedback from the teams conducting demos is a goldmine for product insights. Listen to what’s resonating, what’s unclear, and where questions arise when presenting a live demo. By setting up a customer feedback loop with Sales and Customer Success, you can stay informed about how prospects are reacting to demos, which features get the most attention, and what might need clarification or enhancement.

This allows you as a Product Manager to leverage product demos to make improvements and create a more attractive product.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Salespeople, if they’re doing a good job, are busy as hell – running from call to call, chasing invoices, ringing bells. It can be hard to get them to take a hot minute to share feedback with you. We get it. We’ve been there.

But, fear not, we’ve created what you need to rectify this problem. Not only do we have a guide on how to Get Customer Teams to Share User Feedback, but we also have a ready-made training deck that you can take along to their next sales meeting and present to the team (it includes a speaker script). Download a copy of the slide deck below .

Refine the self-serve demo experience

For self-serve demos, use data and A/B testing to continually improve the user journey. Look at where users drop off or seem confused, and refine the flow to remove friction and better showcase your product’s core value. Consider split-testing different versions to understand which sequences are most effective at moving users to activation.

Show, don’t tell

Product demos play a critical role in the customer journey, helping prospects understand and experience the value your product offers. While Product Managers may not always be directly involved in presenting demos, their influence is essential in shaping the experience.

By crafting a compelling narrative, sharing valuable customer insights, and ensuring realistic demo environments, PMs can significantly improve the quality and effectiveness of demos.

Collaborating closely with Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success teams ensures that demos resonate with the specific needs of potential users, showcasing the product’s true value.

And don’t forget to keep coming back to these demos! Ongoing refinement is key. As customer needs and market dynamics evolve, you need to stay attuned to feedback from demo sessions and adjust content accordingly.

I’ve already offered you access to our interactive demo environment – why not also come and see our live demo in action! Come and see what the best Product Management tool in the world can do for you and your team  .

The post Making Your Product Demo Better as a Product Manager appeared first on ProdPad.

What is a product tour?

You’re likely already well-versed in what a product tour is. You experience them every time you open a new app or piece of software, and we’re willing to bet that your product has some sort of tour or educational component already in place. 

In short, a product tour is an in-app tutorial that guides users through the key features and functionality of your product. They often focus on teaching how the user interface (UI) works, what everything does, and where each feature is located. 

Product tours are designed to help users get up to speed with the product quickly and ensure they don’t miss any hidden features that may benefit them. They’re activated automatically, usually triggered when a customer uses the product or clicks on a new feature for the first time. 

Why do you need a product tour?

Would you trip up a baby that’s still learning to walk? Of course not. That would be horrible. Well, without a product tour, you’re kind of doing the same to your new users. Without any help or guidance on how to best utilize your product, they’re going to struggle to find the value in what you offer, and if they can’t find value they’re gonna look elsewhere. 

Well, including a product tour in your onboarding process improves the chance that customers stick around. It also gives you the control to show them what you want them to see first. This lets you create a logical education flow that builds upon the previous point, ensuring that by the end of the tour, there are no gaps in your user’s knowledge. 

No matter how intuitive your product is, it will come with a learning curve, some steeper than others. The goal of a product tour is to make that curve feel manageable; like it’s a slight uphill incline instead of an unscalable cliff. 

Here’s a look at some other benefits of adding a product tour to your onboarding process:

It encourages users to actually try your product 

You need a product tour in place for first-time users so you have a way of actually inviting them to stay! Product tours act as great initial call-to-actions to get new users to explore your product. It adds that sense of urgency which can be the difference between losing or retaining a customer. A good product tour doesn’t just show a visitor how to use your tool, it should make them desperate to use it.

It helps users reach their wow moment

The wow moment is the point in time when a new user realizes the value of your product and why they need it. It’s the lightbulb moment that flicks a switch in their head from being a skeptic to a believer in your product. You want your new customers to have this realization as early as possible – a product tour that showcases key features and benefits is going to help customers reach this moment a hell of a lot quicker. 

It drives customer success

You want your customers to have a good time with your product, and you also want them to find success when using your product. That’s why you went to the trouble of building it in the first place. A good product tour gives your customers the tools they need to succeed with your product and use it properly. This improves the customer experience and boosts satisfaction, making them more likely to buy, renew, or upgrade their plan and advocate for your brand.

It can breathe life into unused features

Ever spent a lot of time on an amazing feature that no one is using? We’ve all been there. Well, if engagement for a feature is low, you could try to direct attention to it with a product tour. See, product tours aren’t just for new users, seasoned customers can also benefit from them when you highlight additions and changes. A tour is a far more engaging way to showcase a feature than an email or blog and could help you boost its performance.

How do you build a product tour?

There’s no one way to build a product tour. Each product and app is different and will require different things from its onboarding experience. That’s the beauty of building a tour – you can make it your own unique experience that best matches your product and overall brand. 

That said, we do think there’s one thing that every Product manager should do:

Use tools! 

We highly recommend that you use dedicated product tour and onboarding tools when building your flow. That’s what we do here at ProdPad, and you’ll find most of your competitors will too. 

Nothing is stopping you from making a bespoke, one-of-a-kind product tour from scratch in-house, we just think it’s a lot of extra effort that you don’t need to go through. 

For starters, building a product tour that way is hard. Unless you’re an expert coder, you’re going to need to rope in your Developers to build your tour in-app. This takes a lot of time and resources which could be spent on other things – such as progressing your product roadmap!

The process of building a tour yourself will take much longer compared to using a tool, and you also sacrifice flexibility and control over the process. As Product Managers, we like to have control. 

Product tools provide no-code solutions, allowing you to build your flow, input your copy, and set up your automation easily. You can get on with it yourself without having to plan development time and you can make changes and edits on the fly. These tools allow you to move much faster and ship your product tour in less time. 

As well as this, dedicated tools give you: 

• Analytics to measure the performance of your tours
• Customization options
• Templates to help you beat writer’s block and get started
• Integrations with other software

What are the best product tour tools?

If we’ve sold you on using onboarding software tools, you’ll be desperate to know what the best tools out there are. Conveniently, we’ve already put together a detailed list of what we think to be the best onboarding software tools. You’re welcome.

Not only can these tools help you build product tours, but they also have extra functionality like surveys, hotspots, checklists, and more. 

What are the key components of a product tour? 

When building your product tour, you have a lot of different elements to choose from that can alter how your tour looks and functions. These elements or components offer unique ways to share information and will suit different use cases. Understanding these elements gives you the knowledge to build the best product tour and choose the right option for your needs. 

The elements you’ll find in user onboarding software will vary, but you can expect to find: 

• Pop-ups: These are some of the most common UI patterns you’ll find in product tours and walkthroughs. Many products use a pop-up known as a welcome modal to first interact with the user and welcome them to the platform. They can range from simple splash screens to larger modal windows, and work by ‘popping up’ over your screen to share key information, usually in the form of screenshots, animations, and illustrations. Be mindful not to instigate pop-up fatigue by using them too often, as this can cause aggravation and lead to users dropping off.

• Tooltips: This component is a small, descriptive textbox that typically activates when a button is clicked or hovered over, usually emanating from that area. Their purpose is to provide a brief, contextual explanation of what a key feature does. Unlike pop-ups, they don’t take up the whole screen. They’re designed to make the product tour more interactive and engaging, and often instruct the user to do something.

• Hotspots: Hotspots are short and sweet little messages that encourage users to check out a certain area of your product. They’re effectively call-to-actions, and can say things like ‘click here’ or ‘psst, you may want to see this’. They’re designed to encourage and are often followed by a tooltip. 

• Slideouts: Slideouts are interesting-looking panels that slide out from either the side, top, or bottom of the screen. These are thought to be less intrusive than pop-ups as they don’t take over the whole screen and still enable the user to engage with the tool. They’re often used to encourage customers to take specific actions. 

To make sure you use the right components, you need to consider what element best suits your product. There are some questions you need to ask yourself to make sure you’re building your tour the right way. 

Think about: 

• The device type: is your product a mobile app or web-based? The difference in display size will impact what types of elements best suit the product. Small tooltips may be harder to see on mobile, requiring a full modal window instead. 

• Your different users: Do you have a varied target user base with differing understandings of technology? If so, you may have to build two separate product tours to suit each experience level. A novice may appreciate more tooltips explaining simple functionality, while an expert may get frustrated with these interruptions. 
• The uniqueness of your product: Does your product follow industry conventions or does it do something completely different? If your product works the same as others or has familiar features, then users will have a better time getting to grips with it and won’t need as much information from the tour. If it’s all brand new, then you need to thoroughly explain these new changes. 
• The complexity of your product: Are the core features of your product easy to find or do users have to navigate through multiple layers to access everything? Opting for contextual product tours that trigger when a user finds a new feature can work best here as it ensures they’re not overloaded with too much information at once. 

Product tour best practices

To ensure your product tour is the best it can be, it’s worth knowing all the best practice theory. All great product tours tend to have the following qualities, so make sure you consider them when building your tour. 

Make it easy to use 

The whole goal of your tour is to make your product simple and easy to understand. If your tour is too complex, then you’re kind of missing the point. The elements you add to your tour should be self-explanatory in terms of how to use them and how to progress to the next tooltip, slide out, or pop-up. 

Structure it well 

You want to build a product tour that naturally flows from one point to another. Your structure plays a massive part in this. It needs to intuitively guide users from one section of your product to another, in an order that makes sense.

When building your structure, make sure your users understand what they’re learning, what they’re trying to accomplish, and what they stand to gain.

Keep it light 

We get that you’re excited about your product and can talk about it for hours, but you need to hold back in your product tour. You don’t want to overwhelm your users with too much information. Remember, reams of text can be boring to read. 

Less is more when it comes to your product tour. Keep your copy tight, short, and snappy, and don’t dwell on features for too long. Figure out what is crucial for users to understand during their initial exploration and limit your tours to that. Users can always build on their knowledge in their own time with self-help guides and chatbots.

Make sure it’s not boring 

A boring product tour is just as bad as having no tour at all. If your language is dull and your content just doesn’t inspire, your tour isn’t going to be effective. You want users to have a good experience with your tour, so use engaging language and images to keep them invested in what you’re teaching them. 

A bored user is more likely to leave your product and look elsewhere for a solution to their problem.  

Get to the point 

When making a product tour, you want it to be quick and snappy. You need to respect your customer’s time and ensure you don’t keep them from using your product for too long. 

Quickly show them what they need to know so that you’re not wasting any of your user’s time. When they first log into your product, they’re going to want to start getting results instantly. Don’t let your tour become a barrier that they’ll want to skip through. 

Make it interactive

A passive tour is more likely to bore your users. It’s a good idea to make one that offers an interactive element. A tour that’s just made up of pop-ups or a single video explainer that users can easily skip through won’t work as well as one where they need to perform an action to trigger the next step. 

By building a product tour with automation, you can make it more interactive to engage the user with your product. With these types of tours, you can get users to start exploring your tool while you aid them, helping them to better learn how it all works while keeping them engaged. 

Lead with value

Your product tour should be more than just a step-by-step guide on how to use your tool, where all you’re saying boils down to ‘do this, then do this, then do this’. You need to show why you’re getting your customers to perform an action and make clear what the value of each action is. By being upfront about the benefits of your tool and how it meets their needs, you’re showing them the value proposition early on in their journey.  

Personalize for better engagement

Each one of your users wants to feel unique. Make them feel special by adding personalization to your product tour. This can be as simple as using personalization tags like their name so that they feel more connected with your product. 

You can also go further and create different tours based on different audience segments, showing them the key features they specifically care about. Not all customers are planning to use your product in the same way as each other, so try to identify this and create a product tour that displays the right messages and information that’s suited to each user.

Keep making data-driven improvements with feedback

You’re not going to nail your product tour the first time. To make the best one possible, you’re going to have to make changes and edits to your flow. To help guide you, be sure to monitor user behavior to find points in the flow where users drop off, or where there are elements of confusion. Most onboarding software tools have analytics built in to help you make changes to optimize the user experience.  

Don’t use internal language 

When building your product tour, be mindful of the language you use. Your customers do not have the same vocabulary as your internal team, so make sure to stay away from jargon or complicated industry phrases. 

You also want to make sure that you provide definitions for terms. The main goal is to make your product tour easy to understand, so don’t complicate things with internal language used by experts.

Examples of good product tours

One of the best ways to know what goes into a good product tour is to see them in action. We’ve found a handful of what we believe to be great examples to act as inspiration for when you go off to build your own. 

Check out these examples to learn what you should be doing when building your product tour. 

Of course, we think we’ve put together a pretty nifty product tour ourselves, but we don’t want to pat ourselves on the back too much, so we’ve gone for other examples. However, if, as a Product Manager, you want to experience a tour designed specifically for you, then start a free trial of ProdPad and give it a whirl. Of course, there’s no commitment and no credit card needed.

1. Grammarly

Grammarly has a well-renowned product tour that we think is ace. When you start the spell checker for the first time, you’re put into a demo environment that lets you play around, similar to the ProdPad sandbox. This environment is then supported by hotspots and tooltips that divert your attention to key aspects and features.

What’s really great about the Grammarly product tour is that they don’t force you to take part but rather ask if you’d like the demonstration. This is great, as there may be a lot of returning customers or users familiar with similar tools that may not need the extra help. 

Plus, thanks to the tooltips and hotspots, Grammary’s onboarding process becomes more interactive, helping the user to actually learn while keeping them engaged.

2. Slack

When Slack went through a major layout and UI redesign, the platform offered a product tour to help users through these key changes. This product tour excels because it utilizes personalization well to connect with the user. Here, Slack made use of native components like a theme chooser so that each experience felt tailored to each customer. 

All the elements also looked pretty snazzy and well-designed, and the placement of tooltips, animations, and more helped to instill confidence in the new layout. A great touch is that once the tour finished, users were directed to the Slack Help Center, where they could access more information if they wanted to. 

3. Hubspot

Hubspot offers a great example of a product tour that knows its audience and its product. It opts for a simple tooltip approach, using minimal text and flashy elements to keep things easy to understand. This benefits Hubspot because it’s a massive platform, so having a comprehensive and long product tour could overwhelm and confuse new users. 

Opting for simple tooltips makes the whole tool feel easy to use. Highlighting certain sections of the product is also a great call, especially as they pulsate, giving life and urgency to the instructions. It’s a small touch that keeps the tour dynamic without bombarding the user with too many visuals.

Lead the way with product tours

By adding a product tour, you’re making it much easier for your users to engage with and understand your product. They’re like little guides showing off the key sights and information of your product, ensuring that users know the basics to effectively explore your product themselves. 

A great product tour can go a long way in improving customer satisfaction and reducing customer churn, helping to ensure that new customers stick around with your product and become active users. By using the right tools and elements, and by following the best practices, you can make a product tour that does the business.

Again, if you want to see how we’ve approached our onboarding and product tour, and want to see the key features of ProdPad in action, start a free trial now. We’d love to know what you think. 

The post How to Build a Kickass Product Tour appeared first on ProdPad.

What is a Customer Advisory Board?

A Customer Advisory Board is a group of current customers that meet regularly to discuss your product. It’s made up of people who represent the varied demographics, firmographics and use cases of your customer base. This group will share how your product meets their needs and expectations and provide feedback on how the product can be improved. 

As the Product Manager, you should engage with this group of customers in regularly scheduled meetings. These sessions are goldmines and can give you the highest quality, most valuable insights to inform your product planning and ensure that the product you’re developing perfectly matches what users want and need. 

Why do you need a Customer Advisory Board?

Every feature of your product should be created to benefit your customers. To do that, and to make sure you don’t become a Feature Factory churning out unneeded updates, you need a good understanding of what users need. 

As a Product Manager, you don’t want to be shooting in the dark about what you think customers want. You know this right?

You probably have a bunch of different feedback channels right now. Maybe you have one of ProdPad’s Customer Feedback Portals, or you’re pulling in feedback from your support tool. Possibly you have a few in-app feedback prompts, or you join the odd customer call. 

But a Customer Advisory Board can be one of the most valuable and fruitful feedback mechanisms available to you, especially when following Customer Advisory Board best practices. If you haven’t already established a CAB, we strongly recommend that you do! 

But why are the thoughts of one small group of customers so valuable? Well, if you’ve followed Customer Advisory Board best practices, their feedback will be illustrative of your entire customer base. Addressing the concerns of those people in your CAB will likely appease your entire customer base too. 

Simply put, having a Customer Advisory Board can seriously supercharge your feedback game and become a key part of your Customer Feedback Strategy.

What are the benefits of a Customer Advisory Board?

We’ll be honest with you now. Putting together and maintaining an effective Customer Advisory Board is a lot of effort. That said, it’s well worth it.

When following Customer Advisory Board best practices, you’ll get: 

Regular access to customer feedback 

Having easy access to in-depth customer feedback is the main reason Product Managers should have a Customer Advisory Board. A CAB is a direct channel that you can leverage throughout the year to get insights you can action. 

Once recruited, you’ve got a reliable group of customers on standby who can give you a clear understanding of your product’s strengths and weaknesses.

You don’t even have to wait till your next meeting to get feedback. Once you’ve built up close relationships with your CAB members, one Customer advisory board best practice is to engage them with simple surveys and questionnaires, or just fire them a quick email to get answers to your burning questions. Nice. 

Customers invested in your product 

Over time, the customers in your Customer Advisory Board will develop closer relationships with you. This makes them more invested in your product, increasing the chances that they become an advocate. 

By demonstrating to key customers that their opinions matter, you’ll build loyalty which may be rewarded in word-of-mouth recommendations, referrals, and more. 

When running a successful CAB, the members inside it can become a useful marketing channel, shouting about your product and helping you to drive the acquisition of new customers. You’re also likely to find that you’ll prevent customer churn from these members in particular, and reduce churn across the whole user base thanks to having a product that so tightly meets the needs of its users!

A chance to validate new ideas

Not sure what product ideas and hypotheses will work? Instead of throwing Ideas against the wall to see what sticks, you can instead turn your CAB into a sounding board. 

You can approach these group members with new ideas that you believe are worth exploring to see how real customers feel about them. This is a great way to test the worth of your ideas before sinking development time into them. 

In a nutshell, running new ideas by CAB members stops you from wasting time and money on building the wrong things. 

Opportunity to perfect your sales pitch

Let’s get this clear now: a Customer Advisory Board Meeting is not a sales pitch. You shouldn’t be trying to sell new features to your customers or encourage them to upgrade their current packages. Not directly in the meetings anyway. 

But, what you can do – once you’ve got a strong relationship with your CAB members – is ask them about your value messaging and positioning. 

Finding out what propositions best resonate with their pain points and challenges can help you build a more compelling sales pitch for the similar customers that each member represents.

And hey, you should make sure your Customer Advisory Board members are first to hear about new features and functionality. If you’ve done a good job of listening to their feedback and building the solutions accordingly, then you’ve got a high chance that they’ll be buying – you won’t need the hard sell. 

What are the best practices when recruiting for a Customer Advisory Board?

A Customer Advisory Board is an invitation-only group of people. Think of it as a secret society, or your very own Justice League of customers.

When thinking about the people you want to invite to these ongoing sessions, consider what each person brings to the table. You want customers who are going to be open, responsive, honest, and engaged. They also need to have enough expertise in their organization and know its needs, which is why senior roles are often prioritized.

Once you’ve picked the people you want in your CAB, you just have the small matter of convincing them to join. 

With a CAB, you’re asking customers to give up their time to help you make your product better. This can be a big ask. To help recruit for your Customer Advisory Board, you need to showcase what’s in it for them. Highlight some of the benefits of the Customer Advisory Board, such as: 

• It’s a place for them to voice concerns and make recommendations to improve a product they rely on. 
• It’s a chance to network with peers and build professional connections. 
• They’ll be able to learn the best practices and added uses for the product. 
• They’ll get insight into new features and functionality of your product before it’s live.

Should you incentivize people to join a CAB? 

If the people in your CAB are only there because you’ve promised them a goodie bag and free lunch, then it’s likely that they’re not going to be as invested in these discussions as they should be. 

A CAB meeting allows participants to voice their opinions and make your product easier and more effective to use. The chance to influence your product development to suit their needs should be incentive enough. 

Now this doesn’t mean you should strip back on your offerings. Just don’t focus on free coffee and gifts as the main way to attract customers to join the advisory board.

How big should a Customer Advisory Board be?

There’s no specific size your CAB should be. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, so the right one depends on your goals and capabilities. 

Customer Advisory Boards with fewer participants are easier to manage and allow your customers to build stronger relationships with your organization. However, you run the risk of lacking diversity and perspectives. 

Larger CABs allow you to access a wide range of perspectives and better represent your entire customer base. The challenge is that it can be super difficult to manage all these people and run meetings. Imagine trying to organize loads of people with everyone all trying to get their opinions across – a bit of a nightmare, right?

The sweet spot for most organizations hovers at around 10-20 members. This amount still allows you to get broad insight without losing control of the discussion.

Who should you invite into a CAB?

Don’t invite any old average Joe to your Customer Advisory Board. The goal is to get specific insights representative of your entire customer base, so be tactical when sending your invites. 

Focus on a wide range of customer types to get a deeper understanding of what the wider market thinks of your product. 

For example, if your product has customers in the tech, healthcare, and construction industries, you won’t get a true reflection of your customer base if all your participants are tech-folk. 

Similarly, if you only have representatives from large enterprises on your Customer Advisory Board, the feedback won’t represent the pain points of smaller businesses in your audience base.

Think carefully about your different types of users and try to enlist a varied set of people who can act as a flagbearer for each audience type. 

Of course, don’t only add customers who are based close to you so that you can facilitate in-person CAB meetings, as this can lead to you excluding useful demographics. 

It’s best practice for a Customer Advisory Board to meet in person, but we understand that might not be an option for some companies. You could have a global customer base, meaning that finding one central location that everyone can travel to is tricky, if not impossible. 

In this case, don’t be put off from going virtual. When you do, think about ways to make this as comfortable and special an experience as possible. Think of ways to make the session feel different from your average Zoom call. 

The Best Practices for Creating a Customer Advisory Board

So you want to put together a Customer Advisory Board that’s up to snuff? Follow these Customer Advisory Board best practices to make sure you get the most out of these groups. 

Keep the people in your CAB consistent

After you’ve selected the people you want in your CAB, stick with them. You don’t want members switching out for others, as this can damage group cohesion and impact the quality of insights. 

By focusing on the same people, it’s easier to build continuity from previous meetings, and members will feel more comfortable with each other, stopping them from being guarded about their business needs and issues.

Set specific goals for your CAB

Before launching your CAB, establish clear objectives for what you want to achieve. By knowing what you want to find out, you’ll create focused and productive meetings. Some goals might include gathering product feedback, exploring market trends, or validating strategic initiatives.

Set an agenda for your CAB meeting

To get the best feedback, you want your CAB members to be prepared. In the invite, send an agenda of what you propose you’ll discuss in the meetings. This ensures that participants are ready to go and helps prevent the meeting from going off-topic.

Ask pre-meeting questions

Before the meeting, send a questionnaire or survey to your CAB members to get initial statistics and feedback that you can discuss in more detail in the meeting. For example, you can ask simple questions about product usage and satisfaction, allowing you to get key statistics to spark a more nuanced discussion. 

Host meetings at the right frequency

When scheduling in-person (or indeed virtual) CAB meetings, you want to make sure you get the cadence right. You don’t want infrequent meetings, yet you also don’t want to run them too often and burn your participants out. 

It’s best practice for a Customer Advisory Board to have a meeting once a quarter, giving users enough time to prepare. To further your connection, you can also introduce more frequent calls or online surveys to help you gather insight all year round while keeping customers engaged but not overwhelmed.

Respect their time

Customer Advisory Board members are putting in a lot of their own time to provide feedback. Be sure to respect this. Make sure that the insights you’re looking to find require the dedicated time of the people involved. If it can be answered in a survey or questionnaire, it doesn’t merit being included in a CAB meeting.

Equally, if your goal for a CAB session is too far-reaching, you may struggle to hit your objective in the allotted time. You cannot let these sessions overrun! It’s just downright rude. So make sure what you’ve put on the agenda is realistically achievable in the time. 

The topics should also resonate with the board. Asking them in advance what things they might like to cover can ensure that you’re talking about highly relevant topics for real-world customers.

Customer Advisory Board meeting structure

So it’s meeting time. 10-20 customer representatives are getting ready to speak with you in person or virtually. They’ve taken time out of their busy schedules and they’re expecting a worthwhile experience that respects their time. No pressure. 

To make sure that the CAB meeting is effective for both you and your invited members, it’s a very good idea to have a pre-arranged structure in place to guide the session. 

What you discuss in your meeting will differ each time, depending on the goals and pre-determined topics of the meeting gathered from your pre-meeting agenda and questionnaire/survey. That said, each meeting can follow the same flow to help you stick to your timings and expertly guide the discussions.

Here’s a comprehensive outline for an effective CAB meeting. Do play around with it and make changes to find something that best fits you. 

1. Introductions: Welcome guests and outline the objectives of the meeting. You can also touch on the agenda points you sent out when scheduling the meeting. Make sure everyone introduces themselves so that they’re encouraged to speak and be heard early on in the meeting.
2. Product Update Presentation: Include a brief presentation going over some of the key changes to your product since the last meeting. Go over things like your company’s progress and product updates you think the customers will be interested in. 
3. Feedback Session: Begin your feedback sessions with an open discussion focusing on any proposed updates or features you want to learn about. In this session, you can use the statistics gained from pre-meeting questions and dive deeper into the ‘why’. 
4. Discuss Market Trends & Challenges: Discuss some of the emerging market trends and challenges that your customers are facing surrounding your product. Get feedback on how your customers think your product can address these challenges and trends to make it more effective. 
5. Show Your Product Roadmap: Showcase your current plans in your product roadmap and share your visions for the future. In this session, you can gather thoughts and opinions on your plans and input on what features or initiatives they would like you to prioritize. 
6. Open Discussion: End your CAB meeting with an open forum Q&A. Let customers share their burning feedback and insight and add extra concerns and suggestions. Discuss any missed items from the agenda, or open up to new considerations that have been sparked in previous meeting sections. 
7. Conclude Meeting: Summarize the key takeaways from the meeting and the action items, assigning responsibility to internal team members for follow-ups. Talk with your customers about the next steps and any touchpoints for the next meeting.

What do you do after a Customer Advisory Board meeting?

Once everyone’s heading home or logging off, as the Product Manager, your work isn’t done. One of the first things to do after a Customer Advisory Board meeting is to get together with your product team for a post-mortem. 

Here you should discuss key insights gleaned from this meeting while it’s still fresh in your mind. Focus on any top-priority discoveries and be sure to also assign action items so that everything is followed up on. 

You’re probably going to want to tie specific feedback to certain product Ideas. Have a look at how you can do that in ProdPad. 

You can also review the success of the meeting to generate ideas on how you can improve it for next time, and also evaluate participants to make sure that everyone involved is still a good match going forward. 

To prove to the participants that their feedback has been actioned and appreciated, create follow-up communication to showcase how you plan to use their insights. Share how their input affected your roadmap and influenced your decisions regarding new product ideas.

7 Tips for leveraging your Customer Advisory Board

By now, we’re all clear that following Customer Advisory Board best practices are great ways for you to get feedback on your product through regular meetings. But what if we told you that you can leverage your Customer Advisory Board for far more? As we said, having direct access to your key customers is invaluable, so it’s best to squeeze as much juice out of it as possible. 

If you’re looking for creative ways to leverage your CAB, here are some additional things you can try: 

1. Use your CAB for Beta testing

So you have a new, exciting product feature that looks like it’s ready to go. It’s been through rigorous alpha testing and now needs to be put through its paces in a real-life environment. 

To get the most out of beta testing, you want people who actually use your product to give it a go. This is where you can utilize CAB members for a closed beta test. This benefits the customers as it gives them a first look at the new feature in action, and benefits you because it’ll help you find bugs and fix issues before it’s available to the wider market. 

2. Get case studies from your CAB 

Case studies act as valuable trust signals, showcasing to prospective customers how your product is solving the issues and meeting the needs of businesses similar to them. When you have a Customer Advisory Board, you can ask them to provide detailed descriptions of how they use the product to turn into case studies. 

3. Ask members to be webinar guests

Got customers in your CAB with a large amount of expertise in a specific area? Do you have people lining up to learn more about that subject? Then you should get them to be a guest in your company webinar or podcast. 

Hosting a webinar with your Customer Advisory Board members helps position both your companies as thought leaders and also acts as great promotion and lead magnet material. 

4. Collaborate with CAB members for content

You can also use CAB members to help you create other content. Think about using CAB members as guest blog writers to share their knowledge on a relevant subject. You can also collaborate by sending them whitepapers and e-books to share on their websites. 

If you scratch your customer’s back, they’re likely to scratch yours, so make sure to return the favor and produce content for them. 

5. Involve them in your product discovery

A great way to leverage Customer Advisory Boards is to get them involved in your product discovery process. Ask them some of your product discovery questions to get invaluable insight to build a more customer-centric solution. 

Doing this will help you uncover the most valuable product concepts. Need help with your product discovery process? We’ve got a step-by-step guide.

6. Use them for market research

So you’re designing a product or feature for a specific market – it’ll be good to get some insight about that market to guide you. Your CAB members are experts in the markets they operate in, so be sure to leverage them for market research. 

Use CAB members to discuss industry trends and gather insights on competitors. CAB members can provide valuable perspectives on market shifts and emerging opportunities.

7. Add them to an online community

By adding CAB members to a preexisting online community, you’re providing them a place to network, interact, and share ideas. This helps to create a space to provide ongoing feedback and insight that can be valuable for you as a Product Manager. It provides continuous engagement and helps all members grow more invested in your product. 

If you’re looking for product-focused Slack groups to join, check out our list of 17 Slack groups for Product Managers. 

Get on Board with the Customer Advisory Board

Customer feedback is essential for Product Managers to have any hope in hell of building a product that meets their needs. A CAB remains one of the best ways to get high-value, direct feedback from the customers you trust most, especially when following Customer Advisory Board best practices.

Of course, getting feedback is one thing, recording it and actioning it is a whole different kettle of fish. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a Product Management tool that comes with feedback management functionality? 

Guess what, ProdPad offers exactly that! 

Tie your customer feedback directly to the Ideas in your backlog for better products that solve the right problems for your customers. Have a look at how it works in our ProdPad sandbox.

The post Customer Advisory Board Best Practices: How to Unlock the Power of a CAB appeared first on ProdPad.

Why use user onboarding software?

We don’t need to tell you the importance of nailing your product onboarding, right? If you don’t help your first-time users quickly and easily understand your product – what it does, how to use it and why it will be valuable to them – they won’t continue to use it, adopt it or pay for it. Your product will fail. 

So we’re agreed that it’s crucial to guide your users through their first use of your product and give them a specific onboarding experience to ensure they come back for more. But why do you need to use a user onboarding software tool for this job? Why is it better to add a tool to your stack for this, rather than just building your own product tours and onboarding flows directly into your own product? 

There are a couple of pretty compelling reasons.

You have full control

Using user boarding software for your product tours and onboarding flows will give you, as a Product Manager, far greater control. These no-code solutions mean you can just jump into the tool and create your flows, add your copy and make all the tweaks you want to, when you want to, without having to beg, borrow or steal time from your developers.

You can move faster

You can also move a lot faster because you won’t have to rely on any help from developers. 

If you choose to build your own onboarding flows and product tours directly into your product, you’ll need to factor that into your development planning. That will likely mean you need to add that to your product roadmap and prioritize the work amongst everything else. 

Whereas if you use a ready-made tool for this job, then you can just get on with it yourself and you won’t need to disturb the product roadmap. You can get this initiative up and running concurrently to the other initiatives on your roadmap. 

So, you can move faster AND avoid impacting the rest of the product development you want to do.

What is user boarding software?

Regardless of whether you use these tools in your own product yet or not, you will have experienced the work of these tools yourself when you’ve first signed up for a new app. Those tool tips, modals, pop-ups and notifications that guide through and show you how to use the product – that’s user onboarding software in action.  

User onboarding software is the behind-the-scenes toolkit that creates and powers these smooth, helpful experiences for new users.

These tools are typically SaaS products that provide you with a low to no-code way of creating these onboarding flows and integrating them into your product.

What should you look for in user onboarding software?

There are a lot of user onboarding software tools on the market right now and it can be hard to work out which ones are worth evaluating. That’s why we’ve compiled this list – to give you a shortlist to pick. But what are the fundamental features and functionality you should expect from a user onboarding software tool? Let us walk you through the key things you should be looking for in a decent product tour tool.

No-code necessary

The beauty of using user onboarding software rather than building your product tours directly into your product is the ability it affords you as the Product Manager to crack on with it yourself. As we’ve already said, it means you can get in-app tours up and running without having to plan it into your development sprints and patiently wait until it gets prioritized. 

All the tools we’re recommending on this list allow you to build and publish your flows from their own UIs. All you’ll need to do is add a one-time script to your product and then you can create, tweak and publish to your heart’s content.

Analytics to measure performance

The whole point of creating these product tours is to guide as many new users as possible through certain activation tasks and valuable actions. So you need your user onboarding software to tell you how successfully that is being achieved. 

You need to use a product tour tool with a robust analytics suite that will allow you to see things like views and completion rates for complete flows, as well as individual steps. Ideally you would also be able to filter the analytics by different user segments so you can drill down further. 

Analytics for individual sessions can also be useful, providing details of the events and the timings so you can form a picture of how your users are moving through the flow step by step. 

Customizable branding & design

You need to be able to customize the appearance of the pop-ups, tool tips and guidance notes that appear for your users so your tours are blended into the overall app experience and don’t feel jarring. It’s important that these tours feel part of a consistent experience and not a bolted-on addition. 

All of the tools on our list have robust out-of-the-box design customization that should allow you to pick your font, colors and more. Some of these user onboarding software tools also offer custom CSS so you can tweak the appearance of any of the tour elements even further, should you need to. 

Integrations

You should consider the integrations you might need when it comes to your user onboarding software. You’ll want to push data into your chosen tool to help improve the targeting of your product tours, and you’ll likely want to push data out to communicate and measure results and to help inform other experiences across other channels. 

So, think about the rest of your tech stack – what integrations would you ideally need? And would you be happy with using something like Zapier to connect the apps, or would a native integration be better? 

Consider the following integrations when selecting your user boarding software:

• Your product analytics tool
• Your CRM
• Calendar tool to book demos or onboarding calls
• Your Live chat tool

Triggers and targeting options

At a basic level you’ll need to be able to set the triggers for when your product tours pop up. That could be a particular page in your app, or it could be based on a particular action a user has taken. You’ll need some level of control on when the product tour first fires so you can be sure it comes in at the right time. 

Some of the user onboarding software tools on our list will allow you to get more sophisticated with your triggers and enable you to segment your users and show different flows to different cohorts. 

Templates to get you started

It’s always helpful to see examples to help kick-start your thinking, so consider whether you’d ideally like your chosen user onboarding software to come with some ready-made template onboarding flows that you can pick up and adapt. They’re a great way to get started and can help you move that bit faster.

A/B testing and experimentation

You’re a Product Manager, so experimentation is in your blood! You’ll want a tool that will allow you to test different flows and measure the results so you can learn and iterate. If this sounds like something you’d want, be sure to double check your chosen tool has the ability to A/B test flows at least.

Common features of user boarding software

Here’s a quick checklist of features you’d typically expect to have in a good user onboarding software tool. 

• Product tours
• Checklists
• Announcements – banners, modals
• Surveys
• Hotspots
• Tooltips
• Analytics
• Segmentation and targeting 

Now you understand the lay of the land when it comes to user onboarding software, let’s dive into our list of the best 9 solutions on the market right now.

The Best User Onboarding Software

In no particular order…

1. Chameleon

Chameleon is a fairly extensive user onboarding tool offering all of the features listed above. They have product tours, tooltips, surveys, widgets, modals, banners and checklists. 

Chameleon also recently launched a universal search bar facility, which is pretty interesting.  It’s called Helpbar.ai. You can connect it to your help center and use it to offer your users the ability to search within your content and to get AI answers to their questions. 

There’s a cool way to try this out. Just add your help center URL into their website and you can instantly use the search functionality to get an AI generated answer to any question. Check it out for yourself. 

They also have a great Inspiration Gallery on their website that showcases a whole bunch of in-product guidance examples including tooltips, onboarding flows, upsell modals and more.

Pricing

Chamelon offers three pricing tiers, from Startup to Enterprise. The cost ranges depending on your product’s userbase. For 2000 monthly users, the Startup tier is priced at $279 a month. A nice bonus is that The HelpBar functionality of Chamelon is free is to use. Find more details on their pricing here. 

2. Appcues

Appcues are one of the major players in the user onboarding software game, with some big SaaS customers using them like AdRoll, ProfitWell and Vidyard. 

Appcues have one of the largest selection of integrations – 28 of which are native. Also, kudos to them on the integrations page on their website – thats some really nice web and UX design right there!

If you’re looking for a product tour tool that will work across both desktop and mobile and/or on mobile native applications, then Appcues should be one of your front runners. They have a particular focus on mobile with the Appcues Mobile tool. 

They also offer AI-powered localization that will deliver your onboarding flows in each user’s local language. So no matter what language you use in your product, you can deliver that all-important guidance and tutorial content in the user’s own language.

Pricing

The cost of Appcues scales depending on your average monthly user base. For 2500 monthly active users, Appcues Essentials plan will cost $249 a month, while their Growth tier costs $879 a month for the same monthly users. There’s also an Enterprise plan with custom pricing. Find out more on their pricing here.

3. Userpilot

Userpilot comes with an analytics tool that goes beyond the engagement with your product tours, so you can use this tool as your overall product analytics tool. Userpilot also has event auto-capture, allowing you to create all your tracking events without needing developers’ involvement.

The analytics for the user onboarding flows in Userpilot also offers the ability to set what they call ‘growth goals’ which you can use to measure your ongoing success rate. For example, you could set a goal of achieving 300 demo bookings with a particular product tour and the grow goals feature will track progress against that goal and surface an easy-to-understand goal report. 

Pricing

Userpilot offers three plans, a Starter, Growth, and Enterpirse tier. Their cheapest plan starts at $249 a month, with their Growth tier costing $749 a month when paid annually. If you’re looking for a pay monthly option, their Starter plan increases to $299 a month. Get the full breakdown of Userpilot pricing here.

4. Product Fruits

From a team based in the Czech Republic, Product Fruits specializes in AI generated product tour content. So if you’re not sure where to start or want to get off the ground particularly quickly, this could be a good way to spin up something as an initial test. 

These guys also allow you to deploy their snippet via Google Tag Manager, so you can get setup and have user tours published to your product without needing to bother your dev team at all.

Pricing

Product Fruits offer three tiers from ‘Core’ to Enterprise. Their lowest package starts at $79 a month for up to 1500 users. They define users as unique, active monthly users. Find more details on their pricing here.

5. UserGuiding

The folks at UserGuiding claim you can get completely set up and running in just 15 minutes. UserGuiding positions itself as the easiest of the user onboarding software tools, with the simplest implementation. 

Interestingly, you actually build your tours through their Chrome extension. This allows you to create and test the tours on top of your product right away, in real time. 

Pricing

UserGuiding offers three different options, a Basic, Professional, and Corporate Plan. The basic plan starts at $89 a month, with the Pro plan costing $249 a month based on a product with 2500 monthly active users. For their Corporate Plan, get in touch directly to get a quote. All the details of UserGuiding’s pricing can be found here.

6. Userflow

Userflow claim that their script has a 5 – 10x smaller footprint than their competitors. This could be a deciding factor for you if you’re concerned about the impact of these user onboarding software scripts on the speed of your app.  

Userflow also allow you to run multiple environments, meaning you can build and test your onboarding flows on your staging environment first before replicating on production. This means you can have one Userflow account and publish to more than one place.

Pricing

Userflow pricing starts at $240 a month for their Startup plan, designed for products with less than 10,000 monthly active users. To access their Pro plan, pricing starts at $680 a month, but scales up based on your overall active users. Find more details on their pricing here.

7. Whatfix

Whatfix, as a user onboarding software, goes a little further than some of the other tools on this list. Whatfix has three core areas to its product. Alongside their ‘digital adoption platform’, they also have a product analytics tool and something called Whatfix Mirror. 

Their Mirror tool is a simulated web application package that lets you create replicas of your web app to use like a sandbox environment for hands-on user training. Pretty cool right? This means, you can spin up a replica of your app without needing to borrow development time to do it. 

Within their user onboarding software tool they have a nice feature which allows you to export any of the content or tours you’ve created as videos, slide decks, how-to articles and PDFs. This is a great feature for helping you to scale your training materials quickly and easily. So every time you create a new product tour, you can spin it out into a whole range of different materials which your CS teams, Sales people and even Marketing can use as content.

Pricing

Whatfix offers three different plans, their Standard, Premium, and Enterprise tiers. In terms of pricing, you’re going to have to ask them directly. You can find out more about what each tier offers and request pricing information here.

8. Intercom

Intercom is first and foremost a Customer Service tool. You might even use it in your company to run your Help Center, live chat and Support tickets. But did you know they also offer a user onboarding tool? 

Needless to say, their product tours integrate seamlessly with the other elements of Intercom including their live chat interface. This means that you can surface relevant product tours to customers when they ask specific questions in the chat window. So, if a user hops into the chat to ask how to use a particular feature, rather than surfacing a help article on it, the chatbot can surface a link directly to the product tour for that feature. Neat hey? 

So if you’re already using Intercom as your Support tool, it could be well worth taking a look at their product tour functionality before you start evaluating brand new tools.

Pricing

Intercom starts at $39 per seat per month for their Essential plan, and rises to $139 per seat per month for the Expert plan. You can also choose to add on Proactive Support Plus for $99 a month to get advanced in-app and outbound support. Learn more about Intercom pricing here.

9. Hopscotch

Hopscotch doesn’t restrict the number of product tours you can create, no matter what pricing tier you are on, which is a nice touch. They also offer discounts for early-stage startups.

With Hopscotch, you can create your own tour templates, making it easier to create more and more tours and have other people on your team build experiences for your users. 

However, if you need to run your tours across both desktop and mobile, Hopscotch won’t be the tool for you as they don’t currently support mobile applications. 

Pricing

Hopscotch keeps things simple, offering a single plan that you can choose to pay monthly or annually. When paid annually, it’ll cost you $6.67 a month, or $79.99 for the year. Their pay monthly plan costs $9.99. Learn more about their pricing here. 

That concludes our list of the best user onboarding software tools. You should find a tool that works for you in terms of both functionality and budget from that lot. For the record, here at ProdPad we use Userflow. If you want to see that tool in action, why not start a free trial of ProdPad and take a look at our onboarding flows. We’d love to know what you think!

The post 9 Best User Onboarding Software Tools appeared first on ProdPad.

We will cover:

• Why it’s important to train them
• What does useful product feedback look like? 
• The challenges of getting good feedback from your customer team
• How to train your customer teams to speak to the roadmap 
• How to structure a training session
• How and when to deliver the training
• Examples of good product feedback to show them
• Don’t let them forget! 

You’ll also get a downloadable, editable, ready-made slide deck to use with your teams to deliver this training.

But first…

Why is it important to train your customer teams to get useful feedback?

Because it will make your job easier, faster and more successful. Simple as that.

If what your customer teams submit as feedback from users is the best it can be, it will significantly cut down the amount of time you have to spend deciphering, interpreting and extracting insight from each piece of feedback. 

It’ll require less follow-up questions from you, less digging and delving. If you’ve coached your customer team mates to ask the right questions and capture the right insight, then that is a job you don’t have to do. 

Nearly all the Product Managers we speak to have experienced the same problem at one point or another. A Support rep submits some user feedback to the Product Team which just reads “customer wants a calendar integration”. Sigh. Now you have to send the customer an email, or pick up the phone and ask them why. Why do they think they need a calendar integration? What is it that they think a calendar integration will do for them? Are they hoping to reduce the number of missed appointments? Are they just wanting to cut out the need to manually update their calendar? Or maybe they want everyone else in their family to know about the appointment? What is the problem they need to solve? 

Because it’s only once you know the fundamental problem they have, that you can evaluate the best way to solve it. And yes, that might end up being a calendar integration, but it might equally turn out to be a new push notification or an automated SMS. 

If you don’t uncover the problem to solve for each piece of user feedback, then you’ll end up in what Janna Bastow (our CEO and Co-Founder and inventor of the Now-Next-Later roadmap) calls The Agency Trap. If most of the pieces of feedback your Customer Teams send over are actually feature requests, then you can easily end up building to order. Functioning like a software agency rather than a product-led organization. 

So, to be truly effective as a product company, you’ll want to be finding out the problems your target customers have and solving them in the best possible way. And training your customer teams to get to the heart of the problem, is one of the important ways you can achieve that. 

What does useful product feedback look like?

Before we launch into how to go about this training, let’s decide what the end goal is. What exactly is useful feedback? What does it look like? 

Here are the core principles of useful product feedback.

• It’s clear who the user is and what type of customer they are  
• It explains what the customer is trying to achieve
• A problem or challenge has been articulated
• There’s an understanding of how often this problem is felt
• There’s an indication of how important solving this problem is for the customer
• The situation or context of the customer is noted
• The motivation for getting this task done has been identified

Now, I must caveat that list. That is the absolute dream. If every bit of feedback ticked all of those boxes you would be flat out winning at Product Management and Customer Experience. The reality won’t be quite so perfect… but this gives you something to aim for! 

What it boils down to is this… you want feedback to tell you the customer is trying to achieve, what problem they have encountered and how important solving that problem is to them.  

The challenges of getting ‘good’ feedback from your customer team

Over in our article 5 Ways to Get Customer Teams to Share User Feedback, we covered the reasons why it’s often hard to get any sort of feedback shared by your Customer Teams. But here we’re concerned with the quality of that feedback. 

So why is it hard to get the right kind of feedback from these colleagues? 

The customer is always right

You’ve heard this right? Customer Service or Support reps will have this mantra gently whispering away to them all day long. They’ll have grown up on this principle – it’s ingrained and underpins all their customer interactions. You don’t disagree with the customer, you don’t argue with them!

And, of course, we don’t want them to disagree with the customer! We just want them to delve a little deeper. We want them to help the customer really understand what is at the heart of their request. It’s about not just taking what they’ve said at face value and reporting it back to Product verbatim. 

But this isn’t easy and maybe it doesn’t come naturally to Customer Teams. They aren’t therapists after all. 

It takes longer

Customer-facing colleagues are often super busy (isn’t everyone ), so taking the time to dig deeper can often be something they don’t have the time to do. 

It is far quicker to just make a note of what the customer has said and ping it over to Product. Done job. 

How to train your customer teams to speak to the roadmap 

This is another advantage of having your Customer Teams well versed in delving into the problems underlying their customers’ feedback. 

Let’s say a customer declares that they need a certain feature. Once your customer teammate has successfully taken that request back to the underlying problem they want to solve, now they should be able to talk to the different ways that problem is already being looked at by the Product Team (if it is). 

This is why it’s important to have your roadmap structured around problems to solve. It makes it super easy for a CSM to hear a problem, find said problem on the roadmap and advise the customer of where that sits in the priorities. And maybe even give them some sneaky previews into the different ideas that are being explored as a part of the initiative to solve that problem. 

They can even invite the customer to be part of the discovery or testing of the solution! That will go a long way to making them feel listened to, valued and invested in the product.  

They will have flipped a simple feature request into an exploration of the customer’s struggles or desires at the same time as giving them a window into the scientific workings of the Product discipline, tirelessly working to discover the best solutions. Trust me, the customer will walk away from this feeling impressed. It’s win/win. 

How to structure a training session

By now I think we’re clear on what useful feedback looks like and why it’s important to coach the Customer Teams to be able to deliver it. But how do you actually go about coaching this stuff? How should you explain it to them? What tips and advice can you give to help them coax out the most useful insights? 

Here’s how you should structure your training. 

1. Tell them why it matters
2. Explain what is in it for them
3. Be clear about what the most useful feedback looks like
4. Give them examples of great feedback
5. Outline the questions to ask
6. Show them examples of flipping feature requests into useful feedback

Tell them why it matters

When it comes to training your colleagues around this, the first job is to win their enthusiasm for the task. You need to convince them that working to delve deeper into customers’ feedback is worth their time and effort. So start by focusing on winning them over to actually being coached in the first place. If you fail to explain how important this is, in a way that means something to them, then they ain’t gonna be listening all that well. 

Explain what is in it for them

Which is why it’s worth giving them the overall benefits to the organization – providing you the right insights to ensure you can build the most valuable product for your customers and therefore increase retention and acquisition – but ALSO the more immediate benefits that will directly impact them and their job. 

Those might include:

• Better relationships with their customers (thanks to talking for longer, digging deeper and increasing their understanding), making communication easier and interactions happier.
• Being able to deliver more positive news more often – rather than saying ‘no we don’t have that feature’, they can say ‘we’re actually exploring how to solve that problem in a better way’.
• Having to deal with far fewer disappointed customers who expected a feature request to be actioned, but instead understand that their problem is going to be explored.

Be clear about what the most useful feedback looks like

Next, you’ll want to be explicit about what useful feedback looks like. So take the principles we’ve covered above and explain them to your trainee. But don’t just use the theory, make it crystal clear with some concrete examples. 

Give them examples of useful feedback 

Whether you actually find a great example from your real feedback inbox, or you make something up to illustrate the point, make it crystal clear by showing them something concrete. 

Outline the questions to ask

Now they’ve seen what the end goal is, take them through the best ways to get there. Here you need to arm them with a list of questions to help them dig deeper, help the customer unpick what it is they need, and get to the heart of the problem. 

Those questions could be:

• What do you think that feature would do for you?
• Why do you feel you need that particular functionality?
• What is the problem you believe that feature will solve?
• What are you trying to do?
• What is the outcome you want to achieve?

Show them examples of flipping feature requests into useful feedback

This is a top tip from our Head of Product here at ProdPad, Kirsty Kearney-Greig. She has done this with our Customer Teams to great effect. It involves picking out a real piece of feedback that they have submitted to the Product Team and flipping it from less useful feedback to some very valuable insight. 

Having the two interpretations side by side is extremely helpful when it comes to understanding the difference. 

Original piece of feedback:

“The customer wants access to the revenue fields via the API.”

Improved feedback after delving deeper and asking the right questions:

“The customer has a monthly report for the Board that requires them to add their revenue numbers per agent per week. Cutting and pasting them from the Rental Report in our product is taking about 2 hours of their time each month. This is time they don’t have to spare! They were wondering whether they could access the right revenue fields via the API and set up an integration that will automatically feed the data into the Board report. They need a solution that greatly reduces the time they have to spend on this task, if not remove it completely.”

How and when to deliver the training

You can’t just email this around and expect much to change. This is coaching that needs to be delivered face to face (well, face on a screen to face on a screen at least). You want to speak directly to your trainees and be able to see their reaction (so you can respond accordingly). 

Do it properly – use a slide deck

So I would urge you to deliver this training to them formally. By that I mean that you’re explicitly standing in front of them, with a slide deck, at a pre-planned time. Don’t worry, that’s as formal as it needs to get. I’m not suggesting everyone has to wear a suit and keep a straight face. The important thing is that this doesn’t come in the form of a passing comment or two. You need to get across the importance and therefore you should give this training the gravitas it deserves. It will help set the right tone and expectations with the team. 

If the thought of creating a slide deck for this fills you with dread, do not worry! We have you covered. We’ve knocking up a ready-made deck for you to download and use with your team. So all you need to do is book in the time with them.

Get a slot in their regular team meetings

In terms of when to deliver the training, there are a few pointers I can give here. If you can, try and deliver the training to multiple customer-facing colleagues at the same time. And try to ensure their managers and leaders are in the room. It’s a good idea to speak to the commercial leaders beforehand and stress the importance, asking for their support in encouraging their teams to work in this way. 

But, if your customer-facing teams are doing a good job, their calendars will be full with customer or prospect calls. So finding a time in the diaries can be extremely tricky. Therefore, it’s a good idea to get yourself a slot in their existing, regular team meetings – that way you know everyone will be there and you don’t have to struggle with finding a time. 

Or do a roadshow

If even that is proving hard, then you could consider taking your slide deck on the road. Yes this will take up more of your time, but I’m hoping you’re sold on the value this could bring! Slot yourself in with each team member for half an hour and run them through the training. 

Make it part of onboarding

Then, once you’ve gotten around everyone, you’ll need to think about new starters. Here I would suggest you speak to HR or the team leaders and ensure this training becomes a standard part of any new starter onboarding for any customer-facing role. 

Don’t let them forget! 

Once you’ve delivered the training to your customer-facing team mates, don’t dust your hands off and walk away. You need to keep reiterating this message if you stand any chance of it becoming a habit for your colleagues. 

This should be considered as ongoing coaching rather than just one-off training. So whenever you spot a piece of feedback coming from a team mate that falls into the ‘not as useful as it could be’ category, take it to them and give them that feedback in the moment. Work with them on how it could be delved into and the exploratory questions they could have asked. 

The post How to Train Customer Teams to Get Really Useful Feedback appeared first on ProdPad.

Why is it important to get internal stakeholders to share product feedback?

But first, why do you need to bother with this? You speak to your customers and users right? Isn’t that enough? Why do you need to struggle away trying to extract insight from other people in the organization?

Because, wonderful as you are, you can’t possibly gather ALL the feedback yourself. A big part of your role as a Product Manager is to speak directly with the users of your product, listen to their feedback and explore their problems. But you have customer-facing team members in the organization who are engaging with multiple individual users all day, every day. If you’re not tapping into that, you have a big hole. 

As Kirsty Kearney-Greig, our Head of Product here at ProdPad says…

For Kirsty here at ProdPad, it’s especially important that her and her team hear all the feedback coming in from customers, because, without it, there’s a risk that she could become blinded by her own experiences. 

I’ll let her explain…

Without a broad range of customer feedback, from as many different flavors of your user base as possible, you’ll fail to understand the whole gambit of experiences and needs and, as a result, fail to take them into account when you’re prioritizing your roadmap, assessing product ideas and deciding what you build and when.  

The challenges of getting stakeholders to share customer feedback 

Getting your hands on all that great insight your customers are sharing with other colleagues is easier said than done. And that is for a number of reasons. 

1. Everyone is busy

Tell me the last time you managed to get through every single thing on your to-do list, exactly in the order you initially planned it. It doesn’t happen right? And especially if you’re in a reactive, customer-facing role. Hopping from one customer or sales call to another all day long. It’s hard to fit in requests from other colleagues. They will certainly get pushed down the priority list as urgent issues come in from customers or revenue-generating activities need to happen.

You tend to get a lot of “oh, I’ll log that feedback later” – with people planning to come back to it at the end of the day and add all the feedback they’ve heard. That’s high-risk for you as a Product Manager. If ‘share feedback’ becomes an item on a to-do list instead of happening in the moment, then there’s a high chance it gets bumped down the list and might not even happen at all. 

2. It’s your job, not theirs

This sounds harsh, but it’s real life. When customer-facing teams are measured on call volume, response time, resolution time and revenue, they are always going to prioritize the tasks that most immediately impact those metrics. This is another reason that sharing feedback can, all too often, slide down the to-do list, in favor of those activities that relate directly to their own KPIs. 

Obviously, longer term, sharing customer feedback and having that impact the decision-making in Product will ensure the product develops in line with customer needs. That will lead to improved customer satisfaction, fewer sales objections and more revenue. But there’s a longer tail to realizing that benefit, and when you have immediate KPIs to hit, it’s not always front-of-mind. 

Even when you do manage to convince your colleagues to send through feedback to you in the Product team, there are challenges around how that is delivered to you and the format it arrives in. 

3. You’re getting feature requests and product ideas rather than feedback

Does this sound familiar to you? A colleague has spoken to a customer and sends you a message (in whatever format that comes) to tell you ‘the customer wants X feature’. End of message. 

How useful is that to you? Not very. Why do they think they need that feature? What do they think that feature will do for them? What is the problem they are trying to solve? THAT is what you need to know. Because maybe X feature isn’t the best way to solve that problem. Maybe you have a better way of solving the problem already on the roadmap. If not that, then you can at least take that problem and run it through discovery to explore a bunch of possible solutions to find the best and most efficient one. 

If you’re just taking feature requests and building to order, then you are falling into what our Co-Founder and CEO Janna Bastow calls ‘The Agency Trap’. 

If your Customer teams are taking feature requests and telling the customer that they will submit it to the Product team, they are setting the expectation that that exact feature will be considered. This can set everyone up for a fall. It’s much better to delve into the route of the problem, listen to the frustration or need the customer has, and have them feel heard and that a solution will be thought about. But we’ll come to how you help your customer teams flip feature requests into genuine feedback in a moment. 

First let’s talk about the challenge of format….

4. The format is all over the place

If you don’t have an organized and communicated way of submitting feedback to the Product team (and sometimes, even if you do), then you’re no doubt getting it in all sorts of shapes and sizes. 

Ultimately, we would always say that some form of feedback submission is better than none at all. So, at least you’re getting something here. But still, there’s room for improvement if feedback is flying in at you from all angles and in a variety of different states. 

One CSM tends to ping you a message on Slack, another fires off an email to you, a third person always forwards you entire recordings of hour-long customer calls, another mumbles a few sentences at you during a meeting. That creates a lot of work for you to collate it all, turn it into something useful and consistent, before you can even start to analyze what you have. Not ideal. 

5. They’re always asking for progress updates

It is absolutely reasonable that your stakeholders request updates on progress when they share feedback with the Product team. They need to keep their customers informed. But there are ways to make this less of a time drain for you as the Product Manager (and we’ll come to those ‘ways’ a little later on). 

Otherwise you will spend far too much of your time fielding questions and digging around for answers. If every time a CSM has a customer call, they come to you asking for updates on all the feedback that customer has given… and you have to do that for every CSM and every call they have… well, you won’t have a lot of time to do much else! 

Yes, those are the challenges, but how do I overcome them, I hear you shout. 

Fair enough. Let’s get to the solutions…

How to get your internal stakeholders to share feedback with the Product team 

1. Make it super easy to submit

Like we’ve said, everyone is busy, focused on their day job and their primary KPIs. They are all working in their own context and have their own work to do. So, if you want your colleagues from other teams to regularly and routinely share their customer feedback with you, you need to make it fast and convenient to do so. 

Let’s face facts, if you require them to log into a different tool which isn’t their own – not one of the tools they already use day-in, day-out – it ain’t gonna happen. Or at least not as often as you’d like. 

If your Customer teams have to leave their context to share feedback with you, then it’ll almost certainly end up as a to-do list item that they plan to come back to at the end of the day – log in once and get it all done in bulk. We’ve already talked about how infrequently those good intentions actually happen. You don’t want this. 

To get the most feedback from other people in your organization, you want them to quickly and easily fire it over to you in the moment (or, at least, immediately after the moment). If you stand any chance of making that happen, you need to give them fast ways to do so without leaving where they are. 

As Kirsty says,

Luckily we can help you with this. If you use ProdPad as your tool, as the central repository for all your feedback from multiple sources, then you can give your internal stakeholders a veritable plethora of fast and easy ways to share their Feedback with you. 

Those ways include:

• A browser extension
• An email drop box
• Through Slack or MS Teams
• Via an unlimited number of customizable Feedback Portals which can be embedded wherever you need 
• Directly from your CRM (like Salesforce)
• Straight from Support tools (like Intercom or Zendesk)

None of these routes require your stakeholders to log into ProdPad. They can simply send the Feedback in with a quick email or a click on the browser extension, or, with the CRM and Support tool integrations, they don’t need to do anything at all. They can just record the customer interaction as they usually would in their own tool and you can have that automatically route into ProdPad as Feedback. 

2. Let them see it makes a difference

It’s important to show your internal stakeholders that the Feedback they share with you actually contributes to the product planning. Otherwise you risk them thinking it’s a pointless exercise and ceasing to do it! I’ve heard Salespeople (in other companies – obviously not ProdPad!) saying “There’s no point telling Product. They just ignore it.” Don’t let that happen in your organization!

Being open and transparent about your product process. Giving everyone full visibility on your flow and prioritization is the best way to ensure you don’t fall foul of this with your Sales or Customer teams. 

If you currently have all your product planning hiding away in spreadsheets or slide decks you need to speak to us here at ProdPad! Having an easily accessible, always up-to-date home for all your product planning is the best way to ensure full transparency into the process. This will mean everyone in your organization understands how Product work and exactly how Feedback feeds into product ideas and prioritization decisions. 

You can also ensure that your internal stakeholders and Feedback submitters see the specific progress relating to particular pieces of Feedback when you use ProdPad. This is the powerful proof they might need to feel assured that their Feedback does impact the product strategy. 

For example, let’s say Customer Success Sally sent some Feedback in through Slack, advising that her customer was frustrated that she’s not spending as much time using the product as she’d like because she’s traveling a lot at the moment. As a Product Manager, analyzing your Feedback, you spot that ‘use when traveling’ is a theme across a number of customers (because ProdPad’s AI Signals tool has highlighted that for you ). So you create a Roadmap Initiative to address this problem – ‘How can we help our customers use our product on the move?’. You come up with a bunch of different Ideas in ProdPad and your AI Assistant automatically links all the related Feedback (including the piece sent in by Customer Success Sally) to the Ideas. 

Next time Sally has a call booked with that customer, she can hop into ProdPad and see a list of all the Feedback she’s submitted. She simply finds this piece and gets an instant update on the workflow stage of the related Idea. She knows, with one click, that you explored three different Ideas, validated a mobile app as the best solution and that mobile app is now in QA testing. What a wonderful update for Sally to deliver to her customer! 

I tell you what, Sally is convinced of the value of sharing Feedback with the Product team. You’ll be enjoying a steady flow of user insight from Sally forever more. 

You might not always be able to show that an individual piece of Feedback has resulted in a corresponding product Idea that hits the roadmap, but you can and should reassure your internal stakeholders that their Feedback contributes to a critical mass of Feedback which feeds the theme analysis. 

Kirsty, our Head of Product, has another top tip to help you convince your stakeholders that their Feedback submissions are important…

3. Make it easy for them to track progress 

We’ve talked about how time draining it can be for you to be constantly dishing out updates to all your customer-facing colleagues. So let’s explore how you can empower them to self-serve this information. 

Because, if they can quickly and easily check up on the Feedback they send through then they’ll be encouraged to keep sending it!

We’re not saying that there shouldn’t be an onus on you as PM to provide these updates, but the right tool can take the weight of this from your shoulders. You then just need to acknowledge receipt of the Feedback and give an indication of what you might do with it, and let the tool help you in terms of smaller incremental updates.

Take the earlier example of Customer Success Sally and the updates she was able to see about the mobile app in QA testing that was linked to her Feedback about using the product while traveling. Sally was able to go into ProdPad, look at her Feedback list and quickly see the workflow stage of the linked Ideas. It looks like this

With ProdPad, you can show all your customer-facing team mates how to set up their Feedback view, customize it to show the information they most care about, and let them hop in here whenever they need an update. You’ve just saved yourself a bunch of time. 

As Kirsty says,

4. Give them clear guidance on what to submit and how

Sometimes people don’t do things because they’re not quite sure how. That’s human nature. So remove all doubt from your colleague’s minds and be crystal clear about what and how to submit Feedback to you. 

We’ve already talked about the propensity to have product Ideas submitted when, in fact, they should have been framed as Feedback, having identified the problem to solve. So, step one here is to give everyone clear guidelines on what is an Idea and what is Feedback. 

Publish, share and socialize those clear guidelines and make sure it’s easily accessible for all your colleagues. Make sure you put it where your Customer teams spend time so they don’t have to hunt around for it.

Consider spreading the word in the following ways:

• Join a Sales meeting and present the guidelines to the team
• Do the same in other customer-facing team meetings
• Post the document on your intranet
• Pin it in relevant Slack or Teams channels (or whatever communication tool you use)
• Email it around
• Find out how to flag it in a prominent place in the CRM, Support tool or whatever tool your customer-facing colleagues use every day

Make sure they are always on hand, so your stakeholders don’t have to hunt around to find it. Because, let’s face it, they won’t. 

What should those guidelines look like? 

Well, we’ve gone ahead and created a template document with a ready-made distinction that you can download and distribute to your team. It’s based on the definitions we use here at ProdPad for our own customer Feedback and product Ideas. We hope you find it useful!

In essence, the distinction looks something like this:

Submit product Feedback if it is about:

1. Improvements on existing features
2. Bugs and issues
3. User experience (UX) enhancements
4. Performance
5. Aesthetics and design

Submit a new product Idea if it is about:

1. A new problem space
2. New markets or use cases
3. Innovative idea
4. Complementary products

Remember, any format is better than nothing at all. But if you can give them easy frameworks to submit their feedback it will reduce the time you spend, as the PM, interpreting what they’ve sent. 

You have to strike a balance between making it easy for them to submit feedback versus helping them to craft it into the most meaningful thing it could be. We think we’ve struck that balance here at ProdPad with our own Feedback processes, so download our template (as soon as it’s ready) and see how it works for you. 

5. Train the team

Our final piece of advice to maximize the amount and the quality of the Feedback you get from your internal customer-facing colleagues, is to spend some time coaching and training them. 

Be gentle obviously. You don’t want to bowl in and start telling them how to do their jobs. But you do need to give them some practical ways to extract the most valuable insights from their customers, in terms of product experience. 

Help them understand how to delve deeper into customer requests or comments, to get to the heart of the problem they need solving. You want this to become a habit for them, so every time a customer says “I need your product to have this feature”, they pause, reflect, then ask the right questions to flip the feature request into a problem to solve. 

Those questions could be:

• What do you think that feature would do for you?
• Why do you feel you need that particular functionality?
• What is the problem you believe that feature will solve?
• What are you trying to do?
• What is the outcome you want to achieve?

Another top tip from Kirsty:

For example, if a customer is asking about API capabilities, you don’t just want your Customer Support people to simply list off what capabilities are and are not available. You want them to delve deeper and ask the customer why they want to know about the API – what do they need to use the API for? What are they trying to do via the API? What is the outcome they want? What problem are they trying to solve

When that has been answered, bang, there’s your Feedback. 

Another of Kirsty’s top tips is to make an appearance at the customer team meetings and deliver this coaching en masse. Rock up to a Sales meeting with the examples on slides, join a CS meeting and take everyone through this training. Then make sure you’re consistently reinforcing this training. Give feedback on the Feedback – not only is this great for acknowledging receipt, but it will also help make this extra level of analysis a habit for your Customer teams. 

How are you going to manage all this Feedback??

If you implement all our suggestions here you’ll be enjoying a consistent flow of useful Feedback from all of your customer and prospect facing team members. So, you better make sure you’re using the right tools to help you manage all that insight. Come speak to one of our Product Management experts here at ProdPad and we can show you all the tools you’ll ever need to gather, analyze, prioritize and action all this customer feedback. 

The post 5 Ways to Get Customer Teams to Share User Feedback [with free template] appeared first on ProdPad.

What is a Customer Feedback Strategy?

A customer feedback strategy is the systematic approach to collecting, analyzing, and utilizing customer opinions, experiences, and feedback to drive product decisions and development. 

It’s about turning the voices of your users into actionable insights that can shape your product’s future. This process helps ensure that your product not only meets but exceeds market expectations, ultimately securing and maintaining product-market fit.

Think of it as being an explorer in a new land. You wouldn’t venture into unknown territory without a map, right? Your customer feedback strategy is that map, guiding you to understand your customers’ needs, pain points, and desires, ensuring you’re building a product that truly resonates with them.

Key Components of a Customer Feedback Strategy

1. Gathering Feedback

The first step is gathering feedback. This isn’t just about sending out the occasional survey. It’s about creating multiple touchpoints for feedback collection, such as:

• Surveys and interviews: These can be structured to gather specific insights.
• Feedback portals: A dedicated space where users can share their thoughts whenever they feel like it.
• Social media and support tools: Leveraging platforms where customers are already active can provide spontaneous and honest feedback.

The goal here is to capture a diverse range of opinions. Imagine you’re a detective piecing together clues from various sources to solve a mystery. Each piece of feedback is a clue that brings you closer to understanding the bigger picture.

I remember back in the early days of building ProdPad, we received feedback, requesting us to build a Google SSO login feature. Initially, we dismissed this as a viable idea because we only had a couple of requests for it, pretty spread out. But as we continued to gather feedback over several months, a trend emerged. More and more users from a specific high value segment were requesting this feature. It was like discovering multiple pieces of a puzzle that finally fit together. 

This feedback helped us understand not just the need for the feature but the specific use cases and user profiles that would benefit from it. Eventually, we built the feature, and it became a significant selling point for that user segment, and helped us step up our pace with growth.

2. Analyzing Feedback

Collecting feedback is only the beginning. The real magic happens when you start analyzing it. This involves both qualitative and quantitative methods:

• Qualitative analysis: Look at the themes and sentiments in open-ended responses. What are the common pain points? What do users love about your product?
• Quantitative analysis: Analyze numerical data from surveys to understand trends and patterns. Which features are most requested? What are the most frequent complaints?

This step is like sifting for gold. Amidst all the noise, you’ll find valuable nuggets of insight that can guide your product development. Tools like AI can help here, automating the process of identifying patterns and trends in vast amounts of feedback. In ProdPad, we have just such a feature. Our Signals tool will read all your feedback and surface the common themes. Better than spending hours, trawling through your entire feedback pile right?

I had this conversation with a customer just the other day: They were overwhelmed by the volume of feedback they’d received after a major product update. Manually sorting through hundreds of responses was daunting. So they decided to leverage our AI tools to help categorize and analyze the feedback. It was a game-changer. Not only did it save them countless hours, but it also highlighted patterns that they might have missed otherwise. 

For instance, they discovered that while users appreciated the new features, many found the updated interface confusing. This insight led them to tweak the navigation UI, resulting in a more intuitive user experience and a subsequent increase in positive feedback.

3. Using Insights to Drive Action

Insights are only valuable if they lead to action. This is where you take the findings from your analysis and use them to inform your product strategy:

• Prioritize feedback: Not all feedback is created equal. Prioritize based on factors like the number of requests for a feature and its alignment with business objectives.
• Develop new features: Use feedback to identify and develop new features that address customer needs. For example, if numerous users request a Google SSO login, and it fits your target market, prioritize its development.

Think of this as turning raw materials into a finished product. The feedback is your raw material, and your product development process is the factory where it’s refined and shaped into something valuable.

Another example from our journey was when users repeatedly requested a more robust tagging system. Initially, we thought our existing system was sufficient, but the volume and specificity of the feedback told a different story. We analyzed the feedback and realized that users needed more granular control over tags to manage their workflows effectively. 

Acting on this, we revamped the tagging system, adding more ways to wrangle tags in bulk and in line with your work. The result? Our users were thrilled, and we saw a notable uptick in that feature adoption and in wider product satisfaction.

4. Responding to Customer Feedback

Once you’ve gathered and analyzed feedback, it’s crucial to respond to it. This doesn’t mean promising every feature request will be built, but rather, showing customers that their feedback is heard and valued:

• Transparency: Explain how feedback is processed and what changes are planned.
• Communication: Regularly update customers on the status of their feedback and the overall product roadmap.

This step is about closing the feedback loop. It’s like being a good friend who listens and then acts on what you’ve heard, strengthening the relationship.

Super early on in ProdPad’s history, I remember a particular instance when we received a complaint about a bug that caused significant frustration with one of our early users. We prioritized fixing the bug and then went a step further. We reached out to the user who reported it, explained what went wrong, how we fixed it, and thanked her for bringing it to our attention. We gave her space to talk us through any other niggly frustrations she might have had with the product—in fairness, there were quite a few as we were so fresh to market back then! She was not only surprised but also impressed by our proactive approach, and she became one of our most loyal advocates over the years. As a result, we built this approach into our customer feedback strategy ever since—turning every reported bug into an opportunity to win the respect and trust of our customers.  

5. Closing the Loop

Finally, after you’ve acted on the feedback, close the loop by informing customers about the changes made:

• Follow-up: Once a feature is developed based on feedback, reach out to the users who requested it. This not only shows that you value their input but also encourages further engagement.

Think of this as the final flourish in a well-executed plan. It’s the moment where you show your users that their voices truly matter and make a difference.

Why Do You Need a Customer Feedback Strategy?

Whether or not you think you have one or not, you’ve already got a customer feedback strategy. It’s just that if you haven’t intentionally crafted it, it’s probably not fit for purpose or doing you any favors. You might just be skating by by doing the minimum amount of listening and responding in a pretty haphazard manner.

Having a solid customer feedback strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a crucial part of product development. Here’s why:

1. Builds what customers want: Directly addressing customer needs and preferences ensures your product remains relevant.
2. Early problem detection: Regular feedback helps identify potential issues early, allowing for prompt resolution.
3. Mitigates churn risks: Engaged customers who feel heard are less likely to churn.
4. Measures success: Positive feedback indicates successful features, while a lack of negative feedback can signal the resolution of previous issues.

Imagine trying to cook a meal without tasting it along the way. You might end up with something that looks good but tastes terrible. Customer feedback is like tasting your dish as you go, ensuring the final product is something your users will love.

Advantages of Having a Customer Feedback Strategy

1. Enhanced product-market fit: Continuous feedback helps refine the product to better meet market needs.
2. Improved customer satisfaction: Addressing customer concerns and preferences boosts satisfaction and loyalty.
3. Informed decision-making: Data-driven insights lead to better product development decisions.
4. Increased competitive edge: Understanding and responding to customer needs faster than competitors can provide a significant market advantage.

Who is Responsible for a Customer Feedback Strategy?

While the Product Manager (PM) is typically responsible for the customer feedback strategy as part of the broader product strategy, it requires cross-functional collaboration:

• Customer Success Team: Often takes ownership of gathering and triaging feedback.
• Support Team: Acts as the frontline, handling initial feedback and escalating issues as needed.
• Product Team: Analyzes feedback and integrates insights into product development.

How to Overcoming Challenges in Implementing a Feedback Strategy

Implementing a feedback strategy can be challenging. Here are some common obstacles and how to overcome them:

• Lack of Ownership: Ensure clear responsibility by assigning roles to specific teams, such as customer success or product teams.
• Resource Constraints: Use tools like ProdPad to automate and streamline the feedback process, reducing the manual workload.
• Bias in Feedback Interpretation: Use objective methods and diverse feedback sources to minimize bias.

I recall a time when we struggled with resource constraints. We were getting more feedback than we could handle, and it was starting to affect our ability to act on it. We decided to invest in AI tools that could help manage and prioritize the feedback. This decision transformed our process, allowing us to focus on the most critical issues and opportunities, leading to more effective product improvements.

What’s the Future of Customer Feedback Strategies?

As technology evolves, customer feedback strategies will become more sophisticated:

• Leveraging AI: AI can streamline the feedback process, making it easier to gather, analyze, and act on customer insights.
• Closer Customer Relationships: Understanding customer needs will become a key differentiator, with companies needing to be more customer-informed to stay ahead.

Imagine a future where AI not only helps analyze feedback but also predicts customer needs before they even arise. Companies that can harness this power will be able to create truly innovative products that delight users and stay ahead of the competition.

Common Misconceptions About Customer Feedback Strategies

Many companies do not actively think about having a structured feedback strategy, assuming that ad-hoc feedback handling is sufficient. However, without a structured approach, valuable insights can be missed, and feedback may not be effectively integrated into product planning.

I’ve seen companies fall into the trap of treating feedback as an afterthought, only to realize too late that they’ve missed critical signals from their users. A well-structured feedback strategy prevents this, ensuring that every piece of feedback is considered and acted upon where appropriate.

Your cue to take action

To learn more about building a robust customer feedback strategy, check out our detailed guides on gathering feedback, closing the feedback loop and analyzing what you have. Start a trial with ProdPad today and see how we can help you turn customer insights into actionable improvements for your product. Book a demo now!

By implementing a comprehensive customer feedback strategy, you can ensure that your product continues to evolve in line with customer needs, maintaining a strong product-market fit and fostering long-term customer loyalty.

Conclusion

In the end, a customer feedback strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a vital component of successful Product Management. It’s about being an explorer, a detective, and a friend all rolled into one. 

By gathering, analyzing, and acting on customer feedback, you ensure that your product not only meets but exceeds customer expectations. So, start mapping out your feedback strategy today and watch your product soar to new heights!

The post Customer Feedback Strategy: How to Gather, Analyze, and Use Feedback to Make Your Product Better appeared first on ProdPad.

What is feedback analysis?

Think of analyzing your feedback like sifting through all that unearthed treasure. There’ll be some shiny stuff (great features people love), some old, broken artifacts (features nobody uses or everyone finds frustrating), and maybe even a few hidden gems (unexpected problems you can solve).

Feedback analysis helps you winnow through it all and find those valuable doubloons. It used to take ages – manually going through every piece of feedback, seeing if it fits in with your strategy and goals, slowly and surely building up a picture of what people want from your product and why.

Make a robot do it for you

Here’s the cool part though: thanks to the ongoing AI revolution there’s a growing wealth of tools, like ProdPad’s Signals, that can help you analyze all this feedback faster and easier than ever.

It’s like having your own data PI, there to uncover hidden patterns and trends in all that user chatter. Suddenly, you can see what features are winning users over, what’s confusing them, and where there might be opportunities for a brand-new way to solve their problems.

By listening to your users and analyzing their feedback, you can stay ahead of the curve. You’ll know what they need before they even ask, and your product will keep getting better and better. This translates to loyal users and a product that thrives in the ever-changing tech world.

Basically, feedback analysis turns user chatter into a roadmap for success. It helps you build a product that users love, not just one you think they’ll love.

What are the different types of feedback you’ll need to analyze?

Not all feedback is created equal. There are lots of different ways your users can talk to you about your product, and each way gives you a special kind of clue.

Let’s crack open that treasure chest of feedback and see what we find!

Direct feedback

Surveys, interviews, and feedback forms are all ways users can tell you directly what they love about your product, and what they wish was better. This feedback is valuable because it’s super clear and often answers specific questions you might have for them.

It can provide you with quantitative data, like ratings and ranked priorities, and qualitative insights by asking open-ended questions where your users can share their thoughts and suggestions.

Indirect and behavioral feedback

Sometimes, your users don’t tell you directly what they’re struggling with, but their actions speak volumes. This is where your fancy analytics tools come in.

They track how users move around your product, kind of like watching a lab rat navigate a maze. If lots of users get stuck on a certain screen, it might mean that part is confusing. On the other hand, if a feature gets used all the time, it’s probably a winner!

Social media and online review platforms like G2 can also be a solid clue here – if users are raving about a feature online, that’s a very good sign.

Silent signals

Sometimes, the absence of something is a clue in itself.  If your users completely ignore a feature, it might be hidden or just not very useful.

Similarly, if a new update goes out and nobody mentions it, that could mean either they love it, they didn’t hear about it, or they don’t even care. This kind of silent feedback is like a detective game – you’ve got to read between the lines.

Competitor analysis

What are people saying about your competitors? Checking out reviews and feedback on other products can be a sneaky way to learn what your target users like and dislike.

Maybe your competitor has a killer feature you don’t, or maybe yours is way easier to use.  This intel can help you figure out where your product shines and where it needs improvement.

Unsolicited feedback

This is that unexpected contact from users with their thoughts on your product.  It might come from anywhere – social media, customer support calls, even carrier pigeons (probably not, but never say never).

This can often be some of the most useful feedback you get – it’s usually super honest, because they weren’t prompted to give it.  You’re getting an unfiltered review straight from the heart.

By listening to all these different conversations, you’ll get a complete picture of how your product is doing.  Each piece of feedback is a piece of the puzzle, and when you put them all together you can see what users truly think, and what you can do to make your product even better.

Why is feedback analysis important?

Why should you care about feedback analysis? The short answer: Because happy users are your best salespeople.

Think about it. Would you rather build a product based on guesswork, hoping it lands with users, or would you prefer to have a direct line to their needs and wants?

Remember: you are not your user. You don’t know what they want. The only real way to find out what people want is to ask them, and then to listen to their answers. Simply put, analyzing feedback and acting on it is how you show your users that you’ve listened.

For a first-hand example, ProdPad’s customer feedback features are thanks to customer feedback! When our users kept expressing they needed a better way to manage their feedback, we set out to understand exactly what they wanted to achieve.

Through careful analysis and a lot of talking, it became clear that a dedicated feedback module was the answer. Years on, this module is one of our most-used features. Who’d’a thunk it?

If we hadn’t analyzed and acted on what our customers were telling us, we’d have missed out on a big way to make them (and our finance people) happier.

What are the benefits of effective feedback analysis?

Here’s how feedback analysis helps you build a product that solves your users’ problems and wins their love:

No more building products in a vacuum: Stop relying on untested assumptions! Feedback analysis shows you exactly what features are winning hearts and which ones need a makeover. No more features nobody uses – just solutions to problems your users actually face.

Turn frustrated users into fans: Imagine a user who is really struggling with one aspect of your product. With feedback analysis, you can identify these pain points and fix them before they churn. Everyone loves feeling heard. Listening to feedback and making changes based on it shows your users you care, and should help them stick around for longer 

Smarter resource allocation: Feedback analysis helps you prioritize the changes that will have the biggest impact. This means you can spend your time and resources wisely, making sure every update is giving your customers something they want and will use.

Uncover hidden gems: Sometimes, your users will have brilliant ideas for your product that you might never have thought of. Feedback analysis can reveal these hidden nuggets of gold, sparking innovation and helping you stay ahead of the curve.

Stay ahead of the curve: The tech world moves fast! Feedback analysis helps you keep your finger on the pulse of user needs. This lets you adapt to changing preferences before your competitors do, keeping your product fresh and relevant.

Feedback analysis isn’t just about collecting data, it’s about making that data work for you. It helps you build a product that’s not just good, it’s exactly what your users need.

By listening closely, you can create something truly special, a product that wins hearts, minds, and the ever-important battle for user loyalty. So, ditch the guesswork and start listening to your users – they’ve got the magic formula for success right at their fingertips.

Who’s responsible for feedback analysis?

You’re ready to harness the power of user feedback. But who within your organization takes point on this incredibly important, and yet not very popular, task? It depends on the size and maturity of your company, but there’s a fairly predictable roster of usual suspects here:

Product Managers

Primarily, the responsibility of feedback analysis often falls on the shoulders of PMs. After all, you’re the one standing at the nexus of customer needs, business objectives, and technical capabilities.

It’s up to you to interpret user feedback to guide your product roadmap and strategy effectively. Digging deep into your feedback will help you make sure your product evolves in a way that aligns with both what your users and your business need.

Customer Success and Support

These folks are on the front lines, directly interacting with users and often being the first to hear their praises and concerns. 

The Customer Success team’s knowledge is incredibly useful, as they’re the ones with their fingers on the pulse of how happy your customers are and what they’re having problems with.

They play a crucial role in initial data gathering and filtering before passing detailed reports along to the product management team for deeper analysis.

As a Product Manager who ultimately has to take the feedback they’ve gathered and analyse it for insights, it’s worth spending some time with these customer facing team members to coach them on how to dig deeper into what a customer is telling them. 

For example, if a customer announces to a Customer Success Manager that they need “Feature X” and they need it now, you don’t just want the CSM to nod along and send that feedback, as is, over to you. Rather you want that CSM to delve deeper and ask the customer what problem they think that feature would solve for them. 

Once the CSM has established the problem the customer is facing, that can become part of the feedback that makes its way to you. That way you understand the heart of the issue and can explore all the possible solutions, not just “Feature X” as it was outlined by the customer. 

UX/UI Designers

When it comes to qualitative feedback, your UX and UI people are huge. With them meticulously analyzing feedback, they’ll find usability roadblocks and be able to craft an intuitive, frictionless interface that delights your users. 

Marketing

While not directly involved in the nuts and bolts of product development, the Marketing team can learn a lot from feedback analysis about how your customers perceive the product and brand. 

They can use that feedback analysis to craft targeted messages and campaigns that speak directly to existing and potential users, based on what they’ve told you interests them.

In many cases, feedback analysis is a collaborative effort across these teams. Each brings their unique perspective and skills to the table, helping you to cover all the bases.

Using ProdPad as the unifying platform for this dream team will help you centralize all your feedback data, and tag it appropriately, so everyone can access and analyze it seamlessly. It can also do a lot of the heavy lifting on the analysis side too.

How to conduct feedback analysis and turn rants into rave reviews

OK, you’ve got a treasure chest overflowing with user feedback – awesome! But how do you turn all those comments and ratings and pigeon-poop-encrusted scrolls into actual improvements for your product?

Here’s the step-by-step journey of feedback analysis, where you transform raw data into action:

1. Gather the goods

Collect feedback from everywhere users chat with us: surveys, interviews, feedback portals, suggestion boxes, social media, reviews, behavioral analytics… The key is to gather feedback constantly to get the freshest user insights.

If you’re using ProdPad you not only get Customer Feedback Portals and widgets to put wherever you need them, but anyone can send feedback to you via email, a browser extension, straight from Slack or Teams, and through integrations with CRMs, Support systems and more. 

2. Make sense of the madness

Once you have a pile of feedback, it’s time to organize. Sort comments into categories like usability, features, or customer service. Think of it like color-coding your puzzle pieces.  Then, add tags to each piece to make finding things even easier.

If you are managing feedback for more than one product, at the least make sure each piece of feedback is tagged with the product it relates to.

In ProdPad you can even use our super-smart AI to do this tagging for you, saving you a ton of time. 

3. Dig deeper

Now that everything is organized, it’s time to stare at that Magic Eye picture until you find the patterns. You’re looking for common themes across the feedback, like recurring issues or features everyone loves.

Use statistical analysis for quantitative data (like ratings) and content analysis for qualitative data (like open-ended responses). This two-pronged approach will give you a more comprehensive view of the playing field.

You can even apply natural language processing tools to assess how people were feeling when they messaged you, which can help you gauge overall customer satisfaction. And, of course, Signals can help you to surface those common themes without you spending hours on it yourself.

You can also segment your feedback in ProdPad by company size, user type, or any other relevant criteria. There’s a lot to be learned from breaking down your customers into useful groupings.

For example, segmenting by free vs. paying users could reveal features highly valued by paying customers, informing your future monetization strategies. Segmenting by companies with over 1000 employees can tell you how well your product works for enterprise customers.

4. Prioritize the greatest hits

Here’s where you play detective again. Figure out which issues will have the biggest impact on user happiness and your product’s success.

Also, consider how much effort it will take to fix each issue and what resources you have to work with. This helps you decide which thing to tackle first.

5. Draw up your plans

Based on your analysis, create a battle plan for addressing the feedback. This includes what changes will be made, who will do them, and which feedback backs you up.  Make sure everyone involved is on the same page, so there’s no confusion when it’s time to get to work.

In ProdPad, you can attach feedback to the Ideas in your backlog and the Initiatives on your Roadmap. And it won’t surprise you to hear that our AI can connect the dots for you and automatically link Ideas to the feedback they’re attempting to answer, and vice versa. 

You can even use Signals to identify a common feedback theme and create an Idea directly from that. You’ll then have your Idea Canvas to map out the details and describe what experiments you’re going to try, all with the individual pieces of related feedback attached. 

6. Do the thing!

This is where the magic happens. Implement the changes you decided on, like fixing a confusing screen or adding a long-requested feature.

Progress that Idea through your workflow from discovery right through to delivery and beyond (assuming the idea was actually validated that is).  

7. Keep an eye out

Just because you’ve made some changes, it doesn’t mean you stop paying attention. Closely monitor how your users react to the updates and see if things are improving.

If you need to make adjustments, you’ll be ready to jump back in and keep working on piecing together that puzzle!

8. Close the loop

Once you’ve made changes based on feedback, let your users know! This shows them you hear their voices and that their input matters. It also encourages them to keep sharing their thoughts, which helps you keep making your product even better.

ProdPad can help a lot with this, as you can track exactly who said what, and link that to each thing you do. When you’ve fixed something a customer wanted, even months or years later, you can blow their minds with how you’ve remembered what they said and that you’ve done something about it.

9. Level up your game

Feedback analysis is an ongoing process, so you need to always be on the lookout for ways to improve it.  Regularly review your methods and explore new tools (*cough* ProdPad *cough*) to make sure you’re getting the most out of all that valuable user feedback.

By following these steps, you’ll ensure you’re not collecting feedback and then just leaving it in a dusty old warehouse along with the Ark of the Covenant. You need to put it in front of those “Top Men”, Indy!

Actively use feedback to make your product the best it can be. This keeps your users happy and keeps your product at the top of its game.

The future of feedback analysis: less robot overlord, more user champion

The future of feedback analysis is looking bright, and it’s all thanks to some seriously cool AI tech. Imagine having a super-powered AI sidekickx that can listen to all your user chatter and pull out the most important stuff. That’s what tools like Signals are doing – making sense of the noise and helping you find the golden nuggets.

This means less time wrestling with mountains of data and more time actually understanding what your users need. You’ll be able to ditch the spreadsheets and dive deeper into real conversations with users. No more guesswork – you’ll be getting your insights straight from the source.

This shift towards a user-focused approach is a game-changer. The future of feedback analysis isn’t about robots taking over – it’s about using technology to empower you to connect with your users on a whole new level.

By combining the power of AI with your own human touch, you’ll unlock a trove of user wisdom, fuel innovation, and create experiences that truly wow your audience. Pretty exciting, right?

Turning those frowns upside-down

Feedback analysis shouldn’t be like rifling your grandma’s dusty attic, but more like a treasure trove of user insights waiting to be plundered.

By doing it right, you can transform a chattering mob of users into a loyal army, singing the praises of your product from the mountaintops. No more Frankensteinian features built on guesswork – you’ll be crafting solutions that your users actually crave.

Remember, happy users are your best salespeople. So, ditch the crystal ball and start listening. They’ve got the magic formula for success right at their fingertips.

And hey, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of user feedback, don’t despair. Tools like ProdPad are basically your own personal treasure map, helping you navigate Feedback Island to find that buried cache of user wisdom.

With a little effort, three steps towards Hangman’s Rock, and a metal detector in the shape of ProdPad, you’ll be rolling in loot, matey. So, what are you waiting for? Grab your analysis shovel and start digging!

The post Feedback Analysis: How to Extract Insights to Fuel Your Product Strategy appeared first on ProdPad.

What is churn?

If you already know what churn is, then feel free to skip to the next section. For everyone else: there are two types of churn – customer churn, and revenue churn.

Customer churn (also known as logo churn or customer attrition) is the measure of how many of your customers are no longer paying for your product. It is represented as a percentage and is calculated like this:

Churn Rate = (Total number of churned customers / total number of customers) x 100

There are then two ways to calculate and track revenue churn. Those are:

Gross Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) churn is the measure of how much money you have lost from customers leaving or downgrading their service. It’s calculated like this:

Gross MRR Churn Rate = MRR Lost from Churn / Starting MRR x 100

Net MRR churn takes into account how new customers and people upgrading have counterbalanced the negative impact your Gross churn has had on your revenue stream, and is calculated like this:

Net MRR Churn Rate = (MRR Lost from Churn and Downgrades – MRR Gained from Upgrades and Add-ons) / Starting MRR x 100 

If you really want to get to grips with these metrics, and the other product metrics you’ll want to be tracking to get the best from your product, download our free eBook, The Complete List of Product Management KPIs.

What is churn prevention?

Churn prevention is like a secret recipe that you use to keep your customers happy and keep them sticking around. It’s all about understanding what makes those customers tick. You need to address any problems that crop up before they get big enough to make them want to drop your product.

Think of it as more than just keeping people from leaving, though. It’s about building a real bond with your customers. You’ve got to look at everything from the product itself to how they feel when they call for help, and make sure that you’re staying on top of what they want as it changes.

It’s like mixing all the different ingredients of a complex recipe together to make sure you get the perfect dish that keeps your customers smiling. To do it right, you’ve got to dive deep into your customer data.

Watch out for any signs that someone might be thinking of waving goodbye. That’s your chance to jump in with solutions before it’s too late. Or to sweeten the pot to keep them around long enough for you to make the fix they’re looking for.

Again, it’s not just about holding onto customers, no matter what. It’s about keeping your product or service as cool as a cucumber, as hot as a chili, and matching what your customers want in their product bellies. It’s about staying in tune with what they need and making sure you’re delivering the goods.

In the end, churn prevention isn’t just some business mumbo-jumbo. It’s the key to making your business last. It’s about knowing your customers inside out, staying ahead of the game, and always changing with the times. Give it the priority it deserves, and you’ll be building lasting relationships, making your brand shine, and setting yourself up for success.

Who is responsible for churn prevention?

Customer Success

Let’s be real: the entire team has a spoon in the churn pot. It’s one of those things that’s everyone’s business. But usually, it’s the Customer Success squad that’s on the front lines, building those vital connections with your customers once they’ve hopped on board. They’re the ones making sure your customers are digging what you’re dishing out.

Being there in the trenches (or is that trenchers, to continue the food metaphor?), Customer Success is usually the first to spot the signs – like when someone’s app usage is dropping off, or if they’ve started grumbling. But hey, if someone does decide to jump ship, remember, it’s not all on Customer Success’ shoulders. We’re all in this churn battle together!

Marketing

Marketing can contribute to keeping churn low by making sure they reel in the right kind of folks to begin with. Those who’ll really get a kick out of what you’re offering. No sketchy sales tactics, no promising haute cuisine then serving up a hot dog. Just honest-to-goodness value.

Product marketing, who usually own customer comms, can also help keep your users engaged and happy through supporting a multi-touch communication strategy. While the Customer Success people will be hands-on and often one-to-one with customers, Product (or Customer) Marketing will be responsible for the mass communications and ongoing nurture emails that can help your entire customer base feel like they’re in the loop. 

Sales

Sales also have to make sure they’re not promising champagne and delivering Mountain Dew. They’ve got to match the right product to the right people. Otherwise, those customers are out the door quicker than you can say “Wait, what’s churn again?”.

Product & Development

Then there’s the tech folks, the Product and Development crew. They’re the guardians of the product kingdom, making sure there’s no hair in the food, and that service is glitch-free. Can’t have a wonky product scaring off your precious customers!

Support 

Of course, you need Support to swoop in, flag bugs, and make sure your customers feel the love when they reach out.

So, just like getting a fine meal from fridge to table, and making sure no one pukes it up and writes you a terrible review… it’s a team effort. We’re all in the business of crafting an amazing customer experience together. At any moment, a sour taste can send customers packing. I really should have had lunch before writing this!

How to prevent churn as a product manager

Ok, so now you know what everyone else is doing to keep your churn under control, what can you as a product manager do to tie all of their efforts together?

Keep your eyes on your ICP

Right from the get-go, you have to know who your dream customers are. That’s your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Get that down pat, and you’ll be drawing in the right crowd, the ones who’ll stick around. Because trying to fix a poorly conceived ICP later is like trying to unscramble an egg.

If you’ve got a bunch of folks signing up but scratching their heads, wondering what they signed up for, that’s a problem. You have to know who you’re building your product for, aim for customers that’ll stick around for the long haul. They’re the ones who’ll keep that revenue gravy train chugging along.

That’s why it’s so important to know your ICP like the back of your hand. Shout it from the rooftops! Understand who your buyer persona is and work closely with your Sales and Marketing teams to make sure everyone’s on the same page. That means clear messaging, killer sales pitches, and marketing strategies that draw in the perfect match for your product. Quality of leads over quantity is the name of the game here.

Get them onboard, then make sure they stay there

Then comes the onboarding – not just a one-time deal, my friends. It’s a continuous journey, making sure your customers feel supported long after day one. Your Product and UX teams need to work their magic, ensuring customers see the value they were promised. And, of course, Customer Success is right there, reinforcing that message every step of the way.

You see, it’s not just about getting them on board. Churn prevention’s about keeping them jazzed up about your product. After all, the opposite of churn is repeat business more engagement – retaining customers and their continued payments. If you can get 95 happy diners to come back for more, they’ll make up for the 5 who decided to go for a McDonald’s next time. That’s how you build a rock-solid cohort of customers. That’s the secret sauce.

Get to grips with churn indicators

Read between the lines of your customer data. Dive deep into the usage stats of those who’ve churned. Look out for any signs of decreased activity, neglected features, or a sudden surge (or indeed fall) in support calls. These are just some of the red flags that could be your early warnings.

However, no two products have the same churn indicators – so you’ll have to do the analysis for yourself and work out what the unique signs are that your users are losing interest.  Catch them and work your magic with the Customer Success team to win those wavering hearts back.

On a practical level, once you’ve determined what those churn indicators are in your usage data, make sure you’ve set up alerts that shout at you if a customer starts to display these patterns. It’s no good knowing how churning customers behave in the run-up to canceling if you don’t use that intel to pre-empt churn and work to mitigate it! 

Get ahead of the game

It’s all about pipping churn to the post. Use the insights shared by your most dedicated users and the churn indicators you’re tracking to create a special radar for those who are slowly slipping away. Reach out with tailored solutions, show them some extra love, and watch as those churn risks get handled before they even realize they’re thinking of leaving.

Plus, once you find out a reason for your customer churn, share that insight across the business! One way we do that here at ProdPad is with a regular cross-functional meeting. We look through all the churn reasons that have come up lately, to discuss what (if anything) needs to be done to stop it being a problem in the future.

Price it right to prevent churn

Sometimes it’s not about the product, it’s about the price tag. During these wallet-tightening times, you can be the hero with flexible pricing options and sweet discounts. But you’ll need to keep an eye on the long game – you want happy customers and a thriving business, not just a quick fix that’ll leave you in the red down the line.

You’ll need to box clever, though, because pricing is a tricky one! You don’t want to devalue your product, or rush in and cut prices if you’re not certain that is definitely the reason for your churn. No one likes leaving money on the table.

Be the feedback whisperer

Listen, really listen, to what your customers have to say. Their gripes, their suggestions, their praises – take it all in. Then, roll up your sleeves and get to work. Show them you care by acting on their feedback.

Never forget to close the loop – make sure you have that baked into your process. Whenever a customer submits feedback, respond to it. Then come back and inform them of the solution to their problem whenever a related feature or improvement ships. Trust me, a little TLC goes a long way in keeping those hungry churn wolves from the door.

Map out a clear path ahead

Let your customers peek into the kitchen – show ’em what’s cooking with a clearly presented public roadmap. Lay out the plans, the fixes, the shiny new features and solutions you’re bringing to the table.

It’s all about building that trust, showing them you’re always hustling to make their experience top-notch. When they see you’ve got their backs, they’ll stick around for the long haul.

What are the best ways to reduce customer churn? 

If your churn prevention attempts aren’t landing, then you need to start minimizing your losses. When your customers start bailing on you, you’ve got to dig deep and find out why. Don’t be shy! Give them a ring, and ask straight up – why the sudden goodbye?

Get to the bottom of it. Sometimes, it might be a glitch in your system that needs fixing, or maybe you just weren’t clear enough with what you’re offering. You might even have to go drawing board and ask yourself, ‘Are we even aiming for the right crowd?’

But the best way to reduce your churn? Talk to the folks who are sticking around, the ones who are loving what you’re dishing out. Find out why they’re vibing with your product. 

Let your happy customers do the talking for you

Ask them exactly what problems they had before they found you. Find out how it feels now that they’ve got your magic solution. Get into their heads and use the way your happy customers talk about your product to attract more of their kind. It’s like having your own little fan club writing all of your ads for you!

Let’s say 10% of your customer base is all in for your product. Well, what if you could bump that number up to 20%, or maybe even 50%? That’s when the real party starts. You’ll be pulling in more folks who are nodding along, saying, “Yep, you’re giving me exactly what I needed.”

Instead of running around like a headless chicken trying to fix things for those who’ve already left, focus on the ones who are cheering you on from the sidelines. They’re your best friends. Get them happy, keep them happy, and watch your revenue grow.

Trust me, it’s the happy bunch you’ve already got that’ll show you the way to more success and help you to really nail your churn prevention efforts. So, go on, find your happy diners, and let them guide you to even more wins!

Is it too late when a customer clicks “cancel”? 

In a word: No!

This is exactly why it’s so worthwhile to set up your exit interview process and find out what’s making them leave.  One thing, though: never hold somebody hostage! You really don’t want to be telling people that they can’t cancel, or making it difficult for them to finish the cancellation process.

That right there is some shady, black-hat behavior that is sure to damage your reputation. Rather, you could try offering a win-back as part of your on-site cancellation flow.

Don’t just shrug your shoulders and move on

What you want to do is pick their brains. Try to truly understand what’s going on, and why they’re done with your product. You might get some positive results from offering a targeted win-back offer as part of their exit interview.

If there was a misunderstanding, correct it and show them how to do the thing they think can’t be done. Maybe they’ll be happy enough to come back on board. If you’re talking to them and they say, “Oh, I’m canceling because you don’t do this thing we need”, then you can point out: “Actually, we do help you to do this! Here’s how…”

Or with a bit of luck, their problem might be something that you are just about to fix. It might be something you could choose to prioritize next. Perhaps it’s something where, with a bit of communication and support, they might change their processes or learn how to use your product more effectively.

That’s why it’s always worth having that conversation if they’re willing. And that’s why it’s important to ask them what’s up, because it might be something you can fix.

Don’t expect to save all of them! But every customer rescued from the brink will help your bottom line, and teach you something about what your userbase needs.

A last note about preventing churn

One thing that a lot of PMs don’t realize is that your actual churn rate at any one time doesn’t really matter, as long as it tapers out eventually. In theory, as long as you’re keeping some people, and they’re sticking around for the long term, then you can run a healthy business.

Your results may vary depending on other factors in your business, but it’s more about making sure that you don’t consistently lose customers until your graph hits zero. It’s okay if you do lose a bunch, as long as your predicted losses taper out and flat line.

You could be losing 90% of them, but as long as you’re keeping 10%, and those 10% are big earners for you, then you might still be perfectly sustainable.

PayPal constantly loses most of its paying pals

Matt Lerner, a former Marketing Director at PayPal, recently pointed out that PayPal, which made over $11 Billion in gross profit in 2022, is in exactly that situation.

Pretty much everyone who signs up for a business account with PayPal turns off – within a year, they’re inactive. But the people who do stick around become big, happy sellers, and PayPal makes tons of money off them. Once you’re a successful PayPal seller, you’re not going to leave.

So, there you have a business that’s losing 90% of its customers regularly. Yet they’re making billions of dollars a year. Clearly, then, churn rate isn’t everything.

Ride the curve

What can you learn from this? Look at your own numbers. Figure out where your churn rate flattens out, and then what you can do to build value from the customers who have stuck around. If you can continue to keep those folks on board and grow revenue from them, then you might be just fine.

While churn prevention is a vital part of keeping your head above water, and keeping your customers liking the taste of what you’re serving them, the first thing on your agenda should always be to make a product that your users actually want and need.

If you’re not doing that, you need to either change your customers, change your sales pitch, or change your product!

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