Product feedback is the alpha and the omega for the success of your digital product. According to a survey, 91% of people believe that user feedback should be the main driver for innovation when it comes to product development, and we certainly are in agreement with that.
Product feedback is the perfect next step when it comes to evaluating a new product but also when it comes to iterating products that are already on the market.
What is product feedback?
Product feedback is insights in any shape or form that are provided by users on your product or service. Product feedback can be either solicited or unsolicited. Unsolicited feedback is any opinion or suggestion that comes in without having directly asked your user about it. On the other hand, solicited feedback is any insight that the product team gets after asking the user to specifically provide feedback.
Whatever the type of product feedback, it is invaluable for any business, as it gives a clearer understanding of how the product is perceived by its users and hence provides ample opportunities for informed decisions about the future of the product.
Why is collecting product feedback important?
If you are a Product Manager or a UX Researcher, gathering product feedback should be your top priority. Collecting product feedback can have a host of advantages for your users and product alike.
Here are some of the key gains:
Improving the UX of your product
Gathering feedback plays a crucial role in improving the user experience of your digital product or service. Product feedback can help you identify critical usability issues early on. On top of that, it allows for optimized, intuitive user workflows that match the actual needs of the users.
Product feedback can also help validate (or not) different design decisions ensuring that the user is always at the center of your decision-making. Last but not least, gathering continuous feedback results in a more personalized and meaningful product that adapts to the ever-changing user needs.
Enhancing user satisfaction & loyalty
By collecting feedback you can get an understanding of the user perception of your digital product or service. It allows you to uncover areas that users are satisfied with, but also to pinpoint areas that cause friction. Hence, getting product feedback and acting on it, can lead to meeting or even exceeding the user’s expectations.
Customer loyalty is another great advantage of collecting and taking user feedback into consideration. Users will most certainly value your intention to listen to them and this will foster their loyalty. Positive testimonials and reviews can also lead to greater user loyalty.
Driving product improvement & development
Another key advantage of product feedback is that it can lead to meaningful product improvements. Product feedback should be the driver of any product improvement as it provides great insights into the challenges and needs of your users.
Collecting feedback can help you catch any bugs or glitches early on, allowing you to be on top of your game when it comes to making iterative improvements or bug fixes. Additionally, product feedback should be at the forefront of product development.
Getting insights and feedback from real users can help uncover unmet needs, prioritize new features and further shape the product development roadmap, always ensuring that the user is at the center of decision-making.
Building a competitive advantage
Overall, having a robust product feedback strategy will allow your business to build a robust competitive advantage. Gathering product feedback will allow you to stay ahead of the curve.
By listening to your users and continuously addressing their needs and pain points you can ensure that your operations revolve around creating value in alignment with customer requirements. It goes without saying that this feedback will be the north star for other teams, such as marketing and sales especially when it comes to acquisition strategies and messaging.
Types of product feedback
Unsolicited | Solicited |
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Unsolicited
Unsolicited feedback refers to any insights provided by users organically, without a specific request. Unsolicited feedback is a great source of genuine opinions for your product. Here are some common types of unsolicited products:
- Social Media Mentions
Mentions, tags, comments or messages coming through the business social media accounts are a common type of unsolicited product feedback. Customers tend to use this avenue to express their satisfaction but also their frustration about products or services. These can take the form of appreciation posts or even publicly shared complaints.
These suggestions or comments are an excellent source of organic feedback, based on which you can make informed decisions about your product. Additionally, keeping an eye on and promptly responding to those will help you strengthen your relationship with your users.
- Customer Support Enquiries
Another type of unsolicited feedback is any inquiries coming through to your customer care team. It is worth noting here that this form of feedback might not always be direct.
Users might come in contact with your customer care team to seek help. It is at your discretion to monitor those instances and try to identify recurring patterns. This can be a nice way to be proactive about making meaningful product improvements.
- Online Customer Reviews
Users tend to share their personal experiences with other users by writing reviews on different online platforms, like for instance Truspilot.com.
These reviews can provide you with invaluable insights and help you uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your product. Monitoring these reviews on a daily basis will also help you address potential issues and fix them early on. Responding to and resolving these reviews will enhance your brand credibility and foster positive relationships with your users.
- Forums and communities
Different online forums and communities can be another key channel via which you can get unsolicited feedback. In those channels, you can find conversations, opinions, and even genuine unstructured reviews of your products.
Diving into these conversations to identify issues that are common amongst the contributors can be another smart way to uncover issues and see what is working with your product, and what is not.
Solicited
Solicited feedback refers to suggestions, insights, and opinions that are provided after a particular request. This type of feedback can provide you with targeted insights into particular areas of your product. Here is a list of common types of solicited feedback:
- User Surveys
User surveys are a quick and easy way to collect user feedback. There are different types of surveys out there depending on the type of insights that you are looking to get. One of the most popular surveys is the Net Promoter’s Score (NPS) survey, via which you can get the general pulse of how customers feel about your product.
User surveys can be created and sent either via email or with the aid of online survey tools, and they can include questions about preferences, general user experience, or even suggestions.
- Feedback Widgets
Feedback widgets or other in-app feedback forms are also great avenues to get product feedback. This is a way to easily get product feedback while your users interact with your application, platform, or website. These tools are highly advantageous as they allow the user to give their feedback directly from within the product. In this way, the feedback becomes a part of the user experience.
- User Testing
User testing is an unmissable way to get solicited product feedback and pinpoint areas of improvement in your digital product. We highly recommend conducting usability testing at all the different stages of your product life cycle. You can use those sessions to spot usability issues and refine the product either before its launch or even after it’s been on the market for some time.
See how usability testing works from user’s POV in these demos:
- User Interviews & Focus Groups
User interviews and focus groups are another proven and tested way to get deep qualitative insights into the needs, wants, and challenges of your users. User interviews are one-to-one interviews, where you can delve into the experiences of each user while focus groups are being conducted with a group of users and involve a guided discussion around the product.
- Email Surveys
Another type of solicited feedback is email surveys. A well-designed survey in an email allows you to tap into customers’ thoughts, opinions, and preferences in a structured and efficient manner. By inviting subscribers to participate in surveys, you can understand their overall experience with your products, identify areas for improvement, and uncover new features that could better serve their needs.
Sending a survey in an email is convenient for both the sender and the recipient. Subscribers can access the survey directly from their inbox without the need to visit a separate website or platform, making it easy for them to participate.
Best practices for gathering product feedback
Here are some of the best practices when it comes to building a strong feedback strategy for your digital product:
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Make feedback easy to provide
One of the best approaches when it comes to collecting feedback is making it easy and frictionless for your user to provide it. In-app feedback widgets are a great example of this practice as users are given the space to provide feedback from within the application or website.
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Encourage feedback-oriented culture
Fostering a business culture where feedback is highly valued is one of the best practices you can adopt when it comes to product feedback. By actively listening and responding to feedback in a timely manner, you show how much you value user feedback. In return, this fosters a relationship of trust where feedback is appreciated and acted on.
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Collect & analyze feedback throughout the product lifecycle
Another golden standard is to continuously collect and uncover patterns throughout the entire product lifecycle as well as throughout the entire user journey. A smart way to achieve this is by creating different touchpoints for feedback that will allow for an accurate overview of the product’s health.
How to incorporate product feedback into your designs
Collecting feedback is just the tip of your feedback strategy. Incorporating user feedback into your designs means that you would need to establish a feedback loop.
Feedback loops ensure that the feedback you collect from a range of channels is being analyzed, prioritized, and finally implemented. As part of this feedback loop, it is crucial to test and validate any updates that were made due to user feedback and continuously monitor their impact.
To achieve this, you can leverage testing tools like UXtweak, which can offer both a survey tool to gather feedback and a usability testing tool to nail your product feedback loop.
Tools for gathering product feedback
There are tons of tools in the market for product feedback collection which can help you lead to more informed product development decisions.
Here are some of the most popular ones:
- UXtweak: an all-in-one user research tool, can help you conduct both surveys and usability tests
- SurveyMonkey: an easy-to-use tool to create customized surveys
- Google Forms: a free survey tool
- Zendesk: CRM tool with live chat and email management system
- Productboard: a tool for feedback centralization
- Jotform: a product feedback tool for calculating NPS
- Canny: a tool for feature requests
- Trustpilot: customer review management tool
Check out our full list of Best Product Feedback Tools with features and pricing comparison.
The gist of it
Collecting product feedback for your digital product or service is the alpha and the omega for its success. Product feedback provides insights into the needs, wants, and challenges of the users, helping in this way to enhance the user experience and therefore customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Product feedback can be either solicited or unsolicited depending on the channel and the way it is acquired. Incorporating feedback into your designs is equally crucial. To succeed in that you can introduce and establish feedback loops, which consist of gathering feedback, analyzing, implementing changes, and testing again.
There are an array of tools to help you gather user feedback but look no further as UXtweak! Register for your free account and start collecting product feedback by leveraging surveys and usability tests to make informed product development decisions.
