Listening to customers is part of every successfull business. With roadmap voting you can find out what customers really need and prioritize tasks.
Voting works best when many participate. What applies to elections also applies to product roadmap voting: higher participation leads to better voting results. We recommend to encourage customer feedback.
Asking customers for feedback proactively and giving a nudge once in a while helps maintaining a healthy active customer feedback pool. The following 7 ways have proven to generate valuable customer feedback. They all rely on presenting the product feedback page to customers, ideally directly in front of highly engaged users.
The URL of you feedback page looks like this: https://productific.com/@MyProduct
1. Website
Place a link to the product feedback page on your website. Good places are the general contact area, the about page and the product description. Ideally, the feedback link is placed next to active discussions in forums or blogs.
2. Product
Perhaps the most obvious place often gets overlooked: place a link to your feedback page inside your product, right where the user would look for new features. Good places are help areas, about-screens and config-pages.
3. E-Mail
Simply add a link to the product listing in onboarding and transactional emails. Regular newsletters are also a good place.
4. Social Media
Publish the product feedback page on Facebook, Twitter & co once in a while. This increases general awareness and sometimes nudges customers that simply forgot about it. Posting new idea listings will encourage initial feedback.
5. Support Channels
All bug trackers, ticket systems and support communities have highly engaged and interested users gathered. Displaying your product feedback page will give them the opportunity to suggest new features and vote for the most attractive ones. These suggestions may already end up in your support channels today and go unnoticed.
For all of the above, feedback links should be placed in a non-spammy, non-obstrusive way. Think of it as part of your product's business card.
6. Awards & Gamification
In some markets awards work well to encourage user feedback. Typically, these are B2C consumer markets like mobile apps. We've seen successful campaigns like "win XYZ if your idea gets selected" that created a wave of good new ideas that improve a product and increase user engagement.
7. Meetings
Last but not least, and also frequently missed out: talk to your customers about feedback. When meetings happen, user groups engage or even in sales meetings asking for customer feedback will give valuable insight.
Example: