integrating the voice of the customer into your product's development
TRANSCRIPT
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Integrating the Voice of the Customerinto Your Product's Development
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Meet the Speaker
Emily Hossellman
Director of Marketing @ Centercode
@ehossellman
Agenda
1. The Value of Customer Feedback
2. Building a Customer Feedback Community
3. Leveraging that Community Throughout the Lifecycle
4. Q&A
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Who is Centercode?
Services Fully managed tests and programs
Software Complete beta program management platform
Testers Access to 150k+ deeply profiled global candidates
Content Free tools and best practices
Customer validation is our core competency
We've been collecting customer feedback for tech companies since 2001
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The Value of Customer Feedback
Voice of the Customer
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Originated in a 1993 paper by Abbie Griffin and John Hauser
1. Identify customer needs
2. In their own words
3. Organize and prioritize those needs
So you can identify the problem and solve it!
Why is Customer Feedback Important?
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You cannot build a customer-centric company without it
Customer-centric companies excel
Helps you make customer/data driven decisions
Myth that customers don't know what they want
Why Companies Don't Do It
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It's hard
They think they know what the customer wants
They don't have the systems in place to do it quickly
Don't know where to find the right people
Don't know what to ask
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Building a Community
Why Do You Need a Community?
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You can get people quickly
You can pinpoint the right mix of people
You have a source of fresh faces
Defining Your Target Market
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Determine your core requirements
Define your segmentations
What information do you need during signup
Bringing Them Into Your Community
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Build a sign up process
Ask for detailed information
Only ask for what you need
Ask some open-ended questions
Decide whether to NDA now or later
Finding Customers
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Build an engaging landing page
Identify the best recruitment channels
● Your customers● Your website● Blogs and industry sites● User groups● Customer/industry forums● Twitter (organic and advertising)● Referrals● Early adopter sites (like Betabound)
Managing Your Community
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Score community members
Survey them
Ask them to update their profiles
Educate your testers
Constantly grow your community
Look for additional ways to maintain engagement
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Leveraging Customer Feedback
Leveraging Customer Feedback
1. Pre-Product2. Design MVP3. Agile Development4. Alpha Stage5. Private Beta
6. Competitive Testing7. Public Beta8. Launch9. Post-Release
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Pre-Product
One on one conversations (qualitative)
Don't ask about features/solutions, ask about needs
Look for inspiration / direction / trends
Cover your segmentations, but don't go crazy
Get quantitative feedback to help with prioritization
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Design MVP
Test pieces - wireframes, logos, single features, UI
Qualitative feedback - usability, focus groups
Quantitative feedback - surveys, A/B testing
Cheaper (and easier) to make changes early
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Agile Development
Need to be well-planned and move quickly
Ready with different methodologies based on objectives
Determine where feedback points fall in relation to your sprints
Standing group of testers
● with the appropriate expectations about responsiveness ● think about burnout● need fresh faces to weed out bias
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Alpha
Not feature-complete but major features are working
Natural, in the wild usage
Set expectations with stakeholders
Check designs and assumptions
Find lots and lots of bugs
Set expectations with testers - it will be a pain to use the product
Need to consider feedback bias based on alpha nature of product
Private Beta
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Early feedback doesn't replace beta
Larger group so you can get qualitative and quantitative data
Get as close to your target market as possible
Get as close to your final product as possible
People who weren't in your earlier stages
Give them more time with the product
Competitive
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Run in parallel with private beta or pre-product
Match up surveys, tasks, objectives, and features
Run it like it's your product
Fresh faces - no evangelists, already biased
New user experience for both groups
Public Beta
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Aim for buzz and exposure
Seed with your community
Large groups, light touch
Still need feedback mechanisms readily available
Look at backend analytics - customer usage, strain
Can be side-by-side with a private beta
Launch
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Identify evangelists to build buzz and create early reviews
Build a library of user generated content
Encourage transparency about their involvement
Encourage them to talk honestly about your product
Post-Release
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Both quantitative and qualitative can play a role
Why did you buy it?
What were you hoping to achieve?
Where did it fall short?
Don't just get feedback from the vocal minority
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Final Thoughts
There are a million different ways to leverage a community
You don't have to do everything - start small and build
Make data-driven decisions (not based on biases and hunches)
Listen to your customers - they're trying to tell you what you need to know!
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Q&A
Emily Hossellman
Director of Marketing @ Centercode
@ehossellman
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Thank You!