Create Product Value with Continuous Discovery
The continous product discovery is a key component of the creation of new product value for existing and customers.
The discovery process is not a one-off task, but a continuous exercise and it is fueled by real customers’ problems. I’m a big fan of the resources of Teresa Torres and recommend you to read her thoughts on continuous product discovery on Product Talk.
Guess it how you can get to those problems? The short answer is customer surveys.
Customer analysis is as important as competitive research in the B2B world.
I’d rather call the feedback from real customers something like ‘opinions’, ‘active listening’ in order to avoid the critique point that comes with the word ‘feedback’.
Collect and synthesize the opinions, emails, feedback from your real customers is more complex than what it looks like.
Why do I care? I have a great product and clients! Are you the only one that says so 😀 your cash flow is in danger. According to stats, customers can purchase again after filling in a survey. Show them that you care and be ready to listen even if you receive criticism. You are here to serve them, to resolve their needs and not only get their cash. If your goal is the latest, well, you’ll fail sooner or later.
Be humble :), I swear by these use cases and there are many more:
- Improve current product (features: break, keep, tweak 🙂
- Develop future product enhancements
- Bundle products for a more robust future offering
- Identify strong product points that you didn’t focus on and use this info to bring more sales
- Improve existing features (don’t tell me that you blindly change a feature, because ‘some’ customers said so. I have learnt a lesson or two for that and would be happy to argue about this approach :))
- Find out the ‘feature bloat’ to dig deeper into the features that you should retire. Stick to the ‘less is more rule’. You are not a features factory, focus on what brings value to users over time and let it go if it stops giving value to them.
At least you’d like to have two types of surveys:
Exit surveys – we’re sorry to see you leaving
Product Survey – existing customers > new customers, prospects, unicorns. Forever.
Your existing customers are keeping your SaaS business alive, make them happy, solve their problems and thrive with them. They are the backbone of your business. Any new customer comes with the CAC and one part of the equation is the ‘cost’ aka spend that your CFO frowns upon. Unicorns are sweet, but just that’s it :).
The product opinion / satisfaction survey is the type that geared towards your existing customers who already pay for your product or service.
Here you can really focus on different segmentation if you’d like to. The keyword is Specificity. And segmentation. Be sure have a couple of surveys that you can share with your target users in that specific segment.
Segmentation + Specificity + Open Ended or/and Short Questions
This is the only way to get the most out of the data that you need to analyze. You will uncover common gems in your product, complains, patterns for suggestions etc.
In any case, don’t send a generic survey to everyone or a generic survey only to one segment of your customers, it will not fit the bill.
Segmentation Ideas for Better Customer Feedback
- Customers who are active users and have been successful with a product.
Be sure to target customers who have been successful with a product and those who have had trouble with it. This will provide a range of data to uncover common frustrations or suggestions you may otherwise miss from surveying only one segment of your customer base.
2. Customers who might have troubles with the product
3. Exit feedback for leaving customers.
4. Analyze your users by Subscription plan type if you have different ones
Be specific in your questions to get any answers that will help your work by a subscription type. For example, you can focus on feature-specific questions for that subscription.
This would require more work, because you want to get the users and examine which features they’ve activated, which ones are dormant and put your sleeves to work on activation and retention.
5. Least active users
Hey, but why are we doing this if they pay? Well, the least active users haven’t unlocked the value of product and if they don’t use it, this should raise a red flag for potential churn.
6. Customers who are ‘fresh’, joined in the last 1-2 months only. They have a fresh perspective about the product and you can learn what they onboarding looked like. This is ‘currency’ as you can work on tweaking your onboarding, depending on your persona and ideas on how to foster retention.
7. Customers who are power users and are happy to share their needs (provoke, run an idea through them and let them speak).
Types of Customer Surveys
- Typeform, Google Forms best choice to create your feedback form for structured feedback.
- Personal Email – Send a personal email with an open ended questions.
- Customer surveys via emails through account management – respect your AM and keep them in the loop. You’d be surprised how often they want to be involved in the process of collecting feedback.
- Phone – Most straightforward way. Pick up the phone and call the most valuable customers.
- In-person visit/demo meeting
It’s a great opportunity to get to know your users and be more open, interactive to provoke, challenge them on how they are using certain feature.
My experience taught me that you’d definitely be surprised how often users don’t know about the existence of some features (regardless of how much you invest in your product launch campaign and marketing). Involve them in their conversation instead of doing a dry demo of the new features?
Some key questions that I usually ask:
- Do you know what this feature exist?
- Oh, what’s better is that it can be used for X.
- I am wondering how you currently solve this problem.
Interesting questions:
- If you could change one thing about our product, what would it be and why?
- What features do you like the best in our product?
- What features do you like the least in our product?
- How can we improve our product?
- What do you find most frustrating about our product?
Discovery questions
- How do you use X?
- What do you think about feature X, how do use this? Do you understand what it is
- What do you use the most in X(most used features)?
- What’s the one thing we are missing in X?
- What would persuade you to use X more often?
- What’s the one thing the product is missing?
- What’s one thing we can add that would make the product indispensable for you?
- If you could no longer use this product, what’s the one thing you would miss the most?
- If you could change one thing in the product, what would it be?
- How does the product help you get your job done?
- What’s the next feature (s) you think we should build to make your work more productive?
Background info
- Which other options did you consider before choosing X?
- Since you purchased X, what has been the biggest benefit to you?
Leaving Customers / Ex-customers exit survey
- What is the main reason you’re canceling your usage?
- Have you considered an alternative? Which one?
- If you could change one thing in X, what would it be?
- Would this make you stay with us?
- Why? What problem does it solve for you?
Ask them for their permission for a follow-up email or clarification 🙂 Instead of putting too many questions in your survey, just make them speak and ask for a permission.
Remember that even the ambiguous feedback can also speak on its own and you should respect it. Maybe it’s just that customer is not familiar with the product yet, so this can uncover opportunities for in-app onboarding, product videos and tips.
Useful resources that I’d recommend you:
Open ended questions to ask in customer interviews
Customer Feedback Surveys
Mistakes to avoid in any user research
Sean Ellis Product/Market Fit Survey Template
Reference book to avoid the build trap!Definitely recommended, think about value vs building for the sake of it!