Leverage community for product feedback

Introduction

In today's interconnected world, communities play a pivotal role in shaping product development. By leveraging feedback from customer communities, businesses can gain invaluable insights that drive innovation and enhance product offerings. Engaging with your community not only helps in gathering diverse perspectives but also fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty among users. In this article, we will explore strategies to effectively leverage community feedback for product development. This step is crucial after analyzing support tickets for insights, as it brings in collective wisdom from a broader audience.

Why does this matter?

Leveraging community for product feedback is essential for several reasons:

• Collective intelligence: Communities provide a wealth of knowledge and diverse perspectives that can uncover new ideas and improvements.

• Enhanced engagement: Active community involvement fosters loyalty and a sense of ownership among users.

• Data-driven decisions: Community feedback helps prioritize features and enhancements based on user demand and sentiment.

• Continuous improvement: Regular community interactions ensure that product development aligns with user needs and expectations.

How to get started

To effectively leverage community feedback for product development, follow these steps:

Step 1: Engage with your community

1. Create dedicated feedback channels:

   • Community forums: Establish forums where users can share their ideas, feedback, and feature requests.

   • Social media groups: Use platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit to create groups focused on your product.

2. Foster open communication:

   • Regular updates: Keep the community informed about product updates, roadmap, and upcoming features.

   • Encourage dialogue: Actively participate in discussions, respond to user posts, and encourage users to engage with each other.

Step 2: Collect and prioritize feedback

1. Use sentiment analysis tools:

   • Automate feedback collection: Employ tools to gather feedback from community posts, comments, and discussions.

   • Categorize feedback: Use text analytics to identify common themes and sentiments.

2. Prioritize based on impact:

   • Voting systems: Implement voting or ranking systems to let users prioritize feature requests and ideas.

   • Data-driven prioritization: Combine community feedback with usage data and business goals to prioritize development efforts.

Step 3: Close the feedback loop

1. Communicate actions taken:

   • Regular updates: Inform the community about how their feedback has been used to shape product decisions.

   • Acknowledge contributors: Recognize and thank users who provided valuable feedback.

2. Implement feedback:

   • Develop and release features: Use the prioritized feedback to guide product development and release new features.

   • Continuous engagement: Keep the feedback loop active by continuously seeking input and updating the community.

Gainsight features you'll need

• Community Platforms: For creating and managing community forums and discussions.

• Surveys: To gather structured feedback from community members.

• Text Analytics: To analyze qualitative feedback from community posts and comments.

• Dashboards: To visualize community feedback data and monitor trends over time.

What’s next?

After harnessing the power of community feedback for product development, the next step is to conduct product advisory boards. Our upcoming article will explore how to gather strategic insights from key customers through advisory boards, turning in-depth feedback into actionable improvements. Stay tuned to learn how advisory boards can further refine your product development strategy and drive innovation.

Further reading and inspiration

• Blog: How Product Teams Can Use Their Community to Close the Customer Feedback Loop

• Blog: Six reasons why Community is the most important part of your product

• Blog: How Gainsight Uses Customer Feedback to Drive Product Development