How to get valuable customer user feedback for your SaaS product
If you’re building a SaaS product, you know your product, the market, your users, and basically everything regarding the world of SaaS is just constantly evolving. To keep up, there’s really only one thing that matters: listening to your customer feedback.
We see it all around us. The best-performing SaaS companies all work with customer user feedback. It’s the backbone of their product development process. Working with user feedback gives you raw and unfiltered insights that can help you optimize your product to meet your existing but also new customer needs.
It basically sets you up for success.
It tells you:
How to spend your time
How to spend your (development) budget
How to spend your team’s energy
A big Win-Win-Win, in our opinion.
But here’s the trick. Asking for feedback is somewhat of an art. It’s all about the way you do it. You need to make sure:
You’re asking the right questions.
At the right time.
In the right way.
It is super important to make all of that feedback valuable to use in order to make your product better.
So, in this post, we’ll dive into all of this and provide you with the best practices that we acquired from talking to (and scaling our own SaaS product) for over 7 years.
Buckle up!
Whether you’re just starting out by launching your first product or you want to scale your existing SaaS product….
I’m going to dive deep into all the different strategies for you! 💜
Why every SaaS Product should Ask for Customer Feedback
You might be asking…
“Dana, why ask for customer feedback for my SaaS product in the first place?”
Good one!
Well, asking for customer user feedback is one of the best and most essential parts in running a successful Software-as-a-Service business for these 6 reasons.
1. Customer retention: We often always think of acquiring new customers. It feel like the “best result” when acquiring a new customer and bumping up that MRR, right? And while acquiring new customers is super important, retaining your existing customers is as important.
By listening to those existing users through feedback (for example, by providing them with a feedback board to submit feedback), you’re not only going to give them the feeling that their opinions matter, but it is primarily giving you valuable information on what’s currently missing.
Think about it.
Your existing users are the ones who are actually using your product in the trenches. They know what your product really needs in order to make it even better. Don’t ignore that.
2. Design your product roadmap on auto-pilot: By listening to customer feedback, you’ll get valuable insights to inform your product roadmap. Gone are the days of “brainstorming” about what’s next. Simply just open up the roadmap your users have designed for you!
For example: Elon Musk is so busy building multiple million-dollar businesses, he could just use a roadmap that his users will generate for him. Hmm. I like that “AI Friend to talk with” suggestion. Could be fun during my longer car rides!
3. Enhance your product development: By gathering user feedback, you’ll learn what features have the highest prioritization right now. Gone are the days of the discussions between the marketing and development teams. Let the users decide what’s next!
4. Uncover how users actually use your product: By getting all of this feedback in your inbox, you’ll finally understand how users are actually using your product. Flash news: It’ll be different than you initially thought!
5. Beat the competition: Unique knowledge and ideas from the people who are using your product in the trenches is a competitive advantage. Period. They’re the ones who know what’s moving in the market and what your product needs to keep up. Use it.
6. Build real customer relationships: By providing was to submit feedback, users will feel committed and loyal to your brand. Especially when you’re actually shipping one of their ideas into the real world (which you can easily do with Upvoty’s “notify all” feature when changing a feedback post’s status, by the way). It’s golden!
When is asking for Customer Feedback the most Effective?
Well, long story short: always!
Literally, it’s essential during the whole SaaS customer journey, basically.
“Really, Dana?”
Yes, really.
Let me explain by going over the 3 phases of the customer journey.
1. Free Trial and Onboarding
When users are starting their free trial, it’s good to provide them with 2 essential things. The first one is a chat messenger to actually start a conversation when they’re in need. Most customers don’t like to figure it all out on their own, so a way to connect them with your support (or chatbot) is the first essential step.
The second one, you guessed it, is a way to provide feedback. You can simply add a feedback widget, just like that cute little one you see in the bottom left on our own website, which is our feedback widget).
This will give you valuable insights into what’s missing in your product and the whole onboarding or maybe certain bugs they encounter.
2. When actively using your product
At any given time, when they’re using your product, it’s good to give them a way to provide valuable feedback. Again, this can be done through the feedback widget, but better yet, since they’re now an active user, you should provide them with a feedback portal that also allows them to “feel” part of your product and community.
For example: This could be Tesla’s feedback portal where users can submit new ideas and feedback but also upvote on other users’ feedback. Now that I think of it, I’m going to write Elon an email asking him to integrate this feedback board in the new Tesla update ;).
3. When they cancel: By providing a way to leave feedback, you’ll learn more about why certain users churn and cancel their subscriptions.
How to gather Customer Feedback for my SaaS product?
“Ok, ok, Dana. That’s nice and all. But HOW do I actually do all of this?”
I thought you’d never ask, haha! This is my favorite part of the article.
So, there are a couple of things you can do.
Feedback Surveys
A feedback survey never gets old. It always work. Just simply send an email to your existing user base and ask them what they think of your product. You can send them to your feedback portal, if you have one, to gather all responses in one nice overview.
Feedback Boards
By creating one central feedback “hub” with feedback boards, users can easily submit their ideas and feedback or, in our case, upvote existing feedback from other users as well.
This gives you valuable information on what’s the most popular among your users.
Gone are the days of focusing all your team’s money, energy, and other resources on a particular feature request from one of your users, only to find out that…
*crickets
He was the only one needing it!
Look at this:
What would you choose to build next?
Exactly :)
That’s the power of feature voting.
Feedback Forms
Integrate feedback forms directly within your software, which you can easily do by embedding a feedback widget like Upvoty.
In-app Feedback
The widget also provides a way for customers to leave in-app feedback, which can be particularly helpful when encountering bugs, for example. With Upvoty’s feedback widget, they can easily generate and send a screenshot or upload a file.
User Interviews
Especially when you’re building a more complex SaaS for a diverse audience, doing one-on-one user interviews can be very lucrative. You can do demos, which, if asking the right questions, can give you valuable insights in your customer needs.
Customer Support
One of the most underrated ways of collecting feedback is providing excellent customer support. Treat every new conversation as an opportunity to learn from your existing or new customers.
The best thing?
If they provide valuable feedback during your chat, you can simply add their feedback to your feedback portal and add them as a voter right away. I promise you, your customers will be amazed by it. They instantly feel connected and valued.
(With Upvoty’s “add voter” feature you can easily add and notify new voters)
Where to ask for customer feedback?
Good question!
In general, you want to provide as many was possible to give the user an option to leave feedback. Fun fact: Most users will not reach out to you if it’s “hard” (e.g. sending an email), and thus you’ll miss out on valuable feedback.
Do this instead:
Add a feedback widget to your product
Add a link to your feedback portal (with all the boards)
Share your product roadmap to show them what’s next
Create your Changelog to show users what you recently shipped
Now, I can hear you think.
“Dana, if only there was a product that does all of this!”
Well, I got news!
There is, haha ;).
This is the best way not to overwhelm your customers (aka with pop-ups, lots of emails, etc.) but just a genuine way of providing a way for them to leave feedback IF and WHEN they want.
What are the best practices for gathering customer feedback?
Yes, good one! This is one of the best questions you’ve asked me today! I started this article by saying we know a lot about user feedback from building our own SaaS for over 7 years and talking to dozens of SaaS founders and product managers, so let’s put my money where my mouth is and provide you with my best tips.
Ready?
Here we go!
Make it easy: Let them submit feedback in just 1 or 2 clicks (e.g., an upvote on existing feedback is only 1 click and works like a charm!)
Make it accessible: There should always be a way to drop hot feedback.
Use multiple methods: some customers prefer sending an email, some start a chat, and some provide it proactively without talking to someone.
Thank them: Notify them about the progress.
Act: Inform them when you ship (or reject) their feedback. Believe me, in both cases, they’ll be thankful.