I was going through a forum for one of those new age smart watches, and one could see the level of frustration among some users because they felt that their feedback was not being taken. Now, there might be an argument that an organization cannot really respond to every level of feedback that might be posted anywhere, but in this case, this was a user forum that was present on the site of the product, and users have a reasonable expectation that any such forum would be a way to present their feedback and the company does respond on some of the feedback at least from time to time. However, there was a feeling that was developing among regular users on the forum that any suggestions they made were not being responded to. So, even if employees from the company were picking up the feedback, the response loop was not being completed and users were not getting the impression that their feedback was being responded to.
This led to a level of frustration among the users, and even if new users commented on something, they were told by the regular users that there was no point in giving feedback or suggestions since the company did not respond on the forum. This seems like a reputation that is damaging for the company. When you ask any customer representation or product management from reputed companies, they say that users are the source of a number of different suggestions and defects, and these provide the company an invaluable source from which they can iterate further and select future features. Getting such feedback, especially when people are searching for a consumer forum, come to the site and provide their feedback is something that companies should really want, and ideally, the company should train customer support as well as product management to monitor and intervene in customer forums - this helps in getting inputs and keep customers interested enough to come and monitor the forums. In fact, if you look at another angle, many companies spend a lot of time and money to have beta forums that float new features and get user feedback; this is not exactly a beta forum, but is still a way to get inputs.
What should ideally be done ? There should be customer forums where representatives of customer support and product management should be empowered to regularly monitor and post in, and even members of the product team should get a quick training on how to respond in user forums and visit them. Members of product teams in many cases typically have strong opinions on new features, workflows and so on - exposure to customers and their actual world problems helps to make them more open to new ideas and understand user workflows in a better manner.
This led to a level of frustration among the users, and even if new users commented on something, they were told by the regular users that there was no point in giving feedback or suggestions since the company did not respond on the forum. This seems like a reputation that is damaging for the company. When you ask any customer representation or product management from reputed companies, they say that users are the source of a number of different suggestions and defects, and these provide the company an invaluable source from which they can iterate further and select future features. Getting such feedback, especially when people are searching for a consumer forum, come to the site and provide their feedback is something that companies should really want, and ideally, the company should train customer support as well as product management to monitor and intervene in customer forums - this helps in getting inputs and keep customers interested enough to come and monitor the forums. In fact, if you look at another angle, many companies spend a lot of time and money to have beta forums that float new features and get user feedback; this is not exactly a beta forum, but is still a way to get inputs.
What should ideally be done ? There should be customer forums where representatives of customer support and product management should be empowered to regularly monitor and post in, and even members of the product team should get a quick training on how to respond in user forums and visit them. Members of product teams in many cases typically have strong opinions on new features, workflows and so on - exposure to customers and their actual world problems helps to make them more open to new ideas and understand user workflows in a better manner.
No comments:
Post a Comment