As a product marketer at BIAS Digital, I've seen firsthand how crucial customer feedback is in shaping successful go-to-market strategies for B2B SaaS and Fintech companies. Our proprietary ARISE™ GTM Framework has proven to be a game-changer, and today, I want to dive into one of its most critical components: the Research stage, specifically focusing on customer feedback interviews.
Let's face it: in B2B SaaS and Fintech, understanding your customers isn't just important – it's absolutely essential. That's why we've made it a cornerstone of our ARISE™ methodology. By gathering insights from current customers, past clients, and even prospects who decided not to move forward, we gain a 360-degree view of our product's strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
You might be thinking, "Sure, customer feedback sounds great, but how do we actually get it?" Well, I'm glad you asked! At BIAS Digital, we've developed a comprehensive set of questions that cover everything from product usability to customer service experiences. Here are some key areas we focus on:
What sets our approach apart is how we integrate these insights into the broader ARISE™ GTM Framework. The Research stage isn't just about collecting data – it's about using that data to inform every other stage of the process, from Ideation to Execution.
By systematically gathering and analysing customer feedback, we're able to:
Here's where the rubber meets the road. What do we do with it once we've gathered all this valuable feedback? This is where the "Strategise" stage of ARISE™ comes into play. We take the insights from our customer interviews and use them to inform your go-to-market strategy, including:
At the end of the day, success in B2B SaaS and Fintech comes down to truly understanding and serving your customers. Making customer feedback a central part of our ARISE™ GTM Framework ensures that every strategy we develop is grounded in real-world insights and aligned with genuine market needs.
Remember, in the world of product marketing, knowledge truly is power. So, don't be afraid to ask your customers for feedback – you might be surprised at how much you can learn and how it can transform your go-to-market approach.
When collecting customer insights, it's crucial to consider how to handle conflicting feedback from different customers. It's not uncommon to receive contradictory opinions, as customers have diverse needs, experiences, and perspectives. Properly managing these conflicting viewpoints allows you to gain a more comprehensive understanding of your product or service and make informed decisions.
By carefully analysing and prioritising feedback, you can identify patterns, segment your customer base, and uncover underlying issues that may take time to be apparent. This approach helps you avoid making hasty decisions based on a single perspective and instead allows you to develop solutions that address the needs of various customer segments.
Additionally, how you handle conflicting feedback can significantly impact customer relationships; thoughtful responses demonstrate that you value all input, even when it's contradictory.
Ultimately, a well-structured approach to managing conflicting feedback can lead to more robust product improvements, enhanced customer satisfaction, and a stronger competitive position in the market.
Here are some key strategies for handling conflicting feedback from different customers:
1. Gather and integrate all feedback: Collect feedback from various sources and compile it in one place to get a comprehensive view. This allows you to identify patterns and common themes across different customer segments.
2. Understand the context: Analyse who is providing the feedback, their needs, expectations, and how they use your product. This context helps explain why feedback may be conflicting.
3. Segment customers: Group customers based on characteristics like demographics, usage patterns, or satisfaction levels. This allows you to tailor responses to each segment rather than treating all customers the same.
4. Prioritise based on impact: Evaluate feedback based on factors like urgency, potential impact on key metrics, alignment with product strategy, and feasibility. Focus on high-priority items that will have the greatest positive effect.
5. Validate assumptions: Don't take all feedback at face value. Conduct additional research like surveys or A/B tests to validate key points before making major changes.
6. Communicate decisions: Whether you decide to implement changes or not, explain your rationale to customers. This shows you value their input even if you can't act on all of it.
7. Test and measure: When implementing changes based on feedback, carefully measure the results to ensure they have the intended positive impact.
8. Continuously re-evaluate: Customer needs evolve over time, so regularly reassess your feedback and prioritisation process. Be willing to adjust your approach as needed.
9. Look for underlying issues: Sometimes conflicting surface-level feedback points to deeper underlying problems or opportunities. Try to identify root causes.
10. Balance with strategy: While customer feedback is valuable, also consider your overall product strategy and vision when deciding how to act on conflicting input.
The key is systematically gathering, analysing, and acting on feedback while maintaining a balanced perspective. By thoughtfully considering conflicting viewpoints, you can make informed decisions that best serve your diverse customer base and business goals.
When collecting customer feedback, it's crucial to consider strategies for prioritising input from different customers to ensure you're focusing on the most valuable insights. Prioritisation helps you make informed decisions about product development, resource allocation, and customer experience improvements.
Key strategies include segmenting customers based on attributes like revenue, lifetime value, or strategic importance; using quantitative frameworks like RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) to evaluate feedback objectively; and centralising feedback from various channels for a comprehensive view. Additionally, consider the frequency and recency of feedback and align it with your business goals and product roadmap.
By employing these prioritisation strategies, you can effectively manage the often overwhelming volume of customer feedback, focus on high-impact areas, and make data-driven decisions that balance the needs of different customer segments with your business objectives. This approach ensures that you're collecting feedback and strategically using it to drive meaningful improvements and innovations in your product or service.
Here are some key strategies for prioritising feedback from different customers:
1. Segment customers and weigh feedback accordingly. Prioritise feedback from high-value customers, power users, or those representing your target market.
2. Consider the impact and reach of the feedback. Prioritise issues that affect a large number of customers or significantly impact the user experience.
3. Align with business goals and product strategy. Prioritise feedback that supports your current objectives and roadmap.
4. Assess urgency and criticality—Prioritise feedback related to critical bugs, security issues, or features blocking core functionality.
5. Look for patterns and trends. Prioritise feedback themes that come up repeatedly from multiple customers.
6. Use a scoring framework like RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) to evaluate feedback objectively.
7. Consider the effort vs. impact. Prioritise "quick wins" with high impact but low implementation effort.
8. Get input from cross-functional teams. Involve product, engineering, sales, and customer success in evaluating feedback priority.
9. Use customer feedback tools to centralise, categorise and quantify feedback data.
10. Be transparent about your prioritisation process. Communicate decisions and rationale to customers to set expectations.
11. Regularly reassess priorities as business needs and customer expectations evolve.
12. Balance short-term fixes with long-term strategic initiatives in your roadmap.
The key is a systematic, data-driven approach to evaluating feedback while maintaining flexibility to adjust based on changing needs. Regularly communicating prioritisation decisions back to customers helps manage expectations and build trust.
Considering the tools and software used to manage and prioritise feedback is crucial when collecting customer feedback, as it can significantly impact the effectiveness and efficiency of your feedback process.
The right tools enable businesses to centralise feedback from multiple channels, analyse large volumes of data, and extract actionable insights. They often provide features like sentiment analysis, trend identification, and customisable dashboards that help prioritise feedback based on impact and urgency.
Additionally, these tools can integrate with existing systems, automate workflows, and facilitate collaboration across teams, ensuring valuable customer insights don't fall through the cracks.
By leveraging appropriate software, companies can transform raw feedback into strategic decisions, close the feedback loop more effectively, and ultimately drive improvements in products, services, and overall customer experience.
Investing in robust feedback management tools streamlines the process and demonstrates a commitment to customer-centricity, potentially leading to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business growth.
Here are some key recommendations for managing and prioritising customer feedback:
1. Centralise feedback collection:
Use tools like Savio, Qualaroo, or Typeform to centralise feedback from multiple sources, including surveys, customer support tickets, sales calls, and more. This creates a single repository for all customer insights.
2. Categorise and tag feedback:
Organise feedback into categories and tag it with relevant attributes like product area, customer segment, or feedback type. This makes it easier to analyse and prioritise later.
3. Segment customers:
Group feedback by customer attributes like revenue, plan type, or lifecycle stage. This allows you to prioritise feedback from your most valuable or at-risk customers.
4. Use quantitative scoring:
Implement scoring systems like RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) or weighted scoring based on customer value to objectively rank feature requests.
5. Consider qualitative factors:
Look at factors like strategic alignment, competitive landscape, and development effort alongside quantitative scores.
6. Analyse trends and patterns:
Use analytics tools to identify common themes and frequently requested features across your customer base.
7. Get stakeholder input:
Involve key stakeholders from the product, sales, and customer success teams in the prioritisation process to obtain diverse perspectives.
8. Create a feedback loop:
Keep customers informed about the status of their requests and when features are implemented based on their feedback.
9. Use road mapping tools:
Visualise prioritised features on a product roadmap to align teams and communicate plans.
10. Continuously reassess:
Regularly review and reprioritise your backlog as new feedback and business priorities shift.
By implementing these practices and leveraging tools designed for feedback management, you can create a data-driven process for prioritising customer feedback and building features that deliver the most value to your customers and business.
This article is one of a series exploring the ARISE™ GTM Framework, developed here at Digital BIAS. It’s a powerful product marketing, sales enablement, and customer success framework that drives results for tech firms. If your team seeks to optimise the current go-to-market strategy or launch a product, speak to our team through the form in the footer below.