What is one way I can show my community of early adopters that we care about their feedback?
1. Call Them
Business owners love to hide behind their software and automation, but some of the best feedback you will get is from directly talking to your customers over the phone. You can really dig in and get feedback that is actionable and authentic. Surveys are useful, but real phone calls are much better.
– Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes
2. Connect Individually
One-on-one conversations will lead to great anecdotal feedback. Taking the time to connect individually often means more to an early adopter than a reward or gift for providing feedback.
– Andrew Fayad, eLearning Mind
3. Show Them That You Care
Your users are going to offer the best feedback, so use it! When you make tweaks or plan to change something about your product or service, let your audience know that it was due to feedback and ask for more.
– Maren Hogan, Red Branch Media
4. Respond to Customers Publicly
Asking for feedback is really, really important. But fans won’t continue to share their thoughts with you if they don’t feel heard. Post all of your fan feedback, share it, act on it and then share results publicly. Your fans will love it, and they’ll tell you how to be even better.
– Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches
5. Build a Great Product
By building a product they love, you show early adopters you care about their needs.
– Wade Foster, Zapier
6. Feature Them
In this “CelebriMe” culture, people love to see themselves online. Create spotlight type content that applauds your followers, fans, super-users, and early adopters for being a part of your business. Incorporate their feedback and comments in your spotlight post too. For example, we have a feature called “Member Monday” on Poshly which is all about spotlighting our top users on social media.
– Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.
7. Offer a Lifetime VIP Discount
Offer them a discount — but not in the meaningless forced way that most companies do. Send them an official letter that “accepts” them into a VIP community. Include a gift (bonus points if it’s something they like personally) and make them feel special. Give them the discount for their entire life. After all, don’t you owe that to them for helping you get started?
– Logan Lenz, Endagon
8. Make Them a Real Community
Make your community of early adopters into an actual community. Early on, we held a one-day conference to bring everyone together to share ideas, provide hands-on exploration and gather feedback. This gave us a network built on real-life connections, that we continue to call on today. Our core customers also really appreciate that we listen to their feedback as we develop.
– Abby Ross, ThinkCERCA
9. Be Highly Responsive
Refresh has a growing base of early adopters and active users. We encourage early adopters to email and tweet us feedback, and personally respond to all support emails. I personally responded to virtually all support emails for the first six months, and still respond to some of them. If an early adopter has especially detailed feedback, we’ll even ask to get on the phone.
– Bhavin Shah, Refresh
10. Add a Personal Touch
This is usually a small group, so communicate personally with each person. Always acknowledge their feedback and let them know that you will take it into consideration. Periodically reach out and share thoughts about your product roadmap. See what their thoughts are so that they can feel involved in the direction of the product while you get valuable insights.
– David Hassell, 15Five
11. Listen
It’s one thing to ask your customers for feedback, but it’s another to act on it. Call your customers personally to ask for their advice, and really listen to what they’re saying. If they request a weekly email, send them a weekly email. Keep them in the loop when developing new features, and tailor content to their specific needs as much as possible.
– George Bousis, Raise Marketplace Inc.