Blog 96: 8 ways to stay close to customers; keep product relevant.
- Idea2Product2Business Team
- Aug 27, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 4, 2024
UX research methods is a great way to gather valuable feedback from users. These methods (blog 64) are formal in nature and very necessary to uncover product issues. BUT they are often limited to the scope of the product. Hence, as product managers what else can we do (in addition to UX research methods) to stay close to customers and ears to the ground?
1. Build communities and regularly monitor them: Build a community around the product (e.g., forums, social media groups) where customers can share experiences, ask queries, and provide feedback. Once this community is built, we must monitor them to understand our users better and identify relevant trends.
2. Wherever possible we must try to delve deeper into customer feedback. That is, what are the bigger implications of this feedback; and how does it relate to the bigger picture? Thus, be more strategic as compared to being just tactical in our approach (i.e. immediately be invested to addressing the feedback without taking a step back to understand the ‘why’).
3. Draft multiple hypothesis and then proactively reach out to users to test them. Rather than asking too many open-ended questions we must be ready to test multiple hypothesis. Many a times, customers will have no idea about evolving market trends.
4. Leverage analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics, Mixpanel) to track user behaviour and engagement. Refer blog 93 for more on product engagement metrics.
5. Form a customer advisory board consisting of key customers. These customers provide continuous feedback and help us validate product decisions.
6. Establish communication channels such as Slack, or a dedicated email address for customers to provide feedback. We can use these channels to share upcoming features/product plans. And get a pulse of the targeted user base.
7. Collaborate closely with cross functional teams (marketing, sales, customer service etc.) to gather insights from informal conversations.
8. As our product scales we need to segment our customers better and personalise our outreach. To maintain strong relationships and foster customer loyalty. Refer blog 92 for more on crafting a personalised experience for customers.
According to a Deloitte report, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable compared to companies not focused on the customer. Staying close to customers is challenging but a crucial step to maintaining a customer-centric approach.
Jump to blog 100 to refer to the overall product management mind map.
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All the best! 😊
