Blog 96: 8 ways to stay close to your customers
- Idea2Product2Business Team
- Aug 27, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: May 14
UX research methods are a great way to gather user feedback. These methods (blog 64) uncover product issues. BUT, they are often limited by the product scope. Whereas, as product managers we need to constantly dig deeper to identify evolving customer needs.
Below are 8 popular ways to stay close to your customers:
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, monitor it to understand your users better.
2. Delve deeper into customer feedback. Be more strategic as compared to being just tactical (i.e. take a step back to understand the ‘why’ behind each feedback).
3. Draft multiple hypothesis and then proactively reach out to users to test them. Rather than asking too many open-ended questions. Many a times, customers 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) for customers to provide feedback. You can use these channels to share upcoming features and future product plans.
7. Collaborate closely with cross functional teams (marketing, sales, customer service etc.) to gather insights from informal conversations.
8. As your product scales you need to segment your customers better. And personalise your outreach campaigns. Refer blog 92 for more on crafting a personalised experience for customers.
According to a Deloitte report, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable. 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! 😊
