Do you give the customer voice its due attention⁉️
Product Management, UX, Startups, and more — freshly curated by Zeda.io
Hello, all you product-loving folks! 💜
Welcome to this week's edition of Product Café, your weekly cup of coffee for everything: product management, startups, AI, and more. ☕
Listen…👂
When was the last time you had a conversation with your customers? Do you know what they are looking for in your product or service? Are you confident that you’re addressing the right problems? Has your product become an integral part of your users’ lives?
If you’re unsure about the answers to these questions, you could be in trouble.⚠️
For your product to reach the level of success you aim for, you must continuously listen to your customers and integrate their voice into every touchpoint of your product. Their needs and preferences evolve faster than you can imagine.
From their perspective, every other day, a competitor product emerges (it’s amazing and daunting at the same time, right?), giving them more options than you think.
Ben Chestnut, the co-founder of MailChimp, encapsulates the dynamic nature of customer preferences and the marketplace with insightful clarity:
"People want what’s best for them, and they can switch on a dime because there’s always a new disruptor disrupting the last disruptor. So companies should just strive to keep changing and adapting to their customers’ needs."
So, unless they feel you are worth it and become attached to your product, you will keep losing customers to your competitors. Let’s be honest; nobody wants that!
Let us share some challenges we faced on our journey toward embracing the voice of the customer and how we tackled them.
Technology is a double-edged sword 🗡️
Sure, we receive customer reviews from various sources, just like you do. Many businesses face the same. It's evident that dealing with an overwhelming amount of feedback is a common challenge. Every day, we encounter thousands of user feedback through customer portals, Slack, widgets, listing website reviews, and even social media comments (the list goes on, obviously)!
Product managers have expressed that navigating through this noise and extracting key insights seems impossible. Ironically, you can escape this technological noise with the power of technology itself, using product management tools like Zeda.io!
These tools can help you automatically capture the sea of feedback and generate actionable insights, enabling you to decide what products to build that best serve your customers.
Not all feedback is important 🙅♀️
Being customer-centric doesn’t mean you should implement every request. Overloading your product with too many features can dilute its core value, turning it into a “feature factory.” It’s crucial to balance accommodating customer feedback and maintaining your product’s integrity.
Keep in mind that customers might not always know the best solutions to their problems or be able to express their issues clearly. It's important to listen to the customer's feedback and understand their underlying needs and expectations. This will help in creating solutions that not only resolve their issues but also exceed their expectations."
While deciding what to build next, always analyze the voice of the customer using AI product management tools, and prioritize what is best considering the revenue impact, business goals, feasibility, and your product vision.
Keeping your users in the loop 🔁
Oh yes, everyone always talks about keeping our users informed about product developments. But the question is, do we actually do that? If not, realize this is the best chance to build a strong relationship with your customers.
Think about it: Your customer shared feedback that could significantly improve your product. Your customers need to feel heard and know you’ve acknowledged and started working on their requests. They want to know that their contribution is valuable and that you care about it.
When dealing with negative feedback, prioritize open communication. By addressing concerns transparently, you cultivate a positive perception of your brand and demonstrate a commitment to improvement and customer satisfaction.
This transparency values your users and strengthens customer engagement and loyalty.
Again, you can use AI PM tools to automate this process to foster a positive relationship with your customers.
So, these are the challenges that we and our customers encountered while integrating the voice of the customer into our product management. As we discussed, we have been navigating and continue to navigate this journey by making daily improvements.
To learn more about the importance of customer feedback in product management, check out our article published on Mind the Product— https://www.mindtheproduct.com/the-critical-role-of-customer-voice-in-product-management/
You won’t wanna miss this😎
We’ve recently launched a podcast series called Discovery Dive, where we share valuable insights on product discovery. We’re bringing in some amazing product experts to provide enlightening discussions.
In our latest episode, we had an incredible conversation with David Pereira. The insights he shared were too good to keep to ourselves, so here it is for you to enjoy:
What’s brewing on Zeda.io’s side?☕️
At Zeda.io, we love combining great coffee, delicious food, and productive conversations. That’s exactly what we’ve been doing through our Product Cafe meetups for product leaders in the Bay Area.
Do you know the best part of our meetups? The initial skepticism—people see a three-hour slot with no set agenda and think they’ll be out in 20-30 minutes. But every time, people quickly get into the groove, enjoy the conversations, and lose track of time (which we secretly enjoy watching).
Just like every other time, we enjoyed it to the core and had some amazing conversations.
We’re elated to have met such incredible product folks like Karishma, Suhas, Manjot, Vishal, Anjali, Parth, Suhel, Rajendra, Preeth, Karen, Tarun M., Megha, Akash, Nitin, Anil, Brendan, Sundeep, Michael, Margaret, Ioana, Vikas, Eran, Prakash, Mala, Govind, Sumeet, Surbhi, and Rizwan
If you’d like to be a part of our next meetup, feel free to DM Prashant. We always love to see a room full of product minds talking about everything product-related and more!
That’s all, folks! Have something you want to share? Put them in the comments below, and we’ll get back to you soon.
See you again in the next edition! 🥂
