Expedia Fmr. Product Lead On Managing Customer Feedback Loops (Part 3)
I’d like to give some mechanisms and frameworks on how to act on customer feedback. Specifically, these mechanisms are what I use to assess feedback that I receive.
- Break Into Subcategories/Themes
- Map Against Customer Journey
- Overlap with Data
- Keep Track
- Loop Back
- Listen to Word Choice to Use for Marketing Later
Another general feedback loop people use is as follows:
- Ask
- Categorize
- Act
- Follow Up
- Repeat
If you have a bit more sensitive feedback, you need to try something different and understands the use of criticism to motivate. Also, it will need to understand to not give too squishy of a compliment. The reason being is that there is not enough substance behind the compliment to be of benefit to the receiver.
Other customer feedback mechanisms include the “press release” FAQ. Basically, with this method, you write a press release of what you think that the product might be. Then you write frequently asked questions that you anticipate users to have concerning the product. The idea here is that you iterate the process multiple times in front of your peers. As a result, this process is very concise and clear.
Ways To Drive Engaging Customer Feedback And Final Takeaways
- Sit Next to Recipient vs Across
- Be Prepared to Listen, Ask Questions, and Gaps In Understanding
- Acknowledge Things Done Well vs Mistakes
- Recognize Strengths and How to Use Them to Resolve/Fix Issue
- Hold Accountable
- Accept Your Role
- Thank For Efforts vs Criticize
- How Resolving Challenges Leads to Growth and Opportunity
Simply put, you need to embrace feedback! In fact, a happy customer is a customer that you want to retain. So, the more you engage with your customer the more you save in your marketing costs. Therefore, you’re going to have better sales funnels because you have a better understanding of what the customer is looking for.
In summary, listen and observe everything you can around your product. Categorize, prioritize, take action, follow up, and then you’ll continually evolve your product in a successful manner. This allows you to check on that monster in the closet. In fact, if you open the closet door you actually find that it’s not a monster at all.
About the speaker
Anne Retterer is the Founder and CEO of Mindspand - an online community that enables organizations to list course offerings and provide access to services for local customers. Prior to starting Mindspand, Anne managed the product portfolio at Expedia and established an investment fund for tech companies in Chile with Hambrecht & Quest (now JPMorgan Chase & Co.). Anne holds an MBA from UC Davis and currently lives in Seattle.