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Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

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Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#61

Post by sturza »

inetknght wrote: post #60
sojournerc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the user is consenting to a usability study, it's not really an invasion of privacy. It should obviously be removed afterwards.

> If the user is consenting to a usability study, it's not really an invasion of privacy. I fully disagree. Consenting to a usability study means I want to provide feedback and actively state what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what I didn't expect. It does not mean I want you to see what I do, where I leave my mouse, what I click on, what input I type -- and what input I then delete. If I wanted that then I would…

Inputs are not seen in HotJar

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#62

Post by ignoramous »

arjunvpaul wrote: post #12

Can share what we do at our startup. (8 people, 100 - 200 customers). We create a WhatsApp group for every customer and stay with them right from onboarding onwards. Beauty of it is they sneeze, we know. Everyone in the team kinda knows what's important what's not. we can confidently say things like "nobody cares about that fancy feature". It super valuable for a startup to get immedeate feedback. Especially valuable…

Not affiliated but looks like you'd love http://whatshash.com/

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#63

Post by diggan »

grandvoye wrote: post #5

Some ideas that have worked well for me in b2b/SaaS: * If you're pre-product/market fit, just reach out to users via email, in-product messaging etc. You can incentivize them with Amazon gift cards as well. At this stage nobody actually needs your product so you'll have to do it by hook or by crook. * If you're post-product/market fit then people actually _need_ your business. Once you make it clear that you're going…

Crazy idea: if you're just starting out and "nobody actually needs your product" is a problem, build something else or pivot radically. You should not have to bribe users with gift cards in order to use your product. If you're going that far, you're far off the goal of having something useful.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#64

Post by inetknght »

sturza wrote: post #61
inetknght wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the user is consenting to a usability study, it's not really an invasion of privacy. I fully disagree. Consenting to a usability study means I want to provide feedback and actively state what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and what I didn't expect. It does not mean I want you to see what I do, where I leave my mouse, what I click on, what input I type -- and what input I then delete. If I wanted that then I would…

Inputs are not seen in HotJar

https://help.hotjar.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015563287-How-t...

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#65

Post by edmundsauto »

diggan wrote: post #63
grandvoye wrote: post #5

Some ideas that have worked well for me in b2b/SaaS: * If you're pre-product/market fit, just reach out to users via email, in-product messaging etc. You can incentivize them with Amazon gift cards as well. At this stage nobody actually needs your product so you'll have to do it by hook or by crook. * If you're post-product/market fit then people actually _need_ your business. Once you make it clear that you're going…

Crazy idea: if you're just starting out and "nobody actually needs your product" is a problem, build something else or pivot radically. You should not have to bribe users with gift cards in order to use your product. If you're going that far, you're far off the goal of having something useful.

Eh, it’s not necessarily clear that nobody needs what you’ll end up with after iteration. Or maybe people need what you sell, but your marketing is unclear.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#66

Post by badestrand »

diggan wrote: post #63
grandvoye wrote: post #5

Some ideas that have worked well for me in b2b/SaaS: * If you're pre-product/market fit, just reach out to users via email, in-product messaging etc. You can incentivize them with Amazon gift cards as well. At this stage nobody actually needs your product so you'll have to do it by hook or by crook. * If you're post-product/market fit then people actually _need_ your business. Once you make it clear that you're going…

Crazy idea: if you're just starting out and "nobody actually needs your product" is a problem, build something else or pivot radically. You should not have to bribe users with gift cards in order to use your product. If you're going that far, you're far off the goal of having something useful.

In theory of course this should be the case, but in practice this is terrible advice IMO. There are tons of great successful businesses that wouldn't have passed this test.

Did anyone really need the early AirTable? No, you could just use Google Sheets. Did anyone really need WhatsApp? No, there was texting already. And so on.

In theory everyone should stay far away from building "nice to have" products and only solve hard business problems but that is a super high standard that even most companies that are already out there probably don't meet.

Of course, getting feedback and adjusting your vision is super important though and sometimes a radical pivot is needed.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#67

Post by saavran »

gauthamzz wrote: post #32

It is often better to get feedback while the user is using the product that is what we recommend at http://featuremonkey.com/ When you send an email and ask user to give feedback they don't really have an incentive to give feedback, maybe giving Amazon gift cards etc.. can increase the likely hood of reply. The placement of give feedback link can be really important. Maybe keep in near places where you are more likel…

Now that I think of it, it's very well put. Putting a feedback right where the product is being used or it might cause some issues is a good idea, otherwise you have to either force it out or give some rewards to collect feedback.

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#68

Post by k1w1 »

Getting actionable user feedback is something we struggled with at Aha! too. We experimented with different techniques but what we kept coming back to is that if you ask people directly, and engage them in a conversation, you get the most useful feedback.

Just knowing that someone is satisfied, or unsatisfied, with your product is not actionable. Often the reasons why a customer might be unsatisfied are subtle and would be impossible to discern with a questionnaire or survey. We think the answer is "empathy sessions" - kind of like focus groups meets modern online communication.

https://www.aha.io/blog/introducing-empathy-sessions

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#69

Post by DenisM »

arjunvpaul wrote: post #12

Can share what we do at our startup. (8 people, 100 - 200 customers). We create a WhatsApp group for every customer and stay with them right from onboarding onwards. Beauty of it is they sneeze, we know. Everyone in the team kinda knows what's important what's not. we can confidently say things like "nobody cares about that fancy feature". It super valuable for a startup to get immedeate feedback. Especially valuable…

So you have 200 WhatsApp channels? How do you keep up?

Re: Ask HN: How to effectively get feedback from users?

#70

Post by diggan »

badestrand wrote: post #66
diggan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy idea: if you're just starting out and "nobody actually needs your product" is a problem, build something else or pivot radically. You should not have to bribe users with gift cards in order to use your product. If you're going that far, you're far off the goal of having something useful.

In theory of course this should be the case, but in practice this is terrible advice IMO. There are tons of great successful businesses that wouldn't have passed this test. Did anyone really need the early AirTable? No, you could just use Google Sheets. Did anyone really need WhatsApp? No, there was texting already. And so on. In theory everyone should stay far away from building "nice to have" products and only solv…

Agree to disagree then I guess.

Yes, AirTable added additional benefits compared to Google Sheets. So did WhatsApp. That's why they succeeded in the first place, their first (public) iteration was useful enough to gain initial traction.

I'm not arguing that everything is useless unless they solve "hard business problems" (which I'm not even sure what that refers to), but if your thing doesn't solve anything at all, it's either entertainment or the wrong thing to build.

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