• Research the market, competition, and trends
• Create user personas and ideal customer profiles (ICPs)
• Organize feature ideas
• Analyze user feedback
• Prioritize feature requests
• Brainstorm user experience optimization ideas
• Create project plans
• Write support documentation and product release materials
• And more

However, it often gives false information that defeats the tool’s purpose.

For example, you might ask ChatGPT to analyze a collection of customer chats and find feature requests. You can’t rely on this tool if it misses some or makes up non-existent feature requests.

Eight AI experts shared their ChatGPT misinformation stories with us. They also gave tips for preventing it. Spoiler – you should:

• Clarify your prompts
• Manually check the information it gives you
• Try specialized AI tools for product managers

We’re sharing six tips and ten prompts to train GPT to provide only accurate information. But first, let’s dig into ChatGPT and its limitations.

Understanding ChatGPT’s limitations

Let’s go back to the beginning. What’s ChatGPT in plain English?

OpenAI built an app called ChatGPT in 2022. They used AI (artificial intelligence) to teach their LLM (large language model) to answer your questions. Today, it can also write copy, create images, analyze and translate text, explain concepts, and more. OpenAI took a common chatbot and improved it. That’s the “chat” part of it.

“GPT” stands for generative pre-trained transformer. It offers a few AI models, including GPT-4, GPT-4o (for complex tasks), and GPT-4o mini (for simpler outputs).

When ChatGPT exploded, some product experts got pretty concerned about its accuracy.

“I fear that we are going to develop products based on completely made-up reports, and nobody (not even the accountable people) will know.”

Anonymous Reddit user on r/ProductManagement

Some experts have seen the negative outcomes of ChatGPT misinformation first-hand.

“Until you’ve sat aghast at the sight of a confident, detailed, but completely wrong answer, you will have no understanding of the skepticism you need to apply to the guidance it provides. Already losing track of the number of engineers I’ve seen apply ChatGPT advice that turns out to be terrible.”

Kevin Yank, principal architect, front end, Culture Amp

Companies like StackOverflow took this very seriously. In 2022, they temporarily banned ChatGPT-generated responses from users.

“The primary problem is that while the answers which ChatGPT produces have a high rate of being incorrect, they typically look like they might be good and the answers are very easy to produce.” 

Moderator at StackOverflow

ChatGPT has come a long way since its inception but still has some limitations. Here are the main ones you should know about.

1. Accuracy. ChatGPT may miss important details or misunderstand nuances in language. This may result in incorrect or misleading information.

• Example: ChatGPT might incorrectly interpret phrases like “I hate how much I love this feature” as negative sentiments. The word “hate” misleads the positive intent of the statement.

2. Outdated information. ChatGPT’s knowledge is based on data up to a specific cutoff date (between September 2021 and April 2023, depending on the model). It does not have access to real-time information or recent developments, which can result in outdated advice or references.

• Example: ChatGPT might not know about recent updates to competitors’ products or current market trends.

3. Potential bias. If you train ChatGPT on biased data, the responses will reflect that bias.

• Example: ChatGPT might prioritize certain features based on biased input data. For example, a feature request may contain urgency-based words like “critical” or “must-have.” While it could be critical for one user, this doesn’t always mean it’s the most impactful idea. This bias could skew product development decisions.

4. Originality and plagiarism. AI-generated content might unintentionally plagiarize existing content.

• Example: You use an AI tool to generate feature descriptions. The output closely mirrors descriptions from a competitor’s website. This unintentional plagiarism can lead to legal issues and damage the company’s credibility.

But is ChatGPT the only one to blame? Let’s dig a little deeper.

Common causes of ChatGPT misinformation

ChatGPT isn’t perfect. That’s why it’s not as close to replacing us as we think 🙂

“When AI is given a task, it’s supposed to generate a response based on real-world data. In some cases, however, AI will fabricate sources. That is, it’s ‘hallucinating.’ This can be references to certain books that don’t exist or news articles pretending to be from well-known websites like The Guardian.”

Oscar Gonzalez, tech news editor, Gizmodo

Why does ChatGPT hallucinate? There are a few potential reasons for AI-generated misinformation:

• ChatGPT may lack context. For example, suppose you ask it to develop a new product launch strategy. In that case, it will give you generic advice based on existing articles on this topic. It might also get some details about your particular product or company wrong.
• ChatGPT is trained on vast datasets, both real and fictional. It can give you an answer based on a fictional scenario found online without realizing it’s fictional.
• The output can be susceptible to the way you phrase the questions. Small changes in the input prompt can lead to different responses.

Before you put your tin-foil hats on and shut down ChatGPT forever, let’s try to solve these issues.

How to limit false information

You can still use ChatGPT and save a lot of time. Now that you know what to look out for, you can be a little more skeptical. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean you need to lose all faith and go back to your old ways. Here are six tips to help you limit misinformation from ChatGPT.

1. Craft clear and precise prompts

The better you ask the question, the more accurate of an answer you’ll get. So, get ultra-specific with your prompt. Include the following:

• Give ChatGPT an identity. Who do you want it to be?
  • Example: “You are a product manager at canny.io. Your job is to prioritize feature requests based on required effort and potential impact.”
• Give background information. Imagine you’re talking to someone who has no idea what you and your company do. To speed this up, include links or text from your site or help docs in the prompt.
  • Example: “Canny is a tool for product managers. It helps them analyze and manage user feedback.”
  • Here’s more about our tool [link].
• Give specifics. Do you need the output to be a certain length? Does it have to follow a specific writing style, tone, or format? Specify all that.
  • Example: “Please use simple language, plain English, and conversational tone. The audience for this content is internal only. I need everybody in my company to understand what I’m talking about. Avoid jargon and complex language.”
• Avoid anything that ChatGPT can misinterpret. Be as clear as possible in your prompt.
• Ask GPT to ask you questions.
  • Example: “Please ask clarifying questions if anything is unclear. Do you need any other information or context? Please ask.”
• Talk to GPT like you would to a real person. Use conversational language.
  • Example: “Why did you prioritize features in this order? Can you explain your thought process?”
• Ask for examples, proof, and citations with direct links. This will help you assess the accuracy of ChatGPT responses.
  • Example: “What evidence supports this statement [copy-paste part of GPT’s response]? Give me direct links to the source of this information.”
• Paraphrase your prompt. Sometimes, slight differences in your prompts will make a big difference.
  • Initial prompt: “Prioritize these features for me.”
  • Paraphrased prompt: “Rank these feature ideas based on how much effort they might potentially take.”
• Ask it to do one thing at a time. Then, ask for the next thing in the follow-up. It’s a chat, remember? 🙂
  • Prompt #1: “Rank these feature ideas based on how much effort they might potentially take.”
  • Prompt #2: “Thank you, this makes sense. Now add another ranking factor – the potential impact of this feature on our customers. Redo the ranking please.”
• Ask it to repeat parts of your original requests back to you. This will help you understand if ChatGPT is on the right track.
  • Example: “Can you tell me what I asked you to do in your own words? I want to make sure you understand exactly what I need you to do. Are my instructions clear?”

2. Try iterative prompting

As you chat with ChatGPT, you’ll start noticing where it goes off the rails. This is a perfect time to bring it back on track. Engineers call this iterative prompting. This is the process of asking ChatGPT for one thing only. Then, based on its response, either help it change direction or ask it to keep going.

“We don’t just have a single-stage process. We’re not going straight to the API and asking: ‘What is the feedback here?’ or ‘Is there a bug report in this?’ Instead, we have a multi-stage process. We ask one small question at a time and try to get the most accurate response possible. This is how we get higher fidelity and accuracy rates.”

Niall Dickin, engineer at Canny

3. Train ChatGPT on specific data

ChatGPT can give you wrong answers when it lacks context about your business.

“Say, for instance, you’re running a small business and use ChatGPT for business planning. How much would ChatGPT know about the dynamics of your business? If you’re integrating ChatGPT into your customer support service, how much would ChatGPT know about your company and product? If you use ChatGPT to create personalized documents, how much would ChatGPT know about you? The short answer? Very little.”

Maxwell Timothy, content and outreach specialist at Chatbase. 

ChatGPT relies on the data it can find online to answer your questions. Very often, the data it needs isn’t publicly available. Specifics about your product can hide in your help docs and internal wikis. You need to “feed” that data to ChatGPT to help it help you. There are a few ways of doing this.

Manually copy-paste

This isn’t the most efficient option, but it works. Manually copy-paste relevant information to your conversation with ChatGPT. Ask it to use this information to answer your questions.

Sample prompt:

“Analyze these Intercom conversations. Find feature requests in them [insert Intercom conversations’ transcript]. Compare them against our existing features [insert a list of features]. Give me a list of only feature requests that we don’t already have.”

Provide your own examples to clarify the prompt. Let’s say you’re asking ChatGPT to create a changelog entry. Copy-paste an existing changelog entry and ask ChatGPT to follow the same style, format, length, tone, etc.

“There’s this temptation to type in as little as possible and let the AI do its “magic.” And then we expect accurate responses back. We have to keep in mind: most AI tools have a pretty large “context window” – space to type in our prompt. These tools can consume a lot of data at once.”

Maxwell Timothy

Try feeding your data to ChatGPT in portions, though. Sometimes, large amounts of data at once lead to “hallucinations” as well.

Create custom GPTs yourself

OpenAI now allows you to create custom GPTs. Think of them as mini-programs you can train on specific tasks. For example, you can create separate GPTs for:

• Data analysis
• Feature request detecting
• Release note writing
• Client conversation breakdown
• And much more

Creating custom GPTs saves you time. You won’t need to explain what you need ChatGPT to do for you every time. You set it up once and reuse it forever.

Follow these steps to create a custom GPT.

1. Open https://chatgpt.com/
2. Find “Explore GPTs” on the left-hand side
3. Find “Create” in the top-right corner
4. You’ll end up on the “Create” tab. You can describe to ChatGPT what kind of GPT you’d like to create and share resources with it.
5. Alternatively, you can click on the “Configure tab” and customize your GPT there

Use tools to create custom GPTs

There are some great tools for creating custom GPTs. Jason West, CEO of FastBots.ai, walks you through creating one with CustomGPT.ai in this video.

Chatbase is another great option. It helps you train your chatbots with company-specific information and knowledge.

“Chatbase is the easiest way to train and deploy a chatbot with your data. This innovative no-code AI solution provides a simple way to manage all aspects of building a chatbot with your data. This includes training, configuration, and deployment.”

Maxwell Timothy

Chatbase uses the same technology that powers ChatGPT but optimizes it to make it even easier to use.

Try RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a more advanced way of reducing AI hallucinations. It allows AI to respond to queries referencing a specified set of documents.

“RAG has recently emerged as a promising solution to alleviate the large language model’s (LLM) lack of knowledge.”

At Canny, we’re currently working on our RAG pipeline. This means that we’re adding context to each prompt to train our AI on specific data. For example, we feed Autopilot help doc materials to help it distinguish between new and existing feature requests. Autopilot Feedback Discovery is becoming even more accurate because of this.

Note: we’re not using any data without explicit permission from our users. We only use customer data for that customer’s instance.

This has already significantly impacted the accuracy of our automated feature request extraction. Our goal is to make AI detect existing features for selected customers. This will prevent duplicate feature requests and save our users even more time.

“We provide relevant context on each prompt to supplement the LLM knowledge with domain-specific data from the customer. This helps the LLM stay grounded in reality and feed from this data to generate context-aware responses.”

Ramiro Olivera, engineer at Canny 

4. Recognize and correct errors

It’s easier to fix ChatGPT’s mistakes when you know what to look out for. Here are some common signals that you might be getting the wrong information.

• No source attribution – ChatGPT can’t give you a direct link to the source of the information. Sometimes, it’ll give you a link that leads to a 404 page. 
• Inconsistency with well-known facts.
• Overly broad statements.
• Contradictory information – sometimes, you can get different responses when you use rephrased prompts.
• Outdated references. It’s best to trust information that’s no more than five years old.
• Citations to non-credible sources.

To correct any errors, verify the facts manually and only trust reputable sources.

5. Verify facts manually

Yes, ChatGPT and all AI are here to replace manual work. But, as you can see, we’re not 100% there yet. Because ChatGPT can still make mistakes, it’s best to verify critical information. Checking it early will save you time in the future.

Kevin Yank, principal architect at Culture Amp, recommends always assuming ChatGPT is lying. This level of skepticism will help minimize errors.

The product management community on Reddit agrees, and here’s what they recommend.

1. Ask ChatGPT: “Are you sure about that?”
2. If you get a different response, go and check this information manually

Source: Reddit 

Bottom line: check all critical information

Sources for fact-checking

If you’re unsure about any information ChatGPT gives you, verify it. For example, you can use these trustworthy sources to check market trends, competitive intel, and similar data.

• Statista, Gartner, or Forrester for data, numbers, benchmarks
• eMarketer or McKinsey & Company for business and marketing trends and forecasts
• Wired, TechCrunch, or CNET for technology information
• Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM) for product management 
• Reddit and LinkedIn groups for industry-specific information
  • Don’t trust everything that any contributor posts. Ask the community if you’re not sure.

Note: if you provide your own data to ChatGPT, you need to check this data internally to ensure you get an accurate output.

Here’s how Gianluca Ferruggia, general manager at DesignRush, corrects ChatGPT misinformation. He shared a story from his recent product launch.

“We were coordinating a product launch using AI. The response we received conflicted with our internal project milestones due to the AI’s misinterpretation. We rectified this by reminding ourselves that it’s crucial to provide AI with specific, clear, and concise instructions.”

6. Use dedicated AI tools

ChatGPT made a massive leap in AI adoption and progress. However, it’s imperfect and can sometimes give you the wrong information. That’s why there are many specialized AI tools. Let’s look at a few of them.

AI for product managers: Canny Autopilot 

ChatGPT isn’t focused on product management.

To help product managers take advantage of AI, we created Autopilot. It’s a suite of AI-powered tools that helps product managers.

Autopilot’s Feedback Discovery feature detects customer feedback in:

• Customer conversations (Intercom, Zendesk, HelpScout)
• Sales calls (Gong)
• Public review sites (G2, Capterra, and eight more sources)

Then, Autopilot extracts that feedback and imports it into your Canny portal. Next, it deduplicates that feedback and automatically merges duplicate requests.

Autopilot can also:

• Reply to your users on your behalf, asking clarifying questions
• Summarize long comment threads

We’ve received very positive feedback from our Autopilot customers so far. Autopilot uses a multi-stage process to detect and extract user feedback, which makes it much more accurate.

“I thought, surely I can’t just turn it on, and it’ll do its magic. But that’s exactly what it’s doing. We’re seeing hundreds of support tickets turned into actionable insights…with very high accuracy.”

Matt Cromwell, senior director of customer experience at StellarWP 

AI for project managers: ClickUp

Product managers often share the load with project managers. Sometimes, product managers own project management as well. In both cases, a dedicated AI tool can help.

At Canny, we use ClickUp. It helps us manage tasks, collaborate, and track progress.

ClickUp Brain is an advanced AI assistant. It creates documents, brainstorms ideas, summarizes notes, and more. You can ask ClickUp Brain to:

• Read your internal documents and answer questions about your company
• Give a breakdown of what different teams are working on
• Reply to comments
• Write a task summary
• Create templates, labels, tasks, transcripts, and more

Unlike ChatGPT, ClickUp has internal information about your company and projects. It can use that data to help you in a very particular way. Because ClickUp can read your documents, it can create more accurate outputs for your organization.

AI for research: Segment by Twilio

Many teams often own research – product, sales, marketing, success, and others. Each team can automate parts of this process. Segment (from Twilio) is a great AI tool for this.

Twilio’s CustomerAI enhances LLMs with rich customer data. This helps product managers learn more about their customers. It can: 

• Generate custom audiences based on your text prompt
• Segment customers based on real-time data
• Provide detailed insights about each segment

Accurate information is key

ChatGPT or any AI technology can sometimes make mistakes. You can still use AI to save you time, but you need to question accuracy and critically assess AI-generated outputcontent.

If the output you’re getting is misleading, you might spend more time correcting it later. Worse, you might act on that misinformation. Look for common signs of AI misinformation and verify all facts.

If you want a tool that’s already doing this for you, try Autopilot! Stay tuned for more updates and improvements.

The post How to get ChatGPT to stop lying: 6 actionable tips for product managers first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post How to get ChatGPT to stop lying: 6 actionable tips for product managers appeared first on Canny Blog.

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

Bill Gates

Let’s apply this to product management. Some experts call this unconventional idea “a lazy product manager approach.” We’ll explore expert opinions and explain what this approach really means.

Achieve more in less time with less effort to stay “lazy”

Some would argue that laziness leads to efficiency. It’s a skill of doing more in less time. Lazy people’s motivation is to do less, so they find creative ways to achieve more while doing less. For some, it means avoiding unnecessary tasks. For others, it’s about automating repetitive tasks. AI might’ve become so widespread for this exact reason! For example, you can automate feedback collection and focus on more strategic and high-impact projects.

We interviewed Anu Kirk, former VP of product at Osso VR, for his perspective. Anu is all about productivity. He doesn’t want to waste his time on ideas with little impact and encourages all product managers to do the same.

We also asked other experts for their efficiency tips: Sarah Hum (co-founder of Canny) and Maarten Dalmijn, owner of Dalmijn Consulting.

Here are a few productivity ideas from them that will help you stay lazy.

Prevent scope creep

Anu’s first piece of advice is preventing scope creep.

Scope creep is also known as “feature creep” or “requirements creep.” It occurs when a project’s requirements increase over time. They literally creep up on you. Why? How? Didn’t you clarify at the beginning?

“[You must] have defined specifications to know what you’re going after. One of the things that really helped was planning in advance and deciding what “done” would be.”

Anu Kirk, former VP of product at Osso VR

Solution: set clear “done” criteria.

You also need to be strict while evaluating feature requests. 

Evaluate feature ideas

Always pick the most impactful features and projects. Try your best to avoid the “shiny object syndrome.” For example, just because everyone’s adding AI to their tools doesn’t mean you have to. Only do it if you know this will benefit your business and customers the most.

Overall, set a very high bar for new features. Ask yourself each time:

• Will this help move the needle in my business?
  • Is it aligned with our business direction or where we ultimately want to be?
• Will this solve problems for my users?
  • How many people will it benefit?
  • Are our users actually asking for it?
• Do our competitors have it?

Before choosing what to work on, take time to answer these questions.

“It has to be killer. It has to be essential. It has to be something that will really change the game.”

Anu Kirk

Remember: each new feature makes your product more complex.

“In some cases, it’s better to do nothing than to throw features into the product that pull you off your mission. This just wears you down and makes your product more complicated.”

Anu Kirk

Say “no”

You’ll probably have to say “no” a lot. Ideas may come from anywhere, and each could sound great (again, “the shiny object syndrome”). But saying “no” will free up your time for those highly impactful ideas.

If you commit to every feature request, you will quickly drown in work. So, learn how to decline ideas gently.

“Good product managers should capture all kinds of ideas. Whether they’re solid or wacky, throw them in the backlog. But you should set a really high bar for what you’re actually going to commit to working on. [That’s] because you probably already have twenty, fifty, a hundred other things to do. So just be careful of the work you take on it. Be lazy.”

Anu Kirk

Saying “no” is definitely not easy – we know it firsthand. Refusing or postponing feature development is especially hard when you’ve already promised something to a client or a lead. That’s why you should be very selective with your promises. Manage your users’ expectations, and only commit to those high-impact features.

“It’s very tempting to say ‘yes’ to building features for high-paying prospects. However, this takes away from time you could use for core product improvements and big bets. A good balance for us is allocating a small percentage of engineering time to those features. It helps us roadmap and be more critical about which features we commit to building.”

Sarah Hum

Manage risks

Before you commit to building new features, assess the risks. Anu suggests thinking of the following potential risks.

Estimate required effort

First, estimate the required effort (we’ll cover this more in the next section about prioritization). But for now, talk to your engineers. There are likely two broad scenarios here. 

1. This project is a new piece of technology you haven’t built before

Engineers say: “We can get this done in two to three sprints.”

Try to assess their confidence level here. If this estimate is wrong, these “two to three sprints” can quickly turn into months.

2. This project is similar to what your team has built before

Engineers say: “Piece of cake, we did something like this last month.”

This situation is much less risky, and your effort estimate will be more accurate.

Risks aren’t limited to the required effort, though.

Assess the overall impact on the product

Next, think of this new feature’s impact on the product overall.

“How deep into the product is this new feature touching? If it doesn’t work at all or breaks at some point, can we roll it back or pull it out? How much is it going to screw things up if it’s not working? Are we taking the engine out of the car and disassembling it? Or are we just wrenching on something that’s easily visible?”

Anu Kirk

This process should help eliminate potentially detrimental features and protect your core product.

Plan and prioritize

Now, you’ve evaluated all feature requests and refused those that don’t align with your big goals. You’ve eliminated more ideas based on their risk factors. You might still have a long list in your backlog, and you can’t do everything simultaneously.

“Every item on your product backlog is like a little monkey on your back that you have to feed bananas to keep alive. These little monkeys require constant attention and will distract you from what matters.”

Maarten Dalmijn

Before picking out items from that backlog, go back to the questions from the feature evaluation section. They will help you set clear goals and specifications for each feature. Those goals will guide you forward.

With goals in mind, turn to prioritization. When you plan your next quarter, you need to get even more selective with your ideas.

Prioritization tools

Anu Kirk’s journey in product management has seen a significant evolution in his task and project management. He stresses the critical importance of finding the right tools to stay efficient, organized, and, yes, a little lazy.

Q-cards → Google Suite → Trello

Anu started managing projects with simple Q-cards. As technology advanced, he transitioned first to Google Suite and eventually to Trello.

“[Trello is] visually appealing and clean, which definitely helps. It is also simple, flexible, and powerful enough to do everything you need. You can easily attach images, make checklists, paste in documents, and add collaborators. It also supports HTML. I discovered it about ten years ago and immediately thought –  this is what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been using it for work and personal projects ever since.”

Anu Kirk

Another visual tool Anu really likes is Balsamiq. It helps build simple wireframes to communicate your vision quickly. Once you visualize a feature, it’s easier to decide whether or not to prioritize it.

Weekly planner notebooks, ClickUp, and Canny

Sometimes, writing things out by hand is the best solution. Studies show that writing on paper increases brain activity when later recalling that information. Our co-founder Sarah Hum loves her weekly planner notebook. Having tasks written down on paper makes it “official” – now you have to do it. If something isn’t a priority, it doesn’t make it to the planner.

Sarah and the rest of our team use Canny’s prioritization to surface those high-impact features. Our custom formula uses a weighted score method. We determine each feature’s impact and required effort. Impact includes user votes, ARPU (annual revenue per user), priority, and more.

We determine effort by how many hours each project will take. Then, we divide that impact by effort and get our score.

This exercise automatically gives us a prioritized list of feature ideas. We didn’t have to calculate anything ourselves – another great way to stay “lazy.”

Read more about our prioritization here. And if you need help getting started with prioritization, check out our free templates.

Finally, we push tasks to ClickUp (our ClickUp integration makes it super easy). ClickUp helps every team member stay on track and see the progress of each task. We create separate views for different purposes. For example, here’s what our product space looks like (with a filter for product marketing).

Timebox and schedule

Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands to fill the time available for completion.” But this is the opposite of our goal – efficiency and productivity.

Timeboxing is one technique for combating Parkinson’s Law. You set an allotted time to work on a task and evaluate your progress afterward. This gives you valuable control over your schedule.

The Pomodoro method is similar – you also block off time for work. But you alternate focused work and rest. Here’s how:

1. Pick a task
2. Set a timer for 25 minutes
3. Only work on that task for 25 minutes – no distractions!
4. Take a 5-minute break
5. Do this four times
6. Take a longer break (15-30 minutes)

“On days I don’t have meetings, I like the structure Pomodoro adds to my day. I break my tasks down into milestones to achieve by the end of each session. It’s also flexible depending on what works best for you. I do 50 minutes of focus followed by 10-minute breaks.”

Sarah Hum

These breaks help your mind relax. Every half an hour, you get to be “lazy”, but you’re actually improving your efficiency.

The beauty of these methods lies in their versatility. You can test a few and find what works for you. Then, you can even apply them to other aspects of your life. That’s what Anu Kirk does  – he applies his “lazy” approach to songwriting.

“When I create one of my records from scratch, I set either a time target that I’m trying to hit (like 35 minutes minimum) or ten songs, for example. I also set a definition of a completed song in advance.

Now I have my “done” criteria and can start building a schedule. I think: if I’m going to do this, I’ll mostly do it on the weekends. So, on average, I have to make two and a half songs every weekend to hit my deadline. I use things like Trello to write out the tasks that I need to do: I have to make a drum part for this one song, or I have to make an EQ adjustment, or I want to retract this one guitar part.

I work through it, treating this as a backlog. I keep asking myself – what’s the most critical issue I must solve today? Am I making progress? What’s my burndown looking like? Is this good enough to ship? It doesn’t have to be perfect. I just have to get it to a place where it meets the criteria and move on.

That’s the discipline of thinking about this enormous project and figuring out how to break it into manageable chunks. Then, I can estimate how much time or work it will take.”

Anu Kirk

User testing ideas to gather quick and useful feedback

Product management doesn’t stop at picking what to build next. The key to building amazing products is feedback.

Punk rock user testing

When people hear “collect feedback,” they often imagine expensive focus groups, lengthy surveys, and complex customer interviews. But you can start much simpler.

“You can do what I call ‘punk rock user testing.’ Gather five people from your company and show them the wireframe you created. Even if one of the five people has a problem with your prototype or design, that’s a significant signal. And if two or more have a problem, you need to deal with this.

The important thing is – don’t do just one round of very expensive testing. Testing once is almost as useful as testing zero times because you just have one data point.”

Anu Kirk

One round of user testing can only yield so much. Instead of trying to get it right on the first try, commit to continuous testing. Punk rock user testing lets you test frequently because it’s not as expensive as other testing methods. Here’s how often Anu does this.

“It’s sort of a sprint in and of itself. Every other Friday, we spend half the day testing the product. Sometimes, we recruit users off the internet to do it. Other times, we ask the newest people at the company to do it. But frequent testing is the key. You can get better at it because you’re testing more. We get better at what we do more.”

Anu Kirk

Beta testing

Many SaaS companies recruit beta testers. Those users commit to thoroughly testing your product and giving you honest and continuous feedback. The appeal is usually early access to a new product.

If you use a feedback tool like Canny, you can quickly find beta testers. That’s what Appcues does.

“Finding beta testers is so much easier now. I just go to a specific Canny post, export the list of voters, and email them. This is much better than trying to go through all notes in each Salesforce account, for example.”

Joey Muething, product manager at Appcues

The goal here is the constant stream of data. It’ll help you see if your product is getting better or worse as you progress.

Communication and collaboration

Communication skills are essential for many jobs, and product management is no exception. If you don’t like unnecessary meetings or long Slack threads, you should focus on effective communication.

“I think the best product managers are people who know how to be powerful and persuasive in multiple forms of communication. You should know how to write well, with clarity and precision.

You should also be a good public speaker (or at least be able to fake confidence). Product management involves talking to people; you must be comfortable with that. I can teach someone how to be a product manager, but I can’t teach them how not to be a jerk.”

Anu Kirk

Good communication skills in product management boil down to:

• Getting your message across regardless of the medium – written, spoken, etc. People generally don’t second-guess what you’re trying to say.
• Setting and managing expectations. There are no surprises – you deliver precisely what you promised.
• Being agreeable. This doesn’t mean saying “yes” or agreeing to everything. Instead, it’s about being compassionate and open to new ideas.
• Empowering the team. Foster a culture of openness and embracing failure. If your team is afraid to fail, they’ll hold back their ideas.
• Showing empathy towards users and team members. It’s easy to become harsh when focusing on only picking the best ideas. Remind yourself that your users and teammates deserve to be heard and valued.

How does this all relate to the lazy product manager approach? When you strive for efficiency, you want to minimize misunderstandings and unnecessary communication. You get your point across quickly, and nobody has questions about it. You use that free time to execute.

Getting to stakeholder inclusion

Maarten Dalmijn experienced communication gaps and developed his own approach to filling them. He describes this as moving from a “ticking time bomb” to stakeholder inclusion.” Here’s how he made this transition:

“I started as a ticking time bomb. I didn’t know what I was doing and wanted to please people. I was flooded with requests, didn’t keep promises, and disappointed many people.

I became annoyed with all the broken promises, so I swung the other way: I promised as little as possible. My default stance was to say “no.” Stakeholder sabotage was imminent.

To mend relationships, I tried to give them what they wanted and listen more. Stakeholder-driven development back-fired as we’d ultimately not be working on the most valuable things.

Instead of seeing stakeholders as adversaries, I began to work together and collaborate on the product vision, strategy, and roadmap. There was stakeholder inclusion, and if we had to make tough decisions, everyone understood why.”

When you communicate effectively right away, you stop wasting time on clarification. You get to communicate less, save time, and stay “lazy.” 

Good news: you don’t have to go through each stage of this painful process. Aim for stakeholder inclusion from the beginning. This will save you time and allow you to stay “lazy.”

Iterative approach: continuous testing and feedback

This might seem counterintuitive.

Building a huge feature without iterating is still a big undertaking. But the chances of building something users don’t want are much higher.

Iterating over and over again sounds like a lot of work – the opposite of “lazy”. Skipping this step would result in more work, though.

Consider the alternative. If you don’t keep asking your users what’s good and bad about your product, it’ll become outdated. Even if it’s great when you first build it, it’ll eventually need updates. User needs and preferences will change. And you’ll only know about it if you ask them.

Their responses (user feedback) can sometimes throw you off, though.

“How are you listening to your customers and making sure you’re actually affecting a huge amount of customers or revenue versus just listening to the loudest customer in the room?

Sometimes, the loudest customer in the room is the CEO or your boss. And most of the time, your boss or the CEO isn’t really the customer.”

Anu Kirk

Tools like Canny can help you combat that “loudest voice in the room.” You can weigh those voices differently. For example, you can attach ARR numbers to each feature request. This will help you focus on the highest revenue impact. You can also look at how many upvotes each feature request is getting. That quantity may be more objective than hearing the same request from the same customer repeatedly.

You can also segment your users and focus only on your most important customers.

Listening to customer feedback helps you iterate. Instead of building broader features, you can identify specific pain points to tackle.

Be strategic to stay lazy and achieve more

Using the “lazy product manager approach” means removing unnecessary work. It’s how top product managers create amazing products and stay sane.

Experts like Anu Kirk, Sarah Hum, and Maarten Dalmijn spent years perfecting this approach. Now, you can also use it to achieve more in less time.

To recap, here’s how you can be a lazy efficient product manager:

• Define what “done” means → prevent scope creep 
• Strictly evaluate feature ideas
• Get comfortable saying “no,” but do so with empathy
• Manage risks
• Plan and prioritize
• Timebox and schedule
• Communicate well and get to “stakeholder inclusion”
• Always collect feedback and iterate

“Remember – it’s not lazy that you want to free your mind for the important matters.”

Ahmed ElZomor, product manager at Breadfast

The post How to master productivity with a lazy product manager approach: 12 ideas first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post How to master productivity with a lazy product manager approach: 12 ideas appeared first on Canny Blog.

“Product managers believe they should spend 53% of their time on strategic activities, but only 8% can focus at this level.”

Pragmatic Institute

But who will do all the manual, time-consuming work that still needs to get done?

You might’ve guessed the answer: AI.

At Canny, we asked ourselves:

This is how we came up with Autopilot. It’s an AI-powered suite of tools that simplifies and automates feedback management. One of Autopilot’s key features is Feedback Discovery. It finds, extracts, and deduplicates feedback from customer conversations.

Now, it can find feedback on ten review sites:

1. G2
2. Capterra
3. App Store
4. Google Play
5. Trustpilot
6. Trustradius
7. Product Hunt
8. Salesforce AppExchange
9. WordPress
10. Shopify

I’m excited to walk you through this new feature.

Why automate feedback management?

When you dreamed of being a product manager…we bet you didn’t dream of this:

• Manually copy-pasting feature requests from G2 to a spreadsheet
• Sifting through that spreadsheet with hundreds of lines of customer feedback
• Desperately trying to find patterns and commonalities
• Attempting to find duplicated ideas and merge them
• Building features no one ends up using

There are more issues with managing feedback manually, including:

• Inefficiency. Sorting through large volumes of feedback can be unproductive and overwhelming.
• Human error. It’s easy to miss important feedback and make mistakes.
• Inconsistency. Manual processes can lead to inconsistencies in feedback categorization and management. This creates even more manual work down the line.
• Lack of scalability. As the amount of feedback grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage manually.
• Delayed responses. Manually sorting feedback can delay the response time to customer issues and feature requests.
• Lack of comprehensive view. It’s challenging to get a holistic view of all feedback across different platforms.
• Difficulty with tracking trends. It’s harder to identify patterns and trends in feedback.

Let’s see how automated feedback management can solve all these issues.

What is Canny Autopilot?

Canny Autopilot is an AI-powered extension of our core product. Our suite of AI tools includes:

1. Feature Discovery – to find, extract, and deduplicate feedback in customer support, sales communications, and now in public reviews
2. Smart Replies – to respond to your users and ask for more context
3. Comment Summaries – to summarize busy comment threads and give you the main outcomes

Our product has always been feedback-first – we believe it’s the foundation of all good product management. We built Autopilot’s Feedback Discovery to help product managers find, extract, and deduplicate that feedback faster and easier.

We spent months testing, iterating, and perfecting it to ensure it extracts feedback with very high accuracy. To achieve this, we used a multi-layered AI approach. This means we don’t just ask AI: “Is there feedback here?” We keep asking questions and iterating on results until we get the most accurate output possible.

“We don’t just have a single-stage process. We’re not going straight to the API and asking: ‘What is the feedback here?’ or ‘Is there a bug report in this?’ Instead, we have a multi-stage process. We ask one small question at a time and try to get the most accurate response possible. This is how we get higher fidelity and accuracy rates.”

Niall Dickin, engineer at Canny

We’ve received lots of positive feedback so far.

“I LOVE how it auto-scans our support tickets and magically finds customer feedback without me lifting a finger. We’ve been able to 10x the feedback coming into Canny & remove many duplicate posts, with only a few minutes of work a week.”

Keenan Jones, VP of Product, Credit Repair Cloud

Finding feedback in customer reviews

But we didn’t stop there. Today, Autopilot finds feedback not only in your customer communications. Now, it can scan your public reviews and find feedback there.

After Autopilot detects feedback, it extracts and imports it into your Canny portal. Then, it finds duplicate requests and merges them for you.

Note: if you don’t want Autopilot to automatically merge duplicated feature requests you can turn off automated mode. This way, you’ll see what Autopilot recommends to merge, but you’ll be able to make those decisions yourself.

“I thought, surely I can’t just turn it on, and it’ll do its magic. But that’s exactly what it’s doing. We’re seeing hundreds of support tickets turned into actionable insights…with very high accuracy.”

Matt Cromwell, senior director of customer experience at StellarWP

Why public review sites?

Reviews often contain feature requests that slip by unnoticed. That’s why we connected Autopilot to ten public review sites (and we’ll keep adding more). Now, you can capture all the feedback right where it lives. You no longer need to:

• Manually scroll through and read every review
• Look for feature requests and feedback in those reviews
• Copy-paste each idea to your feedback portal
• Compare these ideas to your existing feature requests
• Identify and merge duplicates one by one

Autopilot now does all that automatically. 

The truth is, your feedback is out there. It lives in your App Store, Product Hunt, and Trustpilot reviews. And right now, you’re relying on humans to find and pass it on.

It’s easy to let that feedback slip through the cracks. When it does, you don’t have the full picture of your customer sentiment. And you can’t make objective data-based decisions for your product.

Autopilot automatically captures your feedback from anywhere it lives. There’s no limit to how many sources you can connect to Autopilot either.

“Canny’s Autopilot ensures feature requests never fall through the cracks. We’ve seen an 80% increase in requests logged since introducing Autopilot.”

Owen Doherty, COO at OrcaScan

Getting started with AI

We get it – trusting AI might be daunting. You might not want to use customer chats, sales call recordings, and other private data just to test an AI tool.

Instead of testing Autopilot with your customer communications, try it with public reviews first. You probably don’t need to get your team’s approval for testing Autopilot with public reviews.

Use your free AI credits – every account has them, even our free plan! Once you see the quality of feedback detection and extraction, you can decide whether or not you want to connect more sources.

We did this specifically for those who are nervous about fully trusting AI right away. 

How does it work?

Autopilot’s Feedback Discovery can find feedback in minutes. All you need to do is connect a review site and watch it happen. Here’s a quick step-by-step tutorial.

Once you connect a review site, Autopilot will scrape it to identify possible feedback. Then you can either:

1. Use Autopilot in automatic mode to let it merge duplicated posts (you’ll still see an audit log and will be able to adjust what Autopilot did)
2. Review Autopilot’s suggestions and decide what to do with each item

Conclusion: save time and focus on strategic tasks with Autopilot

We know that manually collecting user feedback might not be your idea of strategic work. We get how much time feedback management takes. And we want to make this simpler for you.

Autopilot’s Feedback Discovery can free up your time for strategic tasks. Try it today with public reviews and see how much feedback is out there.

The post Introducing automatic Feedback Discovery for leading review sites first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post Introducing automatic Feedback Discovery for leading review sites appeared first on Canny Blog.

In just under 100 years, product management has seen many changes. It’s become increasingly more technical. Today, some PMs work closer with engineers than with marketing, and many need to know basic coding.

Technology, business, and the product world will always evolve. Your users, competitors, and the industry will also change. To stay competitive and relevant, you need to innovate.

There are many tried-and-true PM tactics that can help you drive innovation. But, we want to encourage you to look beyond them.

We asked 18 product leaders to share unconventional product management strategies they use. Let’s explore their ideas and insights in this blog post.

Why do we need new and unconventional approaches?

First of all, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” There are many outstanding and sound product management frameworks out there. You don’t have to change just for the sake of changing.

Still, remember that things around you will always evolve.

Many experts discuss how AI is changing product management. Some worry that AI will replace PMs, while others are excited about AI helping them uncover powerful insights.

“The integration of AI into product management has been nothing short of transformative. An advanced AI algorithm can sift through vast datasets and decipher intricate customer behavior and preferences.”

Kamil Rejent, CEO at Survicate

The bottom line: you need to adapt.

The good news: you can use frameworks that serve you well and still explore new ideas. You don’t have to abandon your tried-and-tested methods, especially if they deliver results. At the same time, we encourage you to challenge the status quo (even a little bit). Who knows – maybe you’ll find the next big breakthrough in these unconventional tactics.

As you discover new frameworks, keep this in mind.

“It’s not about the framework itself. It’s about fixing the right problems in our process. It’s easy to get caught up in the latest, shiny new framework. But it is important to stay focused on what needs improving in our own backyard.

So, whether it’s a traditional framework or an unconventional approach, the key is to pick what works best for our unique challenges.”

Elisa Montanari, head of organic growth and website strategy at Wrike

Potential issues with popular frameworks

Many traditional frameworks work really well. Our clients, partners, and even our team use them! Here’s how we prioritize feature requests, for example (using weighted scoring).

However, we know that “what got us here won’t get us there” (to the next stage of our business). So we keep using what’s working but always look for new and interesting ideas. We also try to apply strategic thinking and critically assess how we’ve done things so far.

“Some businesses or people get ‘stuck in the mud’ regarding how things are done. When they resist changing processes and ways of thinking, they rarely meet their full potential.”

Clare Garrity, operations at Canny

Well-known product management frameworks are popular for a reason. But they do have some drawbacks.

Here are some potential issues with conventional approaches to product management. They sometimes:

• Get outdated
• Become very complex, rigid, linear, and inflexible
• Slow down feedback loops
• Separate teams instead of uniting them
• Don’t work for all your tasks

Let’s look at the Waterfall method, for example. It’s a project management framework that product managers use too.

Waterfall is one of the earliest frameworks that follows a linear and sequential approach. Each project stage informs the next one – it cascades down like a waterfall.

Waterfall has many benefits, such as:

• Clear project structure
• Fixed costs
• Simplified progress tracking
• A repeatable process

Here’s where it falls short.

1. The team must complete each phase before moving on to the next.  This extends the development cycle – if you need to change something, you need to start over with each phase. This increases costs and leads to delays. That’s why adjusting the project plan mid-process is often not feasible. As a result, a product may no longer meet current market demands or use the latest technology by launch time.
2. Typically, you can’t integrate feedback until the end of the process. This long feedback loop can prevent you from iterating quickly.
3. Different teams work on their respective phases independently. This separation can lead to communication gaps, misaligned objectives, and a lack of collaboration.

This is why the Agile framework came along – to propose a new approach that will fix these issues.

Let’s explore more tactics you might’ve not heard of.

1. Pretotyping

No, this isn’t a typo 🙂 You’ve heard of prototyping – a design process that creates a mock-up for testing.

Pretotyping takes a step back. It’s about creating simulated versions of products to gather feedback before full development. In other words, pretotyping happens before prototyping.

“Pretotyping is a set of tools, techniques, and tactics that help you validate any idea for a new product.”

Alberto Savoia, Google’s first engineering director​, author of “The Right It”

How to implement it

Goals:

• Gauge interest before investing in development
• Validate assumptions
• Determine the probability of product success

A pretotype is meant to be a quick experiment. You want to test your ideas with the minimum amount of money, time, and effort. Here’s how you could do it.

1. Pick one key assumption.
2. Choose a pretotype. Alberto Savoia offers the following options.

3. Set a market engagement hypothesis. How many (and what kind of) people will do what with your pretotype? For example: X% of Y will do Z

4. Test your pretotype. Put it into the real world, and watch how people interact with it.

5. Learn, refine, hypozoom. Evaluate your results. Refine your pretotype with your new data. 

If your hypothesis held, test your pretotype in other situations. Alberto calls it “hypozooming”.

Example: IBM

IBM wanted to test speech-to-text technology. First, they wanted to know if users would even want to use such a tool.

They simulated actual hardware and software using a hidden typist. The testers held a microphone and looked at a monitor, but they didn’t have a keyboard. They spoke into a microphone and watched text appear on the screen. They thought that a computer was typing what they were saying. In reality, it was a person.

IBM saw interest in this tool and started developing it. They also got early product marketing through this test.

2. Lean UX

You’re familiar with both “lean” and “UX” terms, but how do they work together?

Lean user experience (UX) is about integrating UX design throughout the product lifecycle.

“The core objective is to obtain feedback as early as possible and use it to make quick decisions. Agile product management works in rapid, iterative cycles. Lean UX mimics these cycles to use the generated data in each iteration.”

Frank Spillers, CEO/CX, and UX + service design lead the Experience Dynamics

One of the easiest ways to get that early feedback is to build a minimum viable product (MVP). This approach can even follow the pretotyping idea from the previous section. Here’s how:

1. You’ve built and tested a pretotype
2. You know there’s a legitimate interest in your idea
3. Now you can build an MVP

An MVP is a bare-bones version of your product. You include only what’s absolutely necessary and leave out all the rest. This way, you don’t spend time and other resources building something that might not work. An MVP’s purpose is to validate your idea.

“As you consider building your own minimum viable product, let this simple rule suffice. Remove any feature, process, or effort that does not contribute directly to the learning you seek.”

Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup“

An MVP helps you gather quick and actionable feedback. You can use that feedback as you continue perfecting your product. Feedback helps you stay focused on your customer and their experience (UX). When you put user experience at the center of your product development, you apply the Lean UX method.

Most product managers think of MVP (Minimum Viable Product) as:

"The V1 of the product they want users to use."

That is 100% WRONG.

In Product Management, a few concepts (like MVP) are frequently used, yet grossly misunderstood.

MVP as a concept has revolutionized the way…

— JustAnotherPM | Sid (@JustAnotherPM) October 16, 2023

How to implement it: think, make, check

To test out lean UX yourself, follow these main steps.

1. Think. Brainstorm potential areas for improvement. Use existing customer feedback, research, and more. Then, set a hypothesis.

Example: reducing the number of steps in the onboarding process will improve user retention.

2. Make. Build an MVP.

Example goal: simplified onboarding experience.

Example steps:

1. Reduce required steps from seven to three
2. Add a progress indicator to help users understand how far along they are
3. Give a skip option for non-essential information
4. Include tooltips to guide users through the process

3. Check. Analyze the performance of your MVP. Did it validate your hypothesis? If not, go back to step one.

Example:

• The team tracked user retention, drop-off rates during onboarding, and overall user satisfaction
• Result: 15% increase in user retention and 20% reduction in drop-off rates

The results validated the hypothesis. Based on this, the team permanently implemented the new onboarding process.

Example: Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud solution for file sharing and syncing. Here’s how they applied the Lean UX model.

1. Think. When the Dropbox team was first building the tool, “the founders wanted feedback from customers about what really mattered to them.” Their hypothesis was: “File synchronization is a problem that most people don’t know they had. Once they experience the solution, they won’t be able to imagine how they ever lived without it.”
2. Make. Dropbox’s MVP was a simple demo video that showcased the core functionality. This video gauged interest and collected user feedback before full development. This low-cost approach validated the demand for such a service.

3. Check.

“[The MVP video] drove hundreds of thousands of people to the website. Our beta waiting list went from 5,000 people to 75,000 people literally overnight. It totally blew us away.”

Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox

Dropbox achieved incredible product success with the help of Lean UX.

3. Impact mapping

Impact mapping is a collaborative planning technique. It’s based on:

• Outcome-driven planning – first, define the desired results. Then, plan backward to determine which steps will help achieve those outcomes.
• Mind mapping – a visual brainstorming technique that helps organize information. It involves writing down a central idea and branching it into related subtopics.
• User interaction design (IxD) – designing how users interact with a product. The focus is on making the product intuitive and easy to use. IxD includes creating layouts, menus, buttons, and other interactive elements.

Basically, an impact map is a mind map on steroids. It takes your mind map further and adds strategy and IxD to it. This helps you align product development with user and business goals.

“Impact mapping is fast, visual, and collaborative. It makes it easy to engage people from various roles and backgrounds. It exposes hidden assumptions and documents important decisions. It provides just enough structure to facilitate effective planning and prioritization. But it doesn’t get in the way with complicated syntax or bureaucracy.”

Gojko Adzic, author of “Impact Mapping“

How to implement it

Gojko separates his impact map into four main parts:

1. Your main goal
2. Actors (i.e. users)
3. Impact (desired action)
4. Deliverable (what do I need to do to make the desired action happen)

This product strategy combines several popular approaches, and it’s easy to get confused. Tim Herbig, a product management coach, helps clarify the difference between them here.

Learn more about impact mapping in this podcast from Tim Herbig.

Example: Codurance

Codurance is a software consulting company. They used impact mapping to help a client prioritize social media platform features. This client had a large product backlog and roadmap but lacked prioritization clarity. Here’s how they created an impact map to fix this problem.

1. Goal: achieve a target number of users for a new social media platform
2. Actors:
   • Primary users
   • Advertisers
3. Impact (desired actions)
   • Users: increase engagement; encourage users to share content and invite friends
   • Advertisers: attract advertisers by demonstrating a growing and engaged user base
4. Deliverable
   • Users: develop features that simplify and reward content-sharing
     • I.e. add a share button, notifications for friend invites, etc.
   • Advertisers: create analytics tools to show advertisers user engagement metrics and growth trends.

“The client was very happy – they are now clear about each feature. The impact map helps them provide a strong argument if investors ask for features that do not align with original product goals.”

Mashooq Badar, founder of Codurance

4. Opportunity solution tree

An opportunity solution tree is a problem-solving technique. It helps teams evaluate potential solutions to a given opportunity. Similar to impact mapping, it’s a very visual approach.

The tree has a few sections:

1. The root = desired outcome
2. Opportunity space = customer needs, pain points, and desires
3. Solution space = potential solutions you’re exploring
4. Assumption tests = to evaluate which solutions will best combine customer and business value

Teresa Torres, the author of “Continuous Discovery Habits,” developed this framework.

“We struggle with the distinction between the problem space and the solution space. The heart of a good product is getting comfortable in the problem space (or the opportunity space). It’s about really taking the time to frame a problem well before jumping to solutions.”

Teresa Torres

How to implement it

1. Identify the desired outcome. Start with what you want to achieve. What’s your business objective? How can you use this exercise to support it?
2. Map out opportunities. Brainstorm all possible ways to achieve that desired outcome. Consider different customer needs, pain points, and market gaps.
3. Explore solutions. For each opportunity, list potential solutions. Focus on how these solutions can address the identified opportunities.
4. Prioritize and test. Rank the solutions based on potential impact and feasibility. Begin testing the most promising ones and iterate based on results.

Example 1: trivago

Trivago is a hotel comparison website. Their team built an opportunity solution tree to “tailor the search experience and help the user move down the funnel.” Here’s how they implemented this strategic planning framework.

1. Identify the desired outcome
   • Better understand user intent through both explicit and implicit user signals
   • Tailor the search experience
   • Guide users down the funnel
2. Map out opportunities. Trivago phrased opportunities as user needs they could solve:

• “I need to decide where to stay”
• “I wish it would take less effort to find hotels that meet my preferences”
• “I only want to see hotels that meet my preferences, not all the other irrelevant ones”
• “I need to trust that my preferences are reflected correctly”

3. Explore solutions

• Refine filters
• Showcase relevant hotel details
• Suggest personalized options based on user input

4. Prioritize and test

• Prioritize features that help reach the desired outcome
• Conduct user interviews
• Test assumptions

“Product management is no perfect science. With the opportunity solution tree you can make sense of it and give it structure only to a point. It helped us get buy-in from the UX research team and the product leadership to embark on the continuous discovery journey.”

Sören Weber, senior AI product manager at Trivago

Example 2: Wrike

Wrike is a project management tool that helps businesses simplify their workflows. Elisa Montanari is the head of organic growth and website strategy. She shared her experience with this technique.

“[The] Opportunity Solution Tree helped me prioritize at a high level and kept our strategy focused. But when it came to the nitty-gritty daily tasks, it wasn’t as effective. Some of my colleagues found it hard to adopt for everyday use.”

Elisa Montanari

Elisa manages a Scrum development team of 8 and an SEO team of 3. Her insights bring up an important point: focusing on one particular framework shouldn’t be the goal. 

“This experience taught me something important: it’s not about the framework itself. It’s about fixing the right problems in our process.”

Elisa Montanari

It’s also OK to try something, see that it doesn’t work, and move on.

5. Innovation games

Innovation can help your product stand out and succeed.

“The toughest part of innovation? Accurately predicting what customers want, need, and will pay for.”

Luke Hohmann, CIO at Applied Frameworks, author of Innovation Games

Luke Hohmann came up with a concept called innovation games. They are:

• A form of primary market research
• Structured activities to foster creativity and collaboration
• Designed to help you uncover your customers’ true, hidden needs and desires

Typically, you’d gather existing or potential customers to play these innovation games. However, you might not have the resources or enough existing customers. Then, you can play these games internally – with your team. Your results will be different because your team knows your product and isn’t always the target customer. Still, you can test these games with them and assess the results. Later, you can repeat the experiment with real users and compare the results.

You need a facilitator for each game. Ideally, a product manager or product owner from your team facilitates them.

Here’s a quick description of each innovation game.

1. 20/20 vision. The facilitator writes down potential features on Q-cards and tapes one to a wall. Then, the facilitator shows the feature cards one by one. Participants decide if each is more or less important than the one on the wall. No ties allowed!
2. Buy a feature. Participants use a set budget to “buy” features from a list. They can pool resources to afford more expensive features. This will force them to prioritize what they value most.
3. Give them a hot tub. Mix in wild, unexpected features with normal ones to see customer reactions. This helps understand what surprises or delights users and what they truly want.
4. Me and my shadow. Observers closely follow a user interacting with a product. They note actions and ask why users do certain things. This reveals hidden usability issues and user thoughts.
5. Product box. Teams create a mock product box with crafts, imagining they’re marketing it at a tradeshow. This helps identify what users find most appealing or essential about the product.
6. Prune the product tree. Draw a tree where branches represent different product features. Participants add “leaves” (new feature ideas), showing which areas they think need growth. Then, you collectively “prune” the product tree. The goal is to leave only the most impactful feature ideas.
7. Remember the future. Participants envision a future where they’ve used the product extensively. Then, they describe how it made them successful or happy. This reveals aspirational goals and desired features.
8. Show and tell. Users bring in examples of how they’ve used the product. They explain why these uses are important to them. This highlights real-world applications and user priorities.
9. Speed boat. Draw a boat with anchors, symbolizing features that slow it down. Participants label these anchors with disliked features, prioritizing which issues to fix first.
10. Spider web. Place your product in the center of the spider web. Ask participants to add competing products around it. Then, visually show how these products are related. For example, use a solid line for complementary products and a dashed line for direct competitors. This helps you visualize the competitive landscape.
11. Start your day. Participants outline their daily routine using the product, highlighting helpful and frustrating moments. This helps identify pain points and opportunities for improvement.
12. The apprentice. Developers use the product as real customers, experiencing its strengths and flaws firsthand. This hands-on approach helps identify usability issues and areas for enhancement.

How to implement it

In his book, Luke proposes 12 different games. You don’t need to try all 12, though! Here’s a helpful graphic that separates these games based on your focus area. For example, if you’re interested in learning more about your users’ needs, you can try “Me and My Shadow,” “Show and Tell,” or “The Apprentice.”

If you’re still unsure which ones to choose and how to facilitate them, follow these key steps.

1. Define objectives. Set clear goals for what you want to achieve – enhancing creativity, improving problem-solving, etc.
2. Consider time limits. Choose games within your available timeframe to ensure full participation and engagement.
3. Accommodate diverse preferences. Select games that cater to different learning styles and preferences (i.e., visual or hands-on activities).
4. Align with team goals. Pick games that are relevant to your team’s projects or real-world scenarios.
5. Rotate and refresh. Introduce new games if you feel you’re not getting the desired results.
6. Use technology. Incorporate digital tools and platforms for virtual or tech-enhanced game experiences. For example, Lucidspark offers free templates for the Buy a Feature game.
7. Monitor engagement. Observe and assess engagement levels to ensure the games are effective and enjoyable.
8. Gather feedback. After each session, collect feedback from participants to refine future game choices. A tool like Canny can help you with this.

Example: Ford Motor Company

Liz Schemanski is a former UX Designer at Ford Motor Company. During her time there, she inspired her team to use the “Buy a Feature” innovation game.

Goal: identify which features users valued most and were willing to pay for. Their process looked like this:

1. Familiarizing participants. Users explored five potential features through scenarios and tasks. Those features weren’t fully built yet.

“We already had some basic screens in a prototype that would show each of our feature concepts. They didn’t need to be perfect; they just needed to show the potential and possibilities of each feature.”

Liz Schemanski

Here’s one scenario Liz’s team used during this experiment.

2. Shopping phase. Participants received a set amount of “monies” to spend on the features. The features were not labeled, which allowed users to choose features based on their preferences without bias. The goal is to pick the features they find the most valuable.

“Each tool was priced equally. [That’s because] our main goal was not to find out which feature we should build first based on complexity. Rather, it was to understand which features the participants valued most without being influenced by the cost to build.”

Liz Schemanski

3. Feedback collection. After making their selections, participants explained their choices, revealing their preferences and reasons. This provided valuable insights into user needs and priorities.

“Some sample questions we asked included:

• Why did you put down the full ten monies for this?

• Why did you put down equal monies for these two tools?

• Why did you pay six monies for this tool and two monies for that tool?

• Why did you not buy this tool?”

Liz Schemanski

This approach helped gather qualitative data on user preferences without building full-fledged prototypes. Buy a Feature proved to be a cost-effective method for early-stage product development.

6. Platform thinking

Platform thinking is “product thinking applied to digital platforms.” What’s product thinking? It’s a mindset that prioritizes the user when designing solutions.

This approach connects your target market and the developers of your product. A “platform” lets them interact and create value together.

1. A developer builds a product and envisions how users will interact with it
2. Users join the platform
3. They add value by creating content (Facebook), selling products (Etsy), providing services (Lyft), and more
4. The platform becomes better thanks to its users
5. Developers watch these interactions and improve the product based on them

Instead of just selling a product, you build a platform that facilitates these interactions. This helps your product grow and become more valuable. The more people use and contribute to it, the better it becomes.

“It moves beyond traditional linear business models. Those rely on a straightforward supply chain from production to consumption. Instead, platforms facilitate interactions between multiple interdependent sets of customers. This creates value through network effects.”

Dan Pontefract, founder of Pontefract Group

Many successful products use the platform thinking approach. Common examples include Amazon, Uber, Netflix, Spotify, and others.

How to implement it

Follow these steps to adopt platform thinking. 

1. Identify what you offer. Start by figuring out the unique value your platform can provide that others can’t. Understand your customers’ needs and how your platform can meet them. Find your product differentiation.
2. Create a strong foundation. Build a core feature that everything else revolves around. This could be a marketplace, a set of tools, or a service hub that others can build on.
3. Encourage user interactions. Make it easy for different groups to interact on your platform. For example, eBay benefits from both buyers and sellers actively engaging.
4. Partner up. Work with other companies, developers, and partners to expand your platform’s capabilities. This means inviting others to create apps, services, or products that complement your core offering.
5. Grow gradually. Start small and gradually add more features based on user feedback. This lets you quickly adapt to changes and continuously improve.
6. Set clear rules. Establish guidelines for how people can use your platform. Explain how you handle data and manage interactions. This helps maintain trust and smooth operations.

Example: Glassdoor

Glassdoor could’ve been just another job search site. Instead, they became a platform for real and honest company reviews, salary data, interview insights, and more. They are a true example of platform thinking. Without reviews from users, Glassdoor wouldn’t be as valuable.

1. What they offer. Glassdoor’s unique value: workplace transparency. They empower employees to share honest reviews. Users can submit comments about their employers, company culture, the CEO, and salaries. You can’t find this information anywhere else on the web.
2. Their strong foundation. Glassdoor’s core: a comprehensive database of employee reviews and ratings. This foundation supports additional tools and services. Detailed company profiles, salary comparisons, and interview preparation resources are some examples.
3. Encouraging user interactions. Users can view some information at first, but eventually need to submit their own reviews to keep browsing. This helps Glassdoor grow and increase their value.
4. Partnering up. Glassdoor collaborates with recruitment agencies and organizations. They offer access to valuable data for detailed analysis and reporting. Businesses can also get enhanced profiles (paid service). This allows them to customize their Glassdoor profiles. They can showcase job listings and highlight why they are great places to work. This approach expands Glassdoor’s platform capabilities and provides additional value to its users.
5. Growing gradually. Glassdoor initially focused on company reviews and gradually expanded its services. They got proof of concept first and grew later.
6. Set clear rules. Glassdoor established clear guidelines for content submission. The goal was to ensure the accuracy and reliability of reviews. They maintain strict policies for data handling and user interactions. This helps build and maintain trust among users and companies.

7. The 10x rule

Larry Page, Ken Norton, and Grant Cardone advocate for this strategy. The 10x rule encourages a product leader to build tools that are ten times better than the competition.

Larry Page calls this aiming for “moonshots” or 10x improvements rather than incremental changes. He believes that aiming for significant breakthroughs leads to more innovative thinking. As a result, companies achieve more.

“It’s natural for people to want to work on things that they know aren’t going to fail. But incremental improvement is guaranteed to be obsolete over time. Especially in technology, where you know there’s going to be non-incremental change.

So, a big part of my job is to get people focused on things that are not just incremental. Take Gmail. When we released it, we were a search company. It was a leap for us to put out an email product, let alone one that gave users 100 times as much storage as they could get anywhere else. That is not something that would have happened naturally if we had been focusing on incremental improvements.”

Larry Page

This ambitious strategy might seem reserved only for large companies. Or it might seem like you need big visionaries like Larry Page to use this approach. But it’s not the case.

“Not everyone is aiming to land on the moon, and not everyone works for Google or SpaceX. That doesn’t mean you can’t use moonshot thinking. If you set crazy ambitious goals and miss them, you’ve probably still achieved something remarkable.”

Ken Norton, executive coach to product leaders, former director of product management at Google

Canny’s founders entered the product management market when there were already existing players. Andrew and Sarah had to capitalize on product differentiation. Canny had to be 10 times better than the competition.

“To create a successful business in software, to convince people to use your software instead of what’s already out there, it needs to be way better in some aspect. Ideally, 10x better. Otherwise, why would people switch?

This ties well with our product-led growth strategy. If we want to be a “dominant” solution, our product needs to be much better and offer a lower price point.”

Andrew Rasmussen, co-founder of Canny

How to implement it

Here’s how Ken Norton recommends applying the 10x rule.

1. Set ambitious goals. To drive significant innovation, focus on making products or processes 10 times better rather than just 10% better.
2. Encourage risk-taking. Create a culture where experimentation and failure become opportunities to learn and improve.

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: you are being driven by the desire to avoid it.”

Ed Catmull, former president of Pixar

3. Use data to drive decisions. Base strategies on data and evidence rather than opinions to validate bold ideas and guide decision-making.
4. Promote a learning culture. Emphasize continuous learning and rapid iteration to foster innovation.
5. Bet on big trends. Align innovation efforts with emerging trends to maximize impact.

Example: Amazon

1. Set ambitious goals. Amazon aimed to be “the everything store.” They were successful at selling books, but they had a bigger product vision. Amazon set out to revolutionize the shopping experience. They achieved it by providing unparalleled selection, convenience, and competitive pricing.

2. Encourage risk-taking. They could’ve just focused on expanding their book selection. But this would be 10%-thinking. 10x-thinking pushed them to add completely different categories. In addition, they focused on ecommerce, introduced Amazon Prime, and more.

3. Use data to drive decisions. Amazon analyzes customer behavior, optimizes their supply chain, and personalizes the shopping experience.

4. Promote a learning culture. Amazon encourages their product team to test new concepts, iterate, and learn from failures. This is evident in their product development process.

5. Bet on big trends. Amazon identified and invested in major trends like cloud computing (AWS), digital media, and ecommerce.

Conclusion: explore these innovative strategies

The product management process, especially in SaaS, is bound to evolve. Try some of these tactics if you’re ready for something new. You never know where your next breakthrough will come from. If your current product strategy isn’t working, try these ideas. They could be just what you need.

Note: take each method with a grain of salt. Just because it worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will drive the same results for you. Adjust each technique for your unique company and customers. Effective product management is about adapting existing approaches to your specific situation.

You can also combine some of these product management strategies. Who knows – maybe you’ll develop the next revolutionary framework for managing products. Or, at the very least, you’ll build a successful product.

The post 7 fresh product management tactics from 18 product experts first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post 7 fresh product management tactics from 18 product experts appeared first on Canny Blog.

This is where Canny comes in. Canny helps you collect, manage, and act on user feedback easily. It centralizes all feedback, organizes suggestions, and helps you prioritize what matters most.

In other words, Canny is your home for all feedback. But it’ll only be useful if you invite feedback and encourage discussions.

Here’s how you can promote your Canny board, encourage feedback, and take full advantage of Canny.

First steps with Canny

Getting started with Canny is simple. Follow these steps to set up your feedback portal. You’ll get valuable insights faster than you think!

1. Set up a board. Boards are the foundation of your feedback system. Create boards for different topics or areas of your product. Each board will house related feedback posts.
2. Create new posts. You can create them yourself using the feedback you’ve already received. Users can create posts to give feedback or suggest new features. You can also let Canny automatically create posts from your customer chats (more on that in the Autopilot section). Each post can have upvotes and comments.
3. Upvote. Users vote on the posts they care about. This helps you see which ideas are the most popular and important to your users. Your team members can upvote posts on behalf of other users too.
4. Add comments. Users can start a discussion and help clarify feedback. Both users and team members can participate in the conversation.

Let’s talk about different types of boards. Canny offers public or private boards.

• Public boards are visible to everyone. Use these to collect actionable feedback from all users. They are great for gathering diverse input and fostering a sense of community.
• Private boards are only visible to the people listed in the Admins page in your Canny settings. Use these for internal discussions
• Custom access boards are restricted to specific users or groups. Use these for sensitive topics, internal feedback, or feedback from a select group of customers.

Your Canny portal will become even more valuable if your whole team gets involved. So, invite your team members to join Canny. This helps everyone involved in product development view and manage feedback. Together, you can reply to users faster, dig deeper into insights, and prioritize the right feedback.

Once your collaborators are all set up, try the following:

• Invite users to join. You can send a direct invitation to all your users.
• Add links to your feedback board in your product.
• Promote the board through your communication channels. The more users contribute feedback, the more valuable insight you’ll gain.

We’ll cover each of these in more detail later in the article.

Or, automate feedback collection

Managing feedback can take considerable time. That’s why we built Canny Autopilot – to automate your routine tasks.

Autopilot automatically finds feedback in your customer conversations (in HelpScout, Zendesk, Intercom, Gong, and beyond). Then, it pushes that feedback into Canny and creates posts and upvotes to existing posts. It can also merge duplicates, auto-reply to your users, and summarize comment threads.

You can monitor Autopilot every step of the way and moderate its actions. Or you can let it run and just review its actions later – your choice.

Now that we’ve covered your first steps with Canny, let’s dive into promoting your board.

Promoting your Canny board

It’s time to maximize user engagement and get as much feedback as possible. You’ll make smarter product decisions when you have it all in one place. Here are some effective strategies that our clients use to promote their Canny boards.

Reach out via email

Send emails to your users with a call-to-action (CTA) to visit your Canny board. Highlight the importance of their honest feedback in shaping future product features.

Include links to your Canny board in regular emails too (newsletters, updates, etc). You can even add it to your email signature.

Engage users inside your app

Strategically place links to Canny inside your app. Encourage users to leave feedback after taking a certain action. Make sure those links are easy to find.

“Our customers often mentioned how prominently we feature Canny in our product. We believe that our users perceive us as open, close to the customer, and receptive to feedback because of it.”

Raphael Allstadt, co-founder of tl;dv

Try social media

Invite your social followers to leave you feedback and submit ideas. Use engaging visuals and direct links to your Canny board.

Your social media manager can respond to people sharing feedback and link to your Canny board. Direct all your feedback to one central location.

Add links in customer communications and support channels

If a customer is looking for support, they often have feedback or ideas for your product. Make it easy for them to share. 

• Customer emails and newsletters. Include links to your Canny board in regular customer communications. Always remind users to share their feedback – in monthly newsletters or product update emails.
• Support channels. Ensure your customer support team includes links to the feedback board in their communications. This can be in email signatures, chat conversations, or support articles. You can also set up your chatbot to automatically prompt users to leave feedback. Bonus: automatically funnel feedback from support chats into Canny with Autopilot.
• CRMs. Scan notes from your sales calls for feedback. Often, feature ideas come up. Stress to your sales reps how important it is to pass on that feedback. Also, try Autopilot – it can automatically extract feedback from Gong recordings (more sources coming soon!)

Embed the feedback widget on your website

Embed Canny’s feedback widget on your website to make it easy for visitors to leave feedback without navigating away.

Place this widget on high-engagement pages like the help center or product pages.

Publish changelog entries with CTAs

Whenever you publish a changelog entry, include a CTA inviting users to visit your Canny board. This keeps users engaged and encourages them to provide ongoing feedback.

Share your roadmap publicly

Sharing your product roadmap publicly lets users see what you’re working on and understand your backlog. Make sure to highlight that your roadmap includes feedback and ideas from your users. 

This transparency can motivate users to provide more feedback. They’ll know their input influences future developments. This can help improve your customer experience too.

Check out our recent live session for more ideas and examples.

There’s one more critical thing to remember. Gathering customer feedback is great. But acting on it is essential. Always keep your users in the loop. Here’s how.

Keeping users informed and engaged

Don’t keep your users in the dark. They took their time to send you a feature request. Even if you don’t choose their idea, follow up.

It’s like going through a job application process. Sometimes, you apply and never hear back. Other times, you apply, interview, and also get ghosted. This definitely leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

In contrast, some companies send personalized emails and manage your expectations. They explain their decision and make you feel valued. Even if you don’t get hired, you still feel like the company cared enough to follow up.

It’s similar with customer feedback – follow up, manage users’ expectations, and they’ll appreciate it. Here’s how you can do that.

Regularly update users on feedback status

Regularly update the status of feedback posts to close the feedback loop. Keep users informed about the progress of their suggestions. When you change the status of a post (e.g., from “Under Review” to “In Progress”), Canny sends automatic notifications to users who voted or commented on that post. This shows users you take customer feedback seriously and take action.

Build a community

Canny isn’t just a place for all your feedback. It’s a community portal where your users become more involved and engaged.

Serve your community well – host events, webinars, roadmap presentations, or Q&A sessions. Let users interact with your team, learn more about the product, and provide live feedback. 

Encourage users to discuss their feedback by commenting on posts. You can start conversations by asking follow-up questions or inviting other users to share their thoughts. This will gather more helpful feedback and build a sense of community around your product.

You can also automate part of this. Canny Autopilot includes Smart Replies that reply to users on your behalf. They automatically find posts that lack context and create human-like, relevant responses. They prompt the user to share more details.

Ensure your team members actively participate in these discussions. Their engagement can provide additional insights. It also demonstrates that your team values user input.

Having a more engaged community can help you collect more feedback and ideas.

Why should you invite feedback?

Feedback is essential for successful product development. Promote your Canny board, and you’ll get valuable insight straight from your users. In the meantime, you’ll also create a community. 

Close the feedback loop with regular updates. Encourage discussions and use AI to efficiently manage customer feedback.

Try some or all of these tips to drive more feedback. Your users will thank you 😉

The post Ten tips for promoting your Canny board to gather valuable feedback first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post Ten tips for promoting your Canny board to gather valuable feedback appeared first on Canny Blog.

What if you could know exactly what your customers think and need? That’s what the voice of the customer (VoC) methodology helps you do.

VoC is about collecting and understanding what customers say about your product. It means listening to their feedback and using it to improve.

“Understanding the voice of the customer directly influences how well we can meet and exceed our customer expectations.”

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

When you truly listen to your customers, you can create products they love. VoC helps you build better products and make informed decisions.

“It’s shocking how many product managers don’t talk to their customers. That should be your first conversation.”

Mike Marriage, head of product at Bloomerang

Talking to your customers helps you understand their needs and solve their problems. This makes them happier and more loyal.

So, nothing really new here, right? You’ve know how important feedback management is. So, we’ve decided to explore this framework from a mindset perspective.

What if you didn’t just use the voice of the customer methodology? What if you became the voice of the customer?

The mindset of being the voice of the customer

Imagine if every product decision you made came from your customers’ thoughts. You’d only build products that people love.

Until someone invents a mind-reading tool, we need a workaround. Many experts suggest using the voice of the customer framework to shape your mindset.

“It is very critical that you look at every feature and problem you’re trying to solve from the customer’s perspective. Ultimately, you are the voice of the customer in the organization.”

Mike Marriage, head of product at Bloomerang

Start with active listening. 

“It’s important to actively listen and truly understand the deeper reasons behind their comments. This means not just hearing their words, but considering the context and what they’re trying to tell us.”

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

This means not just hearing the words but grasping the underlying concerns.

Next, practice empathy. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes to better understand their needs and pain points. User feedback is instrumental here.

“By analyzing user feedback, we identified that students felt overwhelmed integrating new information with their existing knowledge. This led us to develop specific features like mind mapping and spaced repetition systems (SRS). This resulted in a 30% increase in user engagement and customer retention within three months.”

Dominic Zijlstra, founder of Traverse

Dominic’s story perfectly illustrates how listening to customers improves products. Being the voice of the customer means:

• Providing space for feedback, comments, suggestions, and ideas
• Having a dialogue with your users (through interviews and discussions)
• Collecting and organizing them all
• Prioritizing the most impactful ideas
• Continuously updating the users on the progress
• Actually building features they care about
• Telling them about it (closing the feedback loop)
• Doing all this continuously

This is where a tool like Canny comes in handy. It can help you do all that, automate parts of this process, and help you become a real feedback champion.

“I try to imagine a meeting. How can the client have a seat at that table? At the end of the day, they’re the primary stakeholder in product decisions. Canny gives the users a seat at that table alongside product, sales, support, marketing, etc. If I see a clear value-add to the product for just one user, I’ll put it on the Canny feedback board so other users can weigh in. From there, it’s up to the product team what they prioritize, of course, but my job is to ensure that the user’s voice is at least heard. And Canny does that.

Jacques Reulet, customer support at Canny

Advocating means pushing for changes that benefit your customers, even if it takes work.

“Give customers easy and clear ways to submit their feedback. Share user feedback with your product teams regularly and advocate for their needs. Clearly explain the value customers get from your products and any gaps or challenges they might be experiencing.”

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

Lastly, commit to continuous learning. Regularly check in with your customers – set up ongoing feedback loops. Constant feedback helps you stay aligned with what your customers want.

How can you do that without overwhelming your customers, though? Getting a check-in email every week will likely end up in the trash very quickly. That’s why many product managers choose a tool like Canny.

“Canny has provided an interactive space where the users feel like they have a voice and are being listened to. It creates that long term relationship and loyalty we’re striving for.”

Chelsea Darby, customer success lead at Aryeo

Adopt this mindset, and you won’t just use the VoC methodology. You’ll become the voice of the customer – a real champion of feedback and an advocate for your customers.

Let’s break down this methodology further.

Voice of the customer program objectives

You need clear objectives to get the best results from the Voice of the Customer (VoC) program. Typically, there are three main goals with this program: 

• Improve your product and features
• Enhance customer service
• Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty

Improve your product and features

Improving your product can mean lots of different things. You might think you’re improving, but you might end up building a feature no one uses.

That’s why it’s imperative to collect and prioritize user feedback. Focusing on the most impactful suggestions can lead to meaningful changes.

“We rely on app ratings, feedback from our regular users, and issues we receive via email or support tickets. Then, we share and discuss these requests with our development and support teams. Based on this input, we prioritize bug fixes, feature requests, and other similar improvements.” 

Stefan Chekanov, co-founder and CEO of Brosix 

Enhance customer service

When you follow through on customer feedback, this happens naturally. Your users will feel heard and valued. 

“I hold regular check-ins and review sessions with customers to discuss their experiences and gather direct feedback. I then share customer insights with our product and engineering team to inform adjustments or new features. I also use feedback to refine customer calls and processes.” 

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

This may all sound great, but how can you know you’re improving customer service? Once again, ask your customers. Chances are, they want to tell you how you’re doing. For example, you can add a quick customer survey at the end of every live chat.

Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty

When customers see that their feedback leads to real changes, they feel valued and heard. This builds long-term relationships.

“When we listen to what [our users] want, we can make changes that meet their specific needs. This makes them feel valued and keeps them coming back.”

Derek Pankaew, founder of Listening.com

By staying in tune with your customers’ needs, you create a loyal customer base that trusts your brand.

When you consistently gather and act on user feedback, you’ll achieve all three objectives simultaneously. Let’s discuss how you can measure the impact of your actions now.

Common VoC metrics

You need to track key metrics to see how well your Voice of the Customer (VoC) program works. These metrics show customer happiness and loyalty.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

This metric shows customer loyalty. You ask customers, “How likely are you to recommend our product to a friend?” on a scale of 0 to 10. Then, you group customers into the following buckets:

• Promoters: 9-10 
• Passives: 7-8
• Detractors: 0-6 are detractors.

Subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters to get your NPS. A higher NPS means more loyal customers.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

This metric measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction. After a customer interaction, like a support call, ask customers to rate their experience on a scale from 1 to 5. A higher customer satisfaction score means happy and loyal customers. CSAT helps you understand customer feelings about specific parts of your service.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES measures how easy it is for customers to achieve their goals with your product. You ask customers if they agree with the statement:

Lower effort scores mean a smoother customer experience. CES helps you find and fix points of friction in the customer journey.

Track these metrics to see where you can improve your product and services.

Now that we are absolutely certain that we need to gather feedback, let’s discuss the “how.”

How to gather customer feedback

To better understand your customers, you need to gather their feedback in different ways. Using only one method might leave you blindsided.

Different customers prefer to give you feedback in different ways. Let’s go back to empathy for a second – put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Maybe you always fill out that post-call survey. Or perhaps you delete it right away. What would make you leave feedback?

The key is this: give your users options.

“To incorporate VoC into day-to-day operations, I recommend setting up multiple feedback channels such as surveys, email feedback, and forums. Analyze the data to identify recurring themes and actionable insights.”

Dominic Zijlstra, founder of Traverse

Here are a few feedback channels you can try.

Feedback portal

Use a dedicated feedback portal like Canny. This lets customers to submit their ideas, comments, and suggestions. They can also upvote existing ideas and follow your product development journey.

Then, you get to the bottom of each feature request, can have a dialogue with your users, and keep them engaged.

Customer interviews

Talk directly to your customers to get deep insights.

“We reach out, we interview, find out what [our users] are doing, what they are up to, what they are hearing, and what trends are.” These chats can reveal valuable details.”

Amanda Laferriere of C2FO

Focus groups

Bring together a small group of customers to discuss your product. This can help you understand their thoughts and feelings in a more dynamic setting.

Customer support chats

Use interactions with support teams to get real-time feedback. These chats help identify common issues and areas for improvement.

Bonus: you can extract feedback from those chats automatically. A tool like Canny Autopilot can find feedback, extract it, add it to your Canny board, and then even deduplicate it.

Online reviews

Read reviews on platforms like the App Store or Google Play. Reviews give you a sense of how customers see your product and highlight both positives and areas that need work.

“For me, the “voice of the customer” is all about understanding what your users really think. For us, it’s like diving into app user reviews and finding out what our users love (or don’t love). These reviews give us a peek into their experiences, helping us see things from their perspective.”

Derek Pankaew, founder of Listening.com

Coming soon: Canny Autopilot will soon be able to extract feedback from online reviews, too. Stay tuned!

Surveys

Send out customer surveys to collect structured feedback. You can ask specific questions to gather customer data on satisfaction and preferences.

Surveys can appear in-app after a user takes a specific action. You can also add them at the end of your customer support chat.

Social media

Monitor social media channels to see what customers are saying about your product. This is a great way to gather unsolicited feedback and engage with users.

On social, users aren’t always expecting to hear back. If you engage, you might pleasantly surprise them and stand out.

Website behavior

Analyze how customers navigate your website to understand their journey and find any friction points. This customer behavior can guide user experience improvements.

For example, your customers might be using a feature in a way you didn’t intend. This may lead to confusion and frustration. If you can detect it, you can then reach out, provide helpful tutorials, and improve your tool.

Sales, support, and success calls

Feedback from these calls can reveal valuable insights about customer needs and challenges. Gather and analyze this feedback to improve your service.

Bonus: once again, Canny Autopilot can automatically find feedback in these channels. You won’t need to spend time adding that feedback to your portal anymore. Now, all feedback will automatically appear in one central place. Plus, it’ll be deduplicated and ready to use!

Emails

Encourage customers to share their thoughts and suggestions via email. This can provide detailed insights. Whenever you can, add a line about feedback to your emails. Your users will feel like you’re open to their suggestions.

Analyzing and prioritizing feedback

It’s one thing to gather your customers’ feedback. It’s another thing to analyze it and really understand it. Analyzing your feedback lets you get to the root of your customers’ challenges. 

How to analyze qualitative and quantitative feedback

Start by categorizing feedback into qualitative and quantitative types. Qualitative feedback includes comments and suggestions that provide detailed insights into customer experiences. Quantitative feedback includes metrics and ratings that you can measure and track.

For qualitative feedback, look for common themes and patterns. This helps you understand the underlying issues and customer needs. Tools like text analysis software can help identify recurring words and phrases.

You can analyze quantitative feedback through statistical methods. Look at average ratings, NPS scores, and other metrics to identify trends. This data can show you how widespread certain issues are and how your customers feel overall.

Prioritize feedback based on impact and feasibility

Not all feedback is equally important. To prioritize, consider both the impact and feasibility of each suggestion.

When you really understand your customers’ needs, you can make the case to prioritize their feature requests. Make sure your prioritization formula factors in the impact feedback has on key customers.

High-impact changes will make a big difference to many users. Feasible changes are improvements you can make with the resources you have.

Create a matrix to map out feedback based on these two criteria. Focus on changes that are both high-impact and feasible. These are the ones that will provide the most value with the least effort.

Using a tool like Canny can streamline this process. Canny helps you collect, organize, and prioritize feedback in one place. It also makes it easy to track progress and keep users informed about the status of their suggestions.

“If it weren’t for Canny, we’d have to hire a product manager way sooner. The whole team and I save so much time by cataloging and triaging feedback so easily. I never want to go back to pre-Canny days.”

Evan Kirkham, co-founder of Outlier

Integrating VoC into product development

We’re doing all this to improve our products. That’s the real goal here. So use all the feedback you get to inform your product decisions.

Here’s how you can integrate customer feedback into your product roadmap.

Make it a habit to include customer insights in your product planning meetings. Remember – you are the voice of the customer!

Your team can’t address every piece of feedback at once. Use a system to prioritize changes based on impact and feasibility. Tackle high-impact, easy-to-implement changes first – the low-hanging fruit. You can‌ make significant improvements without overloading your team.

“VoC gives us real insights that help us create an even better customer experience. Without a nuanced understanding of our users, we’d be shooting in the dark, developing features without any real direction.”

Stefan Chekanov, co-founder and CEO of Brosix

Always close the loop with your customers. Let them know how their feedback has influenced your product decisions. This builds trust and encourages more feedback in the future.

“Lastly, close the feedback loop. Always let customers know how you used their feedback. This strengthens their trust, promotes engagement, and improves your relationship.”

Julia Valade, customer success manager at Canny

Use tools like Canny to document feedback and track progress. This helps keep everyone on the same page and ensures no customer insight gets lost.

Don’t just use VoC; be VoC

Many articles talk about using the voice of the customer framework. We encourage you to become the voice of the customer.

This means making every product decision with your customers’ needs in mind. By truly listening and acting on feedback, you create products that your users love.

Canny can help make this process easier. It organizes feedback, helps you prioritize changes, and keeps customers in the loop. You can save time and make sure every piece of feedback counts.

You no longer have to dream about reading your customers’ minds. You can find out exactly what they’re thinking and tailor-make your product just for them.

Try Canny today to streamline your VoC efforts and become a true advocate for your customers.

The post How to use the voice of the customer methodology to build products customers love first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post How to use the voice of the customer methodology to build products customers love appeared first on Canny Blog.

Without their feedback, you make decisions based on guesswork.

Feedback comes from many channels – surveys, customer conversations, social media, reviews, and emails. This can be overwhelming and it’s easy to miss important insights.

Organizing this feedback can be tricky. That’s what we’ll talk about in this article – how to organize customer feedback. Effective customer feedback management starts with organized feedback.

Methods of collecting feedback

Collecting customer feedback is the first step to understanding your users. It’s important to gather feedback from different sources to get a complete picture. Here are some key methods.

Surveys

Surveys are a great way to collect detailed feedback. They let you ask specific questions and get useful answers. You can use online tools like Google Forms, Typeform, or SurveyMonkey to create and share surveys. Distribute them through email, your website, or on social media.

Social media

Social media platforms are full of customer feedback. People often share their thoughts and experiences on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Watching these channels helps you gather real-time feedback. Social listening tools like Hootsuite and SproutSocial can help you track and analyze this feedback.

Customer reviews

Reviews on websites like Capterra, G2, and Google provide valuable insights. Encourage your customers to leave reviews and make it easy for them. Don’t forget to respond to reviews – it shows that you value their opinions and want to improve.

Feedback forms and portals

Direct feedback forms on your website or app are another effective method. You can create a custom feedback form and strategically place it across your website and in-app. For example, it can appear after a user takes a certain action in your app.

Canny lets you create a feedback form and link it to an organized feedback portal. Form submissions appear in one central place – your feedback portal.

You can also direct customers directly to your feedback portal. They can easily leave feedback and see what your other customers are asking for.

These forms can collect specific feedback about user experiences or general suggestions. Make your feedback forms easy to find and fill out.

Customer communications

Your customers won’t always leave you feedback where you want them to. You might have a dedicated feedback form. You can send out a survey, but your users will leave feedback where it’s convenient for them. For example, they might share something during a call with your customer success rep. Or they might message your support chat and mention they’re missing a certain feature. You can direct them to your feedback board at that moment, but there are no guarantees they’ll follow through.

Collecting feedback from those conversations is critical, though. Make sure your team understands how important this is and captures that feedback in a way you can access it.

The key to organizing: combining feedback sources

You get feedback from lots of different sources already. Maybe you’re already tracking some of this feedback. The goal is to get a full view of customer opinions. Each source offers unique insights.

First, make sure you’re checking all these sources. Then, find a place to store and consolidate all your feedback. This is how you’ll get a complete understanding of your customers’ needs and preferences. 

Once you have a combined, deduplicated list of all your feedback, you’ll have something to work with. 

Only then can you make informed product decisions based on feedback.

Product managers use a variety of tools for this:

• Spreadsheets/Google Sheets/Air Table
• Boards like Trello
• Project management tools like Asana, Monday, ClickUp

These tools are a great start, but they’re not dedicated to feedback. As a result, you might run into issues down the line. For example, you’ll likely run into duplicate feedback. Manually combining it is time-consuming.

We recommend a dedicated feedback portal.

Featured tool: Canny

Canny can be your dedicated feedback portal. Instead of copy-pasting feedback from various sources, you’ll have all of it neatly organized in one place. Canny integrates with most feedback sources, so you can easily capture it.

You can also:

• Invite users to submit feedback, feature requests, ideas, and bug reports
• Add feedback on users’ behalf
• Let users upvote existing ideas
• Upvote ideas on their behalf
• Invite users to comment on existing posts and have conversations
• And more

Canny Autopilot is the newest AI addition to Canny. It automatically extracts feedback from communication channels like Intercom, Zendesk, HelpScout, Gong, and more. Then, Autopilot:

• Centralizes and automates feedback management: collect and manage feedback from multiple sources in one platform.
• Deduplicates feedback: don’t waste time removing and merging duplicates manually.

You can prioritize your ideas and quickly find the most impactful projects.

Deduplicating & merging feedback

When you have lots of feedback, you’ll eventually run into duplicated requests. Set aside some time to comb through everything and find those duplicates. Your feedback portal will get much cleaner when those duplicates are merged together. 

Finding and combining them manually takes a lot of time and effort. It can easily take all day. That’s why Canny Autopilot has a built-in deduplication feature. It can suggest what to merge or merge duplicates automatically.

Canny Autopilot suggesting to create new posts or merge duplicated posts

If two posts are almost identical, you can add someone’s upvote to an existing post. That way, your board will be even more clean and organized.

It’s easy to get lost in a sea of ideas. Deduplication helps you see the most important feature requests.

Categorizing feedback

It’s time to make all that feedback actionable. And that’s when we get to categorization. This helps you see patterns, prioritize issues, and effectively address customer needs. Here are some methods to categorize feedback.

Thematic organization

Start by grouping feedback based on common themes. These might include product quality, bugs, customer service, user experience, or feature requests. For example:

• Product quality: comments about the durability, functionality, and reliability of your product. This can include bugs and feature requests.
• Customer service: feedback about the support and assistance customers received (including customer support, success, and sales).
• Customer experience: insights into how easy or difficult it is to use your product.

Take it further with Canny – create a separate feedback board for each theme.

Tagging and labeling

Another effective method is to tag and label feedback. You can mark each piece of feedback with specific tags to make it easier to sort and analyze. Try the following tags:

• Sentiment-based tags: positive or negative
• Suggestions for improvement: ideas from customers on how to enhance your product or service.
• Key performance indicators: retention, upsells, or NPS.
• Sprints: Q1 sprint, bug bash, up next.
• Urgency: urgent, high priority, or customer promise.
• Effort: low, medium, or high.
• Platform: desktop, mobile, etc.

Use tags to categorize, quickly filter, and prioritize your feedback.

We add a tag to each post in Canny and set up automation to speed this up. For example, we can ask Canny to tag each post containing the keywords “billing” and “account” as “Billing.”

Then, we can easily filter our boards by certain tags to only see certain posts. We can quickly find what we need. Our roadmap has a separate column for tags, so we always know what we’re looking at.

Segmenting

Segmenting your users helps you see what different customers are requesting. For example, you can create the following segments:

• Free users
• Paying accounts
• Churned users
• B2B clients
• People who signed up in the last 6 months
• Individuals based on their role

Not all clients are created equal. Sometimes there’s a specific user group you want to focus on.

Let’s say your number one concern is churn. You can focus on the feedback churned or churning customers shared. Then, you can fix those issues and try to win them back.

Segmentation helps you see who sends what kind of feedback. This visibility makes product decisions easier. You’ll instantly know what the most important groups of customers care about the most.

Analyzing feedback

The next step is to analyze your feedback. You want to understand the underlying trends and sentiments. Here are some methods you can try.

Quantitative data analysis

Quantitative data analysis involves looking at measurable data. Here are key aspects to focus on:

• Frequency of mentions: track how often certain topics or issues are mentioned. This helps identify the most common concerns or praises among your users. In Canny, you can quantify this with the number of votes each post gets.
• Revenue: tie feedback to MRR or ARR. This will show you what ideas are associated with the most revenue.

Qualitative insights

Qualitative analysis focuses on the content of the feedback. This involves interpreting the meaning behind users’ comments. Key methods include:

• Sentiment analysis: determine whether feedback is positive, negative, or neutral. This helps you gauge the overall mood of your customers.
• Feedback themes and patterns: look for recurring themes or patterns in the feedback. This can reveal common issues or areas where users see the most value.
• Contextual details: consider the context in which feedback is given, such as customer personas and scenarios. This helps you understand the specific needs and experiences of different user groups. Consider asking customers for additional context if their feedback is vague. 

Automating feedback analysis with Canny

Canny can simplify the process of analyzing feedback. Here’s how:

• Automated tagging and categorization. Canny can automatically tag and categorize feedback based on themes like product quality, customer service, and user experience. This saves time and ensures consistency.
• Customer segmentation. Segment feedback based on different customer groups. This will help you better understand the needs and experiences of various user personas. For example, you’ll quickly see what the highest-paying customers are requesting. This will help you make ROI-based product decisions.
• Vote tracking. Quickly see which features are in high demand. You can merge duplicated requests by having one original post and adding votes to it. Then, you’ll get a real sense of how popular each request is.
• Comment Summaries. Sometimes you’ll have a long thread of comments under a post. Now you can get an instant summary of the key points in one click.  

Prioritizing feedback

Even with your feedback organized by tag, segment, and theme, it can still be challenging to know what to do with all the feedback. Which piece of feedback is the most important?

Prioritizing helps you pay attention to the most important issues first. Here’s how to prioritize feedback effectively.

Impact and urgency

Consider both the impact and urgency of the issues. Evaluate how significant the feedback is and how quickly it needs to be addressed. Here are some key factors to consider:

• Impact on user experience. Prioritize feedback that significantly affects the user experience. For example, if a bug prevents users from accessing a key feature, it needs immediate attention.
• Business impact. Assess how ‌feedback impacts your business goals. Feedback that can lead to increased revenue, customer retention, or market competitiveness should be a top priority.
• Cost. Consider the cost of acting on each piece of feedback – money, time, and other resources. 
• Frequency of feedback. Issues that multiple users mention frequently indicate a widespread problem.
• Urgency. How critical is each piece of feedback? Will customers churn if you don’t fix this soon?

There are lots of prioritization frameworks and models that can help assess all of these factors. For example, you can try the Impact-Effort matrix. It encourages you to think about how easy or difficult it’ll be to build each feature. 

Check out more prioritization frameworks here.

Before you jump into fixing mode, try to identify the root cause of each issue.

Root cause analysis

Root cause analysis is a method to identify the underlying causes of an issue. By understanding the root cause, you can implement more effective and lasting solutions. Here’s how to perform root cause analysis.

1. Identify the problem. Clearly define the problem based on the feedback you received.
2. Gather data. Collect all relevant data related to the problem. This includes feedback details, user reports, and any related metrics.
3. Analyze the data. Look for patterns and commonalities in the data to identify potential root causes.
4. Identify root causes. Use techniques like the “5 Whys” (asking “why” repeatedly until the root cause is found) to drill down to the underlying issue.
5. Implement solutions. Develop and implement solutions. Test and monitor the solution.

How we prioritize at Canny

Canny can help you effectively prioritize your feedback.

No two businesses are the same, so a custom prioritization formula will help serve your unique needs. Here’s how it works in Canny.

1. Define prioritization factors. Common factors include:
   • Impact factors
     • Customer impact
     • Revenue potential
     • User engagement
     • Votes
     • Churn impact
   • Effort factors
     • Development effort
2. Assign weights to factors. For example, you might decide that customer impact is twice as important as development effort. Weights help ensure that the most critical factors have the greatest influence on the final score.
3. Scoring system. Canny’s prioritization feature is flexible and supports any prioritization model you want to use. No matter which model you choose, it boils down to the Impact / Effort formula. Team Canny uses a weighted scoring method.
4. Instantly get the final score. Canny automatically gives you the final score for each piece of feedback. It calculates it by combining the weighted impact and effort scores. Canny normalizes these scores to ensure a balanced comparison. The formula is Score = Impact / Effort.

5. Adjust and refine. You can adjust the weights and factors as your business priorities change. This way your prioritization never goes stale and always aligns with your business goals.

Example of a custom prioritization formula

Suppose your business decides the following factors are important:

• Potential revenue (weight: 2)
• User votes (weight: 1.5)
• Churn impact (weight: 3)

If a piece of feedback scores:

• Potential revenue: 50
• User votes: 40
• Churn impact: 60

The calculation would be:

• Potential revenue: 50 * 2 = 100
• User votes: 40 * 1.5 = 60
• Churn impact: 60 * 3 = 180

Total impact score = 100 + 60 + 180 = 340

If the effort required is scored at 4: final score = (340 / 4) * 1000 = 85,000

Use this formula to compare scores for various feedback items and prioritize those with the highest scores. This way you’ll work on the most impactful features first.

If you don’t want to get into the weeds of calculating this, you can let Canny do this for you. Just decide what weight each factor holds, and Canny will do the rest.

Prioritizing by segment

You can also view feedback specifically from your target segments. Canny helps segment feedback by different criteria, such as customer type or product area. This makes it easier to identify and prioritize critical feedback from key segments.

For example, you might create a segment for your enterprise customers. You can check out what feedback they voted on and quickly understand what features they care most about. You can see the highest-scored items for just that segment. That lets you cater to this key segment by acting on their feedback.

Use feedback to build a roadmap

Now that you’ve collected, organized, and prioritized feedback, you can add it to your roadmap. The roadmap further organizes your feedback. It gives you a clear path of what you’ll build and when.

Link user feedback directly to planned features and improvements. Find high-impact features that address common pain points or add significant value to the user experience. Those should make it to your roadmap.

Here are a few roadmap templates to help you get started.

Closing the feedback loop

We’ve talked a lot about gathering, organizing, and actioning user feedback. Closing the feedback loop is often just as important. If you build a feature but don’t tell your customers about it, how will they find out? Keeping track of who left what feedback is an organizational challenge in itself. Having a tool that automatically does this solves that challenge. 

Consider these two main ways of closing the feedback loop.

1. Work-in-progress updates

When you select an idea, start working on it, or have updates, let your users know. In Canny, you can automatically email everyone who created, upvoted, or commented on a feature request.

Don’t keep your users wondering if you’re listening to their feedback. If they don’t see updates, they typically stop sending requests or hoping to see any changes. In contrast, when they see progress, they know their opinion matters. They are more likely to keep sending you ideas and getting engaged with your product. And when they’re engaged, they become loyal customers.

2. Product announcements

Without a feedback portal, you’ll need to manually collect emails from each person and connect them to every feature request.

If you use a dedicated feedback tool (like Canny), you’ll always know who wanted which feature. Then, you can automatically message each person and notify them about your new feature.

If you want to really boost customer loyalty, always follow up with the users who submitted feedback.

“It’s easy to forget how bad the feedback loop could be sometimes in many SaaS companies. That’s evident from the customer reaction we get. When a user submits feedback, and we respond almost right away, they’re really taken aback. “Wait, someone actually gets and reads this? I was expecting it to go into a black hole and never hear back,” – is a typical client response.”

Joey Muething, product manager at Appcues

Keep your feedback organized to inform product decisions

Collecting feedback is awesome, but it’s only the first step. That feedback becomes valuable only when you organize it well. To organize it, you should first put it all in one place. Then, you can sort, prioritize, and analyze it. Many people segment user feedback based on who submits it. This helps to build an actionable product roadmap.

Don’t forget to close that feedback loop to create trusting and loyal customers. If you follow all these steps, you’ll create winning products in no time!

The post How to organize customer feedback easily and effectively first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post How to organize customer feedback easily and effectively appeared first on Canny Blog.

Retreats bring us new energy and ideas. We bond, brainstorm, and collaborate in person. For a remote team like Canny, these retreats offer the in-person interaction we miss. This retreat had a big goal—to launch Canny Autopilot. Here’s what went down in Perugia.

Preparation

Retreats always need extensive preparation. As the team grows, we need to think through everything even more. In particular:

• Dates: what works for everyone (or at least the largest number of people)?
• Destination: which place doesn’t require visas (or issues visas easily)?
  • Where can most of the team easily get to?
  • We prefer places that offer interesting sightseeing/activities
• Accommodations: are there enough beds, bathrooms, and common areas for work?
  • Ideally, we also look for accommodations with cool features like a pool, sauna, views, large kitchen, ping pong table, and more
  • Is there good wifi?
• Food (restaurants, supermarkets, etc)
• Work meetings: who wants to talk about what? What are some high-level decisions we should all discuss? What are we trying to accomplish this time?
• Activities: what are we going to do for fun?

With 15 attendees, finding the perfect place is challenging. Early planning is key.

Assemble the troops

Eight retreat planners volunteered to help. We started with destination, accommodation, and food research.

Start planning asap

We sent out a survey with proposed dates almost immediately after the previous retreat. The sooner we lock them in, the faster we can start planning the rest.

Cross off the big things – destination & accommodations

We’ve tried different retreat formats at Canny—large cities, smaller remote towns, and something in between.

Here’s the tradeoff: in prominent cities like Tokyo, we are forced to split the group between multiple Airbnbs. It’s also harder to come together in one place and have meetings.

Smaller towns can offer larger accommodations (with fun perks like a pool, gym, theatre, and more) but don’t have that much around them.

Our post-retreat surveys revealed that most of the team prefers a cooler space over a larger city. This goes back to our goal—come together to collaborate and share ideas.

We took that feedback and prioritized smaller towns with fun Airbnbs. We also had to consider visa requirements and flight durations. This is when we have a spreadsheet going with viable options and columns relating to the cost of flights and accommodations.

We chose a town in Italy called Deruta. It’s in the province of Umbria, next to Perugia. Our primary reasons were:

• Large accommodations with just enough bedrooms, bathrooms, and common areas
• Excellent amenities like a pool, sauna, hot tub, ping pong and foosball table, gym, and even donkeys!

Collect ideas

We always set up a Canny board to crowd source ideas for the retreat.

After we have a prioritized list of ideas (based on votes, cost, proximity to our accommodations, and more), we pick the best dates for them. Typically, it’s easier to book many things on weekdays. That’s why we usually swap one or two weekdays with weekend days for work and play. This way, we avoid crowds and sometimes get a better price.

Our winning ideas this time included:

• Truffle hunting (with a dog!) and pasta-making experience
• Exploring Perugia (capital of Umbria)
• Authentic Italian cooking class at our villa

Plan work

This retreat the biggest thing on our mind was Autopilot—our AI-powered feedback management tools that we just released. We used this time to:

• Determine the final steps to get it ready for launch
• Finish writing and testing code
• Align with the rest of the team on functionality, marketing, messaging, and more 

We’ve been working on Autopilot for some time. Getting everyone together in person to tackle the final roadblocks was very impactful. Communication flows faster and easier when you’re all in one room.

We also had meetings about go-to-market priorities, customer experience, and Canny’s overall direction. Everyone could voice their concerns, ask questions, and align on our future.

Make it happen

After months of waiting, we all met in Rome. Some of us explored the city for a few hours, while others drove straight to the Airbnb.

We always do a kickoff presentation to get everyone excited and set goals for the week ahead.

We made time for fun too. The Airbnb amenities were amazing—perfect for strategic chats overlooking the Italian countryside.

During one of our days off, we went on a truffle hunting experience. A trained dog named Dado led the pack. He sniffed out the truffles, dug them up in seconds, and immediately asked for treats.

After we collected enough truffles, we explored a local winery and then learned how to make pasta and cookies from scratch. All this hard work called for some rest, so we had a wine tasting along with all the food we made. It was also Ramiro’s birthday so this was an awesome way to celebrate all together 🙂

Other highlights included exploring Perugia and Assisi and cooking an Italian dinner at our villa. It’s safe to say that we all brought home some new cooking skills.

Another highlight for me was our PechaKucha night. PechaKucha is a Japanese presentation format. The presenter is only allowed 20 slides, and they have 20 seconds per slide. It’s a quick and fun way to present anything you want.

When new team members join Canny, we ask them to do a PechaKucha about their lives. Since we’re all remote, we do them virtually.

This time, we did them in person. Anyone could do one and pick any topic they liked. As a result, we learned about:

• Bikepacking from Niall
• Fast & Furious from Ramiro
• Being a dad from Eric
• Having pet pigeons from Miko

Learning about each other outside of work is always special. We find more things in common, get new ideas, and just become closer. This helps us work together better and understand each other more.

Canny in Italy: what we learned

As we mentioned, we send out a post-retreat survey when we come back. It helps us make the next one even better.

Here’s what we learned on this retreat.

• Plan meetings more in advance and in more detail. Meetings can easily go off-script and overtake an entire day.
• Try not to schedule a major public release during the retreat. This put pressure on certain team members.
• Think about food more. Assign responsibilities in advance.
• Ensure we’ve got sufficient Internet connection.

Overall, this was another great retreat for the books. We’re now busy with planning the 10th Canny retreat!

We hope these tips will help you plan your retreat, too. Share your retreat learnings with us too—we’d love to hear about your experience.

The post La dolce vita con Canny: team retreat in Italy first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post La dolce vita con Canny: team retreat in Italy appeared first on Canny Blog.

In my experience, many people in business still struggle to understand the exact job of customer success. This has been the case for 20+ years since its start.

The confusion is so widespread. Last year, 56.3% of customer success managers (CSMs) said they did customer support. This number barely improved to 51.2% when we asked again this year for our CSM Insights report. 

Today, let’s look at some clear insights. They show how a successful collaboration between customer success and support can work. But before that, I should go into why people are so confused.

Defining success and support

Customer success is a proactive business function. It is a department. It ensures that customers get value from a product. It does this through various tactics. These include:

• Onboarding optimization
• Proactive support
• Organizational goal-alignment
• Expansion and growth tactics

CSMs oversee account management. They ensure clients succeed with the company. And try to secure upsells or cross-sells, growing revenue.

On the other hand, customer support is a reactive business function in charge of customer service. Support agents oversee the ticketing system. They also oversee the customer feedback system. They step in to solve common customer issues or requests. They review feedback to decide what to pass up to the product team.

Main difference is in approach

Beyond other details, support and customer success teams differ fundamentally. One is proactive, the other is reactive. One focuses on customer goals. The other focuses on solving customer issues. Here’s a related side-by-side comparison.

So why the confusion?

I believe the main confusion between the two roles comes from the fact that CSMs are very good at service. Why? It’s simple. They know the account and all the common product or service issues. They are willing to help. In fact, the lead support agent often asks the account CSM for help. This happens when an issue is more hands-on or urgent.

I think that’s a good team-based way to keep service quality. But, only if it doesn’t disrupt the CSMs. But how does one ensure that? How do you make sure customer success management doesn’t become glorified support or yet another cost center? Where do you draw the line?

I am the founder and CEO of Custify, a customer success platform. This question has always been a balancing act for us and our customers. In what follows, I’ll go through some experience-backed tactics I’ve seen. 

How customer support and success can work together

1. CSMs step in and help as needed/upon request

The best way to ensure effective collaboration is the one we’ve already mentioned:

• Support agents notice issues that are urgent, need more care, or happen often.
• Support managers decide which issues are important. They decide when to draw in the customer success leader for each account.
• CSMs step in and assist according to customer needs, while the support agent retains ownership.
• When an issue is more complex, they give it to the customer success manager.

This may look very different for your success or support team. The details depend on your business model, but the basic idea remains. Some issues are too complex. They are also too time-consuming for the customer support team. In such cases, a CSM helping is more effective.

2. CSMs ensure customer goal alignment and collaboration

CSMs ensure customer focus. They talk about what the customer wants. And they work on realizing value, onboarding, and advanced CS tactics.

CSMs have many tasks. But, I think the most important thing is aligning customers’ desired outcome. It’s also vital to foster collaboration.

How does that happen? It implies a series of steps involving nearly all of those teams.

1. First, the head of CS makes a customer journey map. They work with all key stakeholders to ensure it captures the journey well.

2. Next, CS ensures that everyone in the company has access to the map. They also ensure that all who work with customers, like customer support teams, read and grasp it.
3. CS optimizes collaboration with other departments. This typically means:
   1. Customer support feels at ease working with CS. They work together on complex issues.
   2. A proper sales-to-CS handoff is in place. CS should have sales training from a sales rep.
   3. All customer-facing teams can work effectively with the product team.
   4. All the various cross-departmental software solutions and datasets are centralized.
4. The customer success team also tells other teams about customer goals. It ensures they see them using the CS software. It also ensures they see the feedback. They use product feedback software or other tools set by the company.

This alignment can grow to be company-wide. But, the core should remain among support, success, sales, and product teams.

3. Support agents communicate issues up the chain

Collaboration goes both ways. Reps need to also feel comfortable pushing issues to the product or customer success team. They should do this in any of the following cases:

• When there’s a frequent feature request
• When a high-value or best-fit account has a complaint or request for a new feature
• When there’s a frequent issue customers raise to support
• When an issue becomes so complex it requires its own script
• When they don’t know how to solve an issue
• When it’s clear there’s a poor customer-product fit

4. Support shares account info and scripts with CSMs

Customer support must also do its part to ensure alignment. Some examples:

• Write down details about customers. Write down details about their customer interactions.
• They share any scripts they make. CSMs can use them if they run into the same issue while talking to customers.
• You will help CS recover lost accounts. You will also help them stop churn.
• Help CS personalize customer interactions. Do this whenever needed.

5. Both CS and support work together

32.4% of people who talk to customers think personalized messages are the right way to do it. This is from the State of Customer Messaging. They think it is closely followed by product and service improvements based on feedback, at 27.4%.

Smart integrations can help CS and support work together. They can optimize both. CSMs can review support information. Support can review CS information. This brings together the pieces of the puzzle: customer value realization.

How both teams measure their success

Customer support measures the quality and speed of resolution. This is a combination of quantitative and qualitative factors. The balance will be up to each and every company to decide. You can also set different goals depending on:

• The message channel. If the interactions happens via text, it should be graded differently from a call, for example.
• The type of customer. If the account is high touch and frequently shows up in the help center, then it makes sense to have longer calls.
• The goal of the interactions. Some interactions are meant to put out fires. Others are meant for customer education. Others still might be about advanced features. Each of these should be graded differently.

Customer success, however, has far more diverse and complex KPIs and metrics. Depending on the organization, the focus of the customer success leader can be:

• Preventing churn, ensuring customer retention, growing customer loyalty. CSMs who have this as a priority need early warning systems for at-risk customers. They also need to set up proactive measures. The quality and effectiveness of these is measured by the monthly, gross, and net recurring revenue (MRR, GRR, NRR). Most also keep an eye on churn rate.
• Securing expansion revenue. CSMs today need to be seen as more than a cost center. They are eager to prove their role as true revenue generators. The best way to achieve that is by using their sales skills to get upsells, cross-sells, or feature additions. The number of upgrades is a good performance metric. So is the expansion revenue they bring.
• Increasing customer lifetime value. Lifetime value (LTV or CLTV) is one of the key metrics in CS. It’s often put together with customer acquisition cost (CAC), turning into the LTV:CAC ratio – a metric many use as a north star. By focusing on it, CSMs have to do everything in their power to grow their accounts. This includes upsells, churn reduction, and more.
• Facilitating customer value. Companies that are smarter or more  complex will reframe digital customer success to focus on customer value. After all, a customer that sees the value becomes loyal and is more likely to upgrade. The best way to track this is through a metric called Time to Value (TTV). Customers who get adequate training and customer onboarding reach this value sooner. Customer success must be able to track that.

All in all, you can see that success and support differ when it comes to measuring their performance.

Looking at customer success vs satisfaction vs experience

Many business people are even more confused. They don’t understand the difference. Customer success is not the same as customer experience. Even more confusing, there’s also customer satisfaction. Why do we need so many terms for more or less the same thing?

I tend to agree. However, let’s put it to rest with a few simple definitions:

• CSAT measures how satisfied customers are. You measure it through a survey. It’s often used in conjunction with the Net promoter score (NPS).
• Customer experience, aka CX, is used as a blanket term for the entire experience a customer has with your business. This can be experience with the product, services, or people within your organization.
• Both CSAT and CX are part of customer success in a way. CSAT is a tool that the success team uses. CX is something they oversee.

Closing the gap between success and support

The gap between customer success and support doesn’t need to be a roadblock to your success. 

It can be a bridge and an opportunity. It’s a path for both teams to work together. They can work towards the goal of pleasing customers. They can also work to grow the organization. Your growth will last only if the whole company’s cogs work together well. It all starts and ends with your customers’ success.

The post Bridging the gap between success and support: who handles what? first appeared on Canny Blog.

The post Bridging the gap between success and support: who handles what? appeared first on Canny Blog.