Organizing Client Feedback for Better Outcomes

I've seen too many enterprise software companies get caught with customers in the 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗽: • Promise too much = lose focus • Listen too little = lose trust I was super lucky to have two incredibly product-minded co-founders in Ted and Joshua. Of the many things I learned from them, one that has really stuck with me is that while customers understand their pain points better than anyone, they're not best positioned to solve that pain - they're too close to it and just don't have as many data points across variants of that pain, resulting in a failure of imagination as to the optimal solution. Customer feedback is absolute gold, but that doesn't mean every nugget should get directly translated into the product roadmap. The topic came up during the AMA after our Logicbroker All Hands last week - here's what I shared with my team:  1. 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆 - Make sure the customer is heard and build a 3D model of their pain in your head by probing into the granular details of what they're dealing with 2. 𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 - Thank them for the feedback and communicate how this will inform related product research as we work towards an optimal solution 3. 𝗘𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - Have we already solved this pain point, but in a counterintuitive way? Educate the customer on how other clients are successfully handling this today. Encourage them to try it out and share back additional feedback to round out our understanding 4. 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 - Advocate for clients by employing methodologies like RICE (Reach x Impact x Confidence / Effort) to map feedback to prospective projects in a structured way that will automatically reprioritize initiatives as incremental data points are collected over time  5. 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘂𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 - In subsequent client QBRs, share new learnings around initiatives their feedback has matured. Be transparent about where they fall in the company's priorities and update on new related releases that may partially address their original pain point  Valuing customer feedback and protecting the product roadmap are not mutually exclusive. These two goals are inherently intertwined and mutually reinforcing. Building every client request will degrade the product, but ignoring client feedback will also degrade the product - it's a fine balance. Customers don't need a 'yes' - they need to be able to trust that you're listening and leading with purpose.

The worst product ops folks are the ones moving customer feedback from one information silo to another "better one" I've seen this pattern too many times (even in product orgs you look up too) Every lead comes to us with the same problem: "We have scattered feedback sources, we're sleeping on customer insights and our product team has no centralized place to search for customer context" Then they conclude they need an "Insights repository". The thing is, most "insights repositories" out there are static. Sure you'll build a beautiful database of insights and get a shiny dashboard to spot trends across your data. But after 6-12 months, the value ("insightfulness") of that repository will start declining - Outdated feedback - Feature that got shipped still in there - Research projects that never made it to a PRD You'll be tempted to "start fresh", get a clean sheet and you'll find yourself back at square one. You don't need a "repository" You need a system or in other words, a repository that cleans itself with workflows How do you get this? 1/ Pick a tool that makes customer insights actionable by linking them to roadmap items 2/ Check if the integration with Jira/Linear/Github/Clickup syncs statuses too as this will allow the system to actually "live". (Many tools claim they integrate with Jira/Linear but they simply do an API call that creates the issue, they don't keep statuses synced) 3/ Close feedback loops to get data "out of the system" and keep the system healthy Hope this helps! 😃 Drop your questions below, happy to help you out 👇

Generative AI surveys: where your feedback is interactive, valued, and promptly discarded. But hey, at least it’s efficient! Sorry, I know it’s a bit early to be snarky. Seriously though, closing the loop with your customers on their feedback - solicited or unsolicited - is a game changer. Start by integrating customer signals/data into a real-time analytics platform that not only surfaces key themes, but also flags specific issues requiring follow-up. This is no longer advanced tech. From there, create a workflow that assigns ownership for addressing the feedback, tracks resolution progress, and measures outcomes over time. With most tech having APIs for your CRM, also not a huge lift to set up. By linking feedback directly to improvement efforts, which still requires a human in the loop, and closing the loop by notifying customers when changes are made, you transform a simple data collection tool into a continuous improvement engine. Most companies are not taking these critical few steps though. Does it take time, effort, and money? Yes it does. Can it help you drive down costs and drive up revenue? Also, a hard yes. The beauty of actually closing the loop is that the outcomes can be quantified. How have you seen closing the loop - outer, inner, or both - impact your business? #cx #surveys #ceo

Bugs are never fun🐛 🪲 Being the messenger between customers + #product shouldn't feel impossible. #CX fields complaints about broken features while your dev team is drowning in technical debt + sprint commitments. BUT CX & product CAN be friends (promise 🧡 😉) 🎬 Action-->Instead of "Users hate the new dashboard!" try: "Three enterprise clients mentioned the same workflow issue. Sarah from TechCorp says it's adding 15 minutes to her daily routine, and here's what she's trying to accomplish..." 🎬 Action--> Use this model for your feedback meetings w/product Context → Impact → Opportunity - Context: "Based on support tickets and user interviews, we're seeing a pattern..." - Impact: "This is affecting our enterprise segment specifically because..." - Opportunity: "If we addressed this, we could potentially..." This reframes problems as opportunities rather than accusations, and product teams respond way better to opportunities than complaints. 🎬 Action--> Prioritize bugs (pests are notequal) Severity Levels: - Critical: Revenue-affecting, security issues, complete feature failure - High: Major UX problems, painful workarounds required - Medium: Annoying but users can accomplish their goals - Low: Polish items, nice-to-haves 🎬 Action--> Track metrics that matter: - How many users are affected (not just how many complained) - Which customer segments/personas are most impacted - Business impact - How often workarounds being used "Lots of users" becomes compelling when you say "23% of enterprise accounts hit this issue last month, correlating with a 15% spike in support tickets." 🎬 Action--> Words That Work Instead of:"Customers are furious about this bug" Try: "I'm getting consistent feedback about this workflow issue" Instead of: "When will this be fixed?" Try: "Help me understand what we're up against here" Instead of: "This should be simple to fix" Try: "From a user perspective, this seems like it would solve the core issue" Instead of: "Engineering never prioritizes customer issues" Try: "I want to make sure I'm presenting this in a way that helps with prioritization" 🎬 Action--> Connect product + customers Set up customer feedback sessions where product can hear from users. Not crisis meetings – planned, structured conversations. A monthly "Customer Voice" session where one customer talks through their experience can be worth more than a hundred bug reports. When your product team trusts that you understand their constraints and you're not just throwing customer complaints over the fence, they'll be more open to customer feedback. The goal isn't to eliminate bugs or build every FR. It's to create a scalable process where customer feedback influences product decisions, bugs get addressed based on impact + everyone feels heard. Customers don't need perfect software – they need software that gets better in ways that matter to them. #customersuccess 🔥Like + Follow 🔥www.rebelsofSaaS.com 🔥Season 3 Rebels of SaaS 7/11