Dan Martell - How To Collect Customer Feedback Without Committing To SaaS Product Roadmap

00:00:00.000 Hey there.

00:00:00.500 Dan Martell here, CEO, entrepreneur, investor,

00:00:02.280 and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.840 In this video, I'm going to teach you

00:00:05.400 how to get customer feedback without committing

00:00:08.940 to any new product roadmap.

00:00:10.680 And be sure to stay at the end where

00:00:11.960 I'm going to tell you how to get access to my revenue expansion

00:00:14.360 maximizer framework, which is going

00:00:15.960 to allow you to understand the four ways you can add revenue

00:00:18.840 to your SaaS product without adding any new code.

00:00:30.000 So the other day I was talking to one of my coaching clients, Heather, and she was frustrated 0.86

00:00:39.060 because her sales team kept talking with customers and committing to changes around their product

00:00:46.200 and what they could expect in timelines for things.

00:00:48.920 And her challenge was, is I don't want to stop people from getting advice or feedback

00:00:53.640 about the product from customers, but what she doesn't want people to do,

00:00:57.600 and maybe you've experienced this,

00:00:58.800 is commit to any specific timeline.

00:01:01.020 So I actually walked her through the strategy

00:01:03.420 that I used to build my company, Flowtown, and many others,

00:01:06.900 where I not only got the customers engaged,

00:01:09.120 but I also made sure that I created an experience

00:01:11.220 where they felt heard, and more importantly,

00:01:13.860 wowed them at the end if and when we finally

00:01:16.400 released that feature with no expectations.

00:01:19.540 So that's what I want to dive in today,

00:01:21.420 the five strategies to make sure you get customer feedback

00:01:24.340 without committing to anything.

00:01:26.220 Number one, early adopters.

00:01:28.060 The first thing you need to do is make sure

00:01:29.640 that you actually get feedback from the right kind

00:01:32.000 of customer.

00:01:32.740 So if you've ever read Jeffrey Moore's technology adoption

00:01:36.240 curve, you have early adopters, early majority,

00:01:38.400 you have the chasm.

00:01:39.980 And the key is to make sure that you're getting feedback

00:01:42.120 from people that are going to teach you

00:01:43.440 about where the market's going, not just talk to folks

00:01:46.760 that are going to add you to add incremental value,

00:01:49.340 nothing exponential.

00:01:50.880 So make sure that even in choosing who you get advice

00:01:54.720 or feedback from that you choose early adopters

00:01:57.480 so you don't end up building a mediocre product.

00:01:59.700 You wanna build something that's got a great product hook

00:02:02.340 and a product promise and can really wow the customer.

00:02:05.220 So choosing is number one.

00:02:06.780 Number two, the customer advisory board.

00:02:09.700 So my belief is that as you build the product,

00:02:12.980 you need to start curating a group of people

00:02:16.600 that are gonna become your cab, your customer advisory board.

00:02:19.100 I've also called it the A team.

00:02:20.780 My last company, Clarity, I had an incredible group,

00:02:23.260 about 25 customers that I called my A team.

00:02:26.340 These are the people that I showed early prototypes

00:02:29.540 of new features.

00:02:30.880 I would get their feedback on click flows.

00:02:33.440 I would ask them about marketing position and launches.

00:02:36.080 But by creating this group of folks that you trust,

00:02:39.280 again, early adopters, you're going

00:02:41.080 to be able to get feedback on things that are going

00:02:44.200 to cost you way less to fix now than waiting

00:02:46.720 until you actually code something or build a whole marketing

00:02:48.920 site around it.

00:02:50.080 So number two is make sure you build that group of peers

00:02:52.760 for the feedback.

00:02:53.960 Number three, watch out for the vocal minority.

00:02:57.320 OK, this is, and I don't know if you've ever

00:02:58.660 had a customer like this.

00:02:59.660 I remember when I was building my company Flowtown,

00:03:01.940 I had a customer that was emailing every week,

00:03:04.500 telling me how much they love my product,

00:03:06.200 wanting to give me advice, ask me if they could invest.

00:03:09.260 And what happens is you have somebody,

00:03:11.540 and maybe you've done this where you've kind of taken

00:03:13.820 on a larger customer, and you're always talking with them,

00:03:16.560 and they're really driving product roadmap.

00:03:18.920 What you want to watch out for is don't build things

00:03:22.200 or prioritized thing based on the vocal minority,

00:03:25.180 people that represent one customer,

00:03:27.560 but they just have the loudest voice.

00:03:29.100 Because that is when, and I've had this recently,

00:03:31.080 a company invested in, they essentially

00:03:33.540 took on a customer that was 10 times bigger than everybody

00:03:36.200 else, and they started asking for certain features

00:03:39.820 around the product.

00:03:40.960 And they built it out and built it out.

00:03:42.320 Eventually, they built this thing where a third

00:03:44.220 of the product isn't used by any of the other customers,

00:03:47.540 and they still have to support the code, et cetera.

00:03:49.800 And it would have never been worth it economically

00:03:52.420 if they just got that one extra customer.

00:03:54.240 Even if they were 10 times bigger,

00:03:55.840 it was a distraction, confusion, and everybody else

00:03:58.300 couldn't even take advantage or benefit from those features.

00:04:00.760 So watch out for the vocal minority. 0.93

00:04:03.080 Number four, advice, not feedback.

00:04:05.680 This, to me, is the big one.

00:04:07.240 OK, there's a bunch of different ways

00:04:08.520 that you can engage with a customer to get customer feedback.

00:04:11.400 But the key word here is advice.

00:04:13.860 If I'm asking my customer for some feedback on my product,

00:04:18.760 I want to say, hey, I could really use your advice.

00:04:21.760 Because there's a difference.

00:04:22.800 Just think about this.

00:04:23.800 This is a good lesson in life.

00:04:25.340 There is a difference between asking somebody for feedback,

00:04:27.920 which is being critical around something

00:04:29.840 that I'm committed to doing.

00:04:31.880 If I need feedback on a landing page, on a product roadmap,

00:04:35.380 et cetera, it's because I've committed to do this,

00:04:37.640 and I want to make sure that I'm doing the right thing.

00:04:39.700 If I want advice, I still haven't made the decision

00:04:42.820 to move forward with that.

00:04:44.360 So that one change, when I share that with Heather,

00:04:47.000 It really unlocked everything for her,

00:04:48.740 because now all of a sudden she could teach her team

00:04:51.400 how to have these conversations and know

00:04:53.060 that they would never get themselves into a position

00:04:55.460 where they've committed to anything

00:04:57.100 in the short or long term.

00:04:58.700 Number five, log the name and circle back.

00:05:02.180 To me, if you want to wow your customer,

00:05:04.440 if you want to make sure that they feel heard and really

00:05:07.400 get their excitement as you release

00:05:09.400 new features in your product, what you want to do

00:05:12.140 is get that advice.

00:05:14.000 Make sure that if you have your customer advisory board

00:05:16.520 figured out, get the feedback on the prototypes

00:05:18.440 and the marketing message and all these things,

00:05:20.480 and then write their name down in ideally use

00:05:23.060 some kind of story card, agile development process.

00:05:26.300 Write their name in that story so that when it gets released

00:05:29.720 to production, it is somebody's responsibility,

00:05:33.380 ideally the person that talked with the customer,

00:05:35.280 to circle back and say, hey, Jane,

00:05:37.500 I just wanted to let you know that we just released

00:05:39.620 that feature based on your feedback.

00:05:41.640 Really appreciate the time and energy around that.

00:05:44.540 And I think that if you want to wow your customers,

00:05:47.300 align their advice, not feedback, advice,

00:05:50.720 into the product roadmap.

00:05:52.080 And when you release it, you let them know.

00:05:54.040 And that will create a wow experience for your customer,

00:05:57.020 and they will become raving fans of your product.

00:05:59.760 So quick recap, the five ways to collect feedback

00:06:02.360 from customers without committing to roadmap.

00:06:04.600 Number one, only work with early adopters.

00:06:06.700 Number two, build a customer advisory board.

00:06:09.640 Number three, stay away from the vocal minority.

00:06:12.900 Four, use the word advice, not feedback.

00:06:16.660 And five, if you want to wow them,

00:06:18.140 log their name and circle back when you publish their feature.

00:06:22.140 As I promised at the beginning of this video,

00:06:23.580 I want to share with you an exclusive resource called

00:06:25.700 the Revenue Expansion Maximizer.

00:06:27.640 It's a framework to help you add new revenue to your SaaS

00:06:31.140 business without adding any new features.

00:06:33.140 So you can click the link below to download

00:06:34.760 that copy for yourself.

00:06:36.220 Be sure to check out the value metric strategy,

00:06:38.040 because to me, that is the most powerful way for you

00:06:40.800 to align your product value and the customer's revenue

00:06:44.340 potential.

00:06:44.980 So you can click the link to download that.

00:06:46.560 If you like this video, be sure to smash the like button.

00:06:49.920 Subscribe.

00:06:50.420 And if there's anybody you think that this could serve,

00:06:52.140 feel free to share it with them directly.

00:06:54.220 As per usual, I want to challenge you

00:06:55.560 to live a bigger life and a bigger business.

00:06:57.400 And I'll see you next Monday.

00:07:01.680 Anybody like the new background?

00:07:03.400 It's a video day.

00:07:05.320 Let's do it.

Dan Martell - April 08, 2019

How To Collect Customer Feedback Without Committing To SaaS Product Roadmap

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript