Start getting valuable feedback from your users now

The Elephants by Salvador Dali, 1948.

One process that early-stage startups work on is to create, automate and optimize their feedback process in order to get the most valuable feedback from users. In this post, I share with early-stage startups how to get the most valuable feedback from its users. So, the first question that startups ask is whom do we ask? How many users do we ask feedback? How do we know that we’re getting the most valuable feedback? How do we collect this feedback and translate them into product decisions?

If you already get user feedback, that’s great. Else, take a pen and paper and draw out your funnel afresh. For the purpose of this post, let’s take a fictional app called Muzak, that let’s users create music playlists and share them with their friends.

Let me draw the user funnel:

What do I want my users to do ultimately? i.e., what is/are the core action/s? Creating their first playlist and Sharing the playlist with 5+ friends.

Before you start with this process, ensure that you identify bottlenecks/high friction points in your user funnel. There are a few friction points among others that stop users from performing the actions I want them to;

• User doesn’t download app from the website
• User doesn’t connect her Spotify account
• User connects her account but doesn’t create a playlist
• User creates her playlist but doesn’t share it with her friends.
• and others…

Try to understand what your baseline conversion rates are at this point for the steps mentioned above. Analytical tools like Google Analytics (Behavioural Flow Feature), Mixpanel or Amplitude give you information on what % of your are exiting at a certain point.

Step 1: Identify users stuck at the steps mentioned below but also your super users

• [Stuck users] User doesn’t download app from the website
• [Stuck users] User doesn’t connect her Spotify account
• [Stuck users] User connects her account but doesn’t create a playlist
• [Stuck users] User creates her playlist but doesn’t share it with her friends
• [Super users] User who creates 5+ playlists
• [Super users] Users who shares with 10+ friends

Ask your engineering team/developer to get you the list of stuck users and super users — how many users? email? We’ve found that contacting users by email results in a high enough response rate if you can personalise your email.

Step 2: Focus on the step you want to improve

Before speaking to your users, start with a problem you’re trying to solve and identify the part of the user funnel (AARRR) that this problem is associated with (Acquisition? Activation? Retention?) Let’s say you notice that many users connect their accounts but don’t create playlists, which prevents them from getting value out of your app. You might then want to find out why connected users haven’t created a playlist.

Step 3: Find the users and reach out

Once you get the list of users from your developer, get to work.I suggest reaching out directly to users by email and sending emails from your professional email (we use Gmail) like yourname@yourcompany.com and not from a generic email (like contact@yourcompany.com. This increases trust given that the user knows who you are. Depending on how many users you have, you can either send emails one by one or use Yet Another Mail Merge to send your emails (like I do ;) ). What this tool does is connects Gmail to Google Sheets and lets your personalise and send email in bulk.

We’ve seen upto 30% response rates by email.

Template for Stuck users:

Subject: Your feedback on Muzak

Hi John,

This is Nikhil from Muzak — the app that lets your create and share playlists with friends.

I noticed that your connected your Spotify account but didn’t create a playlist yet.

Could you tell me why you decided not to create a playlist?

Your feedback will help us improve Muzak. You can respond directly to this email.

Thanks a lot,

Nikhil

— -

Template for Super users:

Subject: Your feedback on Muzak

Hi John,

This is Nikhil from Muzak — the app that lets your create and share playlists with friends.

I noticed that you use Muzak a lot to create your playlists and share with friends.

Could you tell me what you like so much about Muzak?

Your feedback will help us improve Muzak. You can respond directly to this email.

Thanks a lot,

Nikhil

— -

Such emails convey a key message to your users — you are accessible.

Step 4: Collect and analyze feedback

After you send emails, all that is left is to listen and analyze. I use plain, simple Google Sheets to store this information. If you have many responses, try using Zapier to connect Gmail with Google Sheets or use Typeform.

Few important points to note:

• Create two buckets — User Bucket and Feedback Bucket to identify users (eg., “Super users”, “Didn’t create 1st Playlist”) and aggregate feedback (“Didn’t find value”, “Didn’t understand your product”). You can do the same for super users.

For Stuck users:

Understand what are the main reasons for friction and translate them into product decisions.

For super users:

Understand how your super users perceive your product. Is it aligned with what you want them to perceive? Is their value aligned with the value you want to provide? Do they want other features? What are their main pains?

This exercise not only lets you get valuable feedback from users but also lets you identify your ideal user. Let’s say for Muzak, I see that all the users are aged 18–25, user Facebook on a regular basis, are students. Now you know where to find your new customers from. Facebook ads, building partnerships with school associations, etc. If you can, automate this process to gather feedback automatically.

What is so powerful about this method is that it is cheap, you get a lot of user feedback and you get to identify who use your product.

That is extremely empowering.

Let me know what you think of this post in your comments!

As always, don’t hesitate to share if you think this information is valuable.

Bises from Paris.