But how to run a feedback session as a product manager? We\u2019ve got you covered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this post, we\u2019ll explain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- How to find participants and incentive them<\/li>
- How long feedback sessions should be<\/li>
- 5 tips on how to run customer feedback sessions as a product manager<\/li>
- What to do if it isn\u2019t going well<\/li>
- How to handle results from customer feedback sessions<\/li>
- How feedback sessions influence your product strategy<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to find participants and incentivize them<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
You can find participants for customer feedback sessions in several ways, and they all involve a bit of research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once you\u2019ve defined your target user, select several of them to contact with an invitation. Keep in mind that some people will turn you down, so you should always \u201ctap\u201d more people than you actually need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But how to find these people? Well, identifying current users is pretty easy. If your product team doesn\u2019t already have a sense of user segmentation, then talk to customer success or support, who can suggest specific customers that match your criteria. This is part of getting customer feedback from internal teams<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re looking outside of your current user base, you have a few options: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Contact churned customers<\/li>
- Find users of competing tools<\/li>
- Research your target group on social media, such as LinkedIn<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Once you\u2019ve done all of that, sometimes the hardest part is just to ask. Most teams don’t get around to actually asking people to participate. But in my experience, some users love being involved in feedback sessions. It\u2019s easier than you think to get them on board.
If it\u2019s difficult to fill your feedback session slots, or you encounter some resistance from your target user group, then you might need to incentivize them.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIncentives<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Appropriate incentives will depend on your target user group. For university students, incentives like pizza and soft drinks could suit them just fine! But that likely won\u2019t cut it for B2B enterprise users. More sophisticated groups might require more sophisticated incentives.
That said, gift cards might be the easiest, most across-the-board option these days, since most feedback sessions take place online (more on that later). Personally, I\u2019ve seen gift cards to Amazon and similar sites, and sometimes plain old cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat you decide to pay depends on two factors: what their time is worth to them, and what their feedback is worth to you. This could range from $20 to $100 for the hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you have a high-risk product, and this feedback will help you de-risk<\/em> your product so that you can reach a wider market in a better way \u2013 then it’s likely worth paying for their time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re offering an incentive, you should outline your expectations very clearly. Be straight up. Say, \u201cWe are offering you X. Here’s what we expect from you in terms of your time and participation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How long should feedback sessions be?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Feedback sessions should be no more than an hour and a half. After that, people’s attention starts waning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We recommend the following breakdown for a feedback session:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- 15 minutes to set the scene and explain the process <\/li>
- 1 hour for the actual questions or testing<\/li>
- 15 minutes for final thoughts and to hear about their experience as a participant<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Of course, you might need to book more time if the testing is more in-depth and if you\u2019re conducting a roundtable forum or a group activity. For advice on how to actually run these sessions, keep reading!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Customer](\"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Solving-Customer-Problems-not-feature-requests-1024x520.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHow to run customer feedback sessions as a product manager<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
So you\u2019ve got people scheduled and in the room. Now what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are 5 tips for running customer feedback sessions as a product manager:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Conduct them one by one<\/li>
- Run 3-5 sessions per customer segment<\/li>
- Avoid leading questions<\/li>
- Keep a regular cadence<\/li>
- Invite other team members, when appropriate<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
Conduct sessions one by one <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
When each session is just one person, I think you get higher quality feedback. The participant is speaking for themselves, not swayed by others or groupthink. One-on-one is particularly helpful if you\u2019re trying to understand individual use cases and how specific users approach the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Run 3-5 sessions per customer segment<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
You should schedule 3-5 feedback sessions per customer segment. Examples of different customer segments might be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Existing customers of yours<\/li>
- Potential customers in a new target market<\/li>
- Users of a competitor\u2019s platform<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Conducting 3-5 sessions per group will turn out an enormous amount of insight and provide a really well-rounded view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Avoid leading questions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Avoid leading questions, because it’s easy to simply confirm your biases rather than learning new things from your customers. Ask open-ended questions instead! Let the person talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Be sure not to insert things that the previous participant said or repeat any ideas of the team. Then it\u2019s easy for the interviewee to disengage from the question at hand and agree with what you said. To learn more, check out how to not screw up customer interviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep a regular cadence<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Build these customer feedback sessions into your process. Conduct them regularly. Every week, every month, every sprint \u2013 whatever cadence works for your team. You don\u2019t need to wait for a special feature or a big rollout. There\u2019s always something that you can test and learn from. If you\u2019re starting from square one, check out how to introduce a product feedback process<\/a> in your team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In general, product managers should spend a few hours per week with customers, talking face to face. (Of course Zoom counts!) It doesn’t necessarily have to be a customer discovery call, it could be just chatting about some issue that’s on their mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a PM, you’ve got 40 hours a week. If you spend two of those hours meeting with users, that\u2019s 5% of your time. Totally reasonable!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bottom line: Make room for it. If you build it into your process, it will happen, and you’ll constantly learn from it. If you don’t build it in, it won’t happen, and your calendar will just fill up with other people’s meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who else should join customer feedback sessions? <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Product managers should lead the charge when it comes to feedback sessions. But it\u2019s possible that other members of the team might want to or even should join, depending on what you\u2019re testing. Here\u2019s a short list of who those people might be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Product owner<\/strong> – If your team has a designated role for this<\/li>
- UX researcher<\/strong> – Larger teams might have specific researchers who can join these meetings or conduct them in place of the PM<\/li>
- Customer Success manager<\/strong> – They help identify the participants and may be able to help ask the right questions. They spend all their time with the customers anyways<\/li>
- Developers<\/strong> – It\u2019s good to get developers closer to the user sometimes. You can invite developers without the obligation that they attend the core meeting. They should definitely review the results after. (More on that later!)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
What to do if a customer feedback session isn\u2019t going well<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Not all customer feedback sessions will run perfectly, and that\u2019s okay. There are a couple of ways in which it might not go well. Here\u2019s some advice for how to manage when:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- They dislike your product and just want to gripe<\/li>
- They\u2019re just in it for the money<\/li>
- They don\u2019t actually know your product<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
1. They dislike your product and just want to gripe<\/strong>
You might have a disgruntled person who needs hand-holding. Embrace the moment and empathize with them. Their feedback might be spoiled by other feelings, but this is also a chance for you to understand those other feelings!<\/p>\n\n\n\nFigure out what\u2019s niggling them, and get to the bottom of it. This is really valuable time if they’ve turned up and bothered to tell you what’s going on. In fact, from a product management point of view, it could be more valuable than learning about a new feature or whatever it is you\u2019re testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And from a business point of view, you might actually save this customer from churning. You might stop them from spreading bad reviews of your product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. They\u2019re just in it for the money<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inevitably, some people will show up for the incentive and not care about providing valuable feedback. They thought it\u2019d be an easy $20, they don\u2019t want to bother with the questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is partially on you to ensure the session dynamic is fun or interesting. But sometimes you can\u2019t engage everyone. Figure out the signals or red flags for people like this, so you can weed them out earlier in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. They don\u2019t actually know your product<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
This user might not be much of a user after all \u2013 or maybe it\u2019s a target customer who actually isn\u2019t that tech-savvy. What a learning opportunity for you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Figure out why they don\u2019t use the product more, or how you can make it easier for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of this said, I\u2019ve rarely had bad experiences. For the most part, people come willing to engage, particularly if you’ve given them something good in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to handle results from customer feedback sessions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Completing the feedback session is just half the job. The other half is recording and communicating these results to the team. You have to use what you learn!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are plenty of ways to manage customer feedback<\/a> in general. But here are three steps to handling the results from customer feedback sessions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Record the sessions<\/li>
- Analyze your findings<\/li>
- Report outcomes to the team<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
1. Record the feedback sessions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
This is the easiest part, assuming technology cooperates with you! Most customer feedback sessions are done remotely these days. There are plenty of video call and screen recording tools that you can use to record the conversations and store them for later review. Zoom and Fathom are two popular services for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just make sure you have the user\u2019s consent to record them! You can say this in your invitation or at the beginning of the session. Some tools announce it for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Analyze your findings<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
You can come up with your own methods for analyzing the feedback. In general, you should look for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Unique problems and trends in the problems.<\/li>
- Places in the product where customers stumble.<\/li>
- Common questions.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Out of these three categories, you should be able to identify some opportunities and areas for improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Report outcomes to the team<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Of course, you need to report the outcomes of your analysis to the wider team. Make them available to people. Put them in your Wiki, and attach them to the appropriate customer feedback records and ideas in ProdPad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You could make a highlight reel and have a watch party! Or give a short presentation (and share the slides afterward), or write up a simple report of the top findings and circulate it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How customer feedback sessions should influence your product strategy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
- UX researcher<\/strong> – Larger teams might have specific researchers who can join these meetings or conduct them in place of the PM<\/li>
- Product owner<\/strong> – If your team has a designated role for this<\/li>