¿Cómo pueden las pequeñas empresas utilizar los comentarios de los clientes para innovar sus productos?

Use your phone to film live customer feedback ... good, bad and ugly ... feature it on social media and explain why it is so incredibly meaningful and helpful as you strive to constantly improve your business. Be grateful for all feedback. Also always link business upgrades, decisions and changes to the customer feedback that created the impetus for the change.

For small businesses, to keep the strain on resources low, I have seen its useful to start by looking at what customer data you and your employees may already have - before reaching out to customers. Ask employees - for example, what are they hearing from customers as they open or cancel their accounts - or about such interactions. Look at purchase data. Look at any competitive data - for examples, customer reviews for competitors. Doing this first helps refine the goal and cut down the resources needed to get the most bang for your buck as you set up customer feedback processes.

Customer Feedback is the key essence to make sure to achieve PMF. Small businesses can use this effectively in order to create a differentiated product / experience with their ability to pivot or make changes much faster compared to large org. Key things to look for in a customer feedback 1. Overall experience of the user. 2. Does the user understand the story / USP of the product and how is it different from the competition. 3. Discovery of the product. How did he came to know about the product.

Small business operates much like community using purpose. Tapping into your customer for quick feedback allows for adjustment before investment dollars are lost. Including your customer, while building your product will always be the right answer.

The goal is to empower small businesses to harness the insights derived from customer feedback for continuous innovation and improvement. By implementing strategies such as regular surveys, social media listening, and focus groups, businesses aim to understand customer preferences, identify areas of improvement, and iteratively enhance their products. The objective is to foster a customer-centric approach, utilising feedback not only to address current concerns promptly but also to adjust the development strategies.

Choosing VoC stage is as important as choosing methods of VoC to give benefits. The 2 stages are 1. Beta testing with friendly customers 2. Mass Market testing. During beta testing, early adopters become narrators of the product story. Their VoC insights help identify glitches, fine-tune features, and unravel possibilities. The feedback loop during this phase is the foundation to ensure that the product doesn’t just launch; it gets refined from real-world usage. As the product ventures into mass market testing, the VOC can be captured by offering it free so that the volume of voices amplifies. Here VoC helps ensure that product aligns with initial expectations and also with the dynamic landscape of consumer demands.

Planning is key to a good user interview. PMs tend to jump into interviews priding how they like to "wing" it. Well, those are only beneficial for you to get a vibe check on something. For more detailed interviews that impact the way you shape your product: 1. Launch a small survey of targeted questions. 2. Chunk out cohorts from responses in "Most Interested", "Least Interested", "Curious" & "Confused". 3. Leave out "Least Interested" & "Confused". The mistake you want to avoid is to not leave out the "Curious" ones. 4. Since the initiative is huge, try to get on a video call with them - you need to be able to understand your customers' nuances for better decision making. 5. Curate questions for both cohorts & analyze impact.

the natural answer is to Implementing regular surveys is a highly effective method for small businesses to gather structured and actionable customer feedback. Surveys allow businesses to systematically collect insights on specific aspects of their products, customer experience, and overall satisfaction. The structured format of surveys enables businesses to quantify feedback, identify patterns, and prioritise areas for improvement. But regrettably, businesses are killing this process by irritating customers by issuing surveys after every purchase or phone call.

In addition to surveys, focus groups, and interviews, which can be influenced by the respondent knowing who is asking the questions, I would suggest using social listening (monitoring social media groups, feedback on company or competitors' posts, etc.). Established business owners would generally keep their ears to the ground, maintaining regular contact with customers. However, most of the time, this feedback is not documented or shared with the rest of the organisation.

For small businesses, I prefer less formal research, and more dialogue. As small businesses are part of a community, this really works! This will help the brand listen to consumer needs in a much more efficient way. When you provide a casual, fun environment for people to share their views on your product, you get so much more than a survey. Be open, get creative and listen to your consumer needs, existing and prospect.

This is a frustration point for customers in both small and large companies. Once feedback has been thoroughly analysed, it is crucial to prioritise it based on its impact. Acknowledge the influence your customers have on your products and services. Establish a feedback loop by regularly seeking input from customers.

Sometimes the feedback highlights basic UX changes while others may be very complicated. Prioritizing them based on impact and resources available in the organization (tech stack, time, etc.) can be helpful. This can be kept as a separate set of improvements in the product. A functionality/feature can be improved by minor UX changes (based on feedback) and once implemented, result in a noticeable improvement in product and ultimately in customer satisfaction. Also, while developing a solution, an intermediate development environment can act as a customer interactive portal which can be used to track customer interaction, understand the concerns, and improve them before finally releasing the product.

Once customer feedback is collected, the next crucial step is its analysis to drive informed product innovation decisions. Identify patterns, trends, and insights to grasp customer desires, needs, and expectations. Pinpoint gaps, weaknesses, and opportunities for product enhancement. Prioritise feedback based on importance, urgency, and feasibility. Decide on the most impactful changes to implement and how to execute them.

El feedback de los clientes es la principal fuente para poder establecer procesos y mecanismos de control y mejora continua, ya sea en el desarrollo de producto, la cadena de valor y en la comunicación con los consumidores, todos estos son procesos potencialmente perfectibles, y no hay mejor forma que con una estrategia centrada en el cliente.

Using design thinking tools to organize the insights in a way that our brains do the work for us. Our brain will naturally make connections and these connections are the source of inspiration for new ideas. Getting to the bottom of the consumer tension is key here to differentiate your solution. Also taking the insights as they are, not as what you want to hear.

Measuring the results of your product innovation is crucial for understanding its impact and refining your strategies. Utilise the metrics and indicators established in the initial step, comparing them against baseline performance. Collect fresh customer feedback to assess satisfaction, adoption, and retention resulting from the innovation. This feedback serves to validate assumptions, test hypotheses, and further refine the product. Celebrate successes, learn from failures, and share these insights with your team and customers.

Measuring results is a common challenge for small businesses due to limited time, resources, technology, or knowledge. However, to effectively measure the impact of product innovation through customer feedback, cultivate a feedback-centric culture where employees actively seek and value customer insights. By embedding customer feedback into the company's DNA, businesses can foster innovation, drive growth, and achieve customer satisfaction.

Smaller innovation can be done quickly, so you can prototype and test with consumers. Bigger, bolder innovation takes more time to develop, prototype and test. Ideally you should focus on some short term wins as you plan your longer innovation pipeline. Otherwise, you will run out of steam quick!

Small businesses have a distinct advantage over large organisations in that they can integrate what would be a departmental strategy in a large organisation (marketing team gathering customer feedback for product innovation) into their overall business strategy (making customer feedback a central part of their operations). I believe that adopting this strategy would cultivate a culture of continuous improvement across the entire business, which would undoubtedly result in positive growth.

Whether a roadside eatery, a self-storage business, or a three-person landscaping outfit, considering customer feedback is a great way for small businesses to innovate their products and services. To innovate, one rarely has to reinvent the wheel. But product innovation cannot take place inside closed doors. By lending an ear to their customers, a small business will receive firsthand insight into their challenges and needs. Meeting these itself will represent innovation within their respective space. Regardless of the level of innovation, whether adding a new ingredient to a taco, getting more efficiently designed storage units, or developing a fresh garden maintenance service, customer feedback is the direct way to innovate and test.

In addition to the structured steps outlined, consider the power of anecdotal evidence and qualitative insights. Customer stories, testimonials, and individual experiences can provide invaluable context to complement quantitative data. These narratives often unveil nuances that might not be captured through metrics alone.