How do you create a feedback loop with your early adopters?

A bit tangentially, I'll also add that "customer handholding" is as important for "customer demos", or the dreaded "30 day trial". Customer success is so tied to being guided along, and again, in my experience, the most successful companies are the ones who don't "dump and run" their products, let alone new ones.

Particularly in the early stages of launch, pre-launch or even as a startup preparing to launch your first product to market, building a feedback loop can be critical to increasing your buyer insight, improving product design and product marketing, and more deeply understanding what goes into customer success.

In my 30 years of product marketing experience in the marine industry, I have found that independent sales representatives, calling on prospective customers with new products is an absolutely awesome way to get feedback at little or no cost to the manufacturer since most reps generally work on commission.

*Obvious statement alert*: Feedback is essential to successfully bringing a product to market. Depending on industry and product type, that may be measurement, data and functionality feedback, or it may be more qualitative user experience. Regardless, in my experience the best success factor (besides a killer product or service) is some form of customer handholding. That may be an account exec, a product marketing person or an engineer, depending on circumstances, but it's important for there to be someone from your company serving as "training wheels". This can prevent small hiccups from becoming large problems, identify straightforward tweaks to make big improvements, and to keep the customer invested in the success of the product.

I've always started a feedback loop before a product is launched into the marketplace. Getting potential "user" input during ideation and design has been very impactful towards having continual successive new product / new technology launches over the years. It's also incredibly important to support your launch so you don't over promise and under deliver. Be sure to have resources available to usher the customer through the change management that's required. Feedback loops, in my experience, have also been a great way to pull "users" together to promote BDP's, How To's, as well as highlight early adopters that can help get great messages out across the marketplace. I've experienced many "borderline" levels of success become advocates.

Just because you think a message is compelling doesn't mean your target customers will too. Without effective feedback loops, you're just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.

Feedback loops allow the team to build user empathy, which is vital for product success. It helps place the customer at the center of everything the company does, fostering a deep understanding of user needs and experiences.

A good feedback can make or break your product launch, messaging or go to market. Make sure you get feedback from customers who love you as well as customers who are struggling with your product so you can get a full 360 view of what's working and what's not working. That's the power of true feedback.

Creating a LinkedIn group with early adopters is an effective way to establish a feedback loop between the product team and users. By creating a community of users who are interested in your product, you can engage with them, share updates, and ask for their feedback. The group can also serve as a platform for users to share their experiences, ask questions, and provide suggestions. This not only allows the product team to receive feedback but also creates a sense of ownership among users, as they feel their opinions and experiences are valued. Additionally, LinkedIn groups offer a private and secure environment for users to communicate, ensuring that their feedback is not visible to the public.

A feedback loop is critical in the early stages of launch. Identify your earliest users as soon as your MVP launches, then immediately make direct lines of communication (I suggest using email, text, or WhatsApp), for a more personal touch and better response rates. Don’t incentivize the feedback — instead, make your customers feel like they are "in it" with you. Track all of the feedback you get so you have a historical record. When we built this feature, collaborative articles, we started a LinkedIn group page and directly messaged our earliest users -- this helped us develop an understanding of areas to improve on and prioritize.

Taking action based on (good) feedback is the most important part of the loop. And communicating that you have taken action. This encourages ongoing input from your customers and leads to continued improvement of your service/product.

Best way to start is - to start! Once you have an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) you need to get it into the field. Call it a beta which the market understands to be an early version that requires feedback to improve. There are tools like Pendo for SaaS that allows you to track product usage, run surveys, and push announcements out to users. For hardware and other products you'll have to put in more deliberate effort. Structure a feedback rhythm and set expectations with users. Gamify it to encourage feedback.

There’s no substitute for booking regular 1:1 meetings with your early users. They will be your champions! Talking with customers every two weeks allows you to check in on their progress and communicate struggles back to the product team and then, back to the customer. Verbal conversation is expensive, not infinitely scaleable, and never easy. But it’s worth it!

One effective approach is to form a product ambassador group of early adopters. These enthusiastic customers provide candid feedback, helping to uncover product strengths and weaknesses. Provide them with perks and some exclusive promotional devices like badges they can flaunt. Their insights and advocacy can contribute to a great knowledge bed of feedback and product market fit ideas for the product roadmap. Early adopters love to show off their new tools to their colleagues and peers. Having an edge and an “insider membership” gives them clout and many will take to social media driving more awareness to your product. It’s a great strategy that can serve two masters.

The best practice that should be followed for all feedback loops is to make it easy and painless for the early adopters to provide that feedback. Too many companies make early adopters create accounts, sign in, fill our complicated forms, etc. in order to provide feedback. That doesn't work, and in fact frustrates the users and makes them less likely to want to provide any feedback. Instead, they'll go elsewhere where the process is not as onerous. Make the process simple and straightforward, perhaps as simple as sending an email or filling out a form with a comment box and hitting a Submit button. Remember, you want their feedback, so make it easy for them. The more painful it is to do, the less likely they are to provide it.

When you have a good feedback loop, it's often easy to get overwhelmed and lost in the sea of brickbats and bouquets. - What will keep you sane and productive is maniacal prioritization. - Collect feedback in a central repository. This can be a spreadsheet, a document, or a dedicated tool. -Identify one or more pain points. What are the main issues that early adopters are having with the tool? -Map pinpoints to one or more hypotheses. What are the possible reasons for these pain points? -Map hypotheses to one or more proposed solutions. -Prioritize the solutions with an established framework like Effort v/s Impact, RICE, KANO, etc. -Implement, take in feedback, and…. …..Repeat the process.

When you're in your earliest stages of product market fit, build a relationship with every single one of your first 25 customers. Spend as much time as you can with them. Ask what they want, demo new features, design your product roadmap around your most loyal users. This is how you create a product that people will obsess over!

Data you can’t act upon now could still be useful toward guiding further efforts to collect customer feedback, such as informing customer survey design. It can also help guide your innovation roadmap by pointing to the product enhancements most meaningful to your users.