007 Mining The Gold From Customer Feedback – A Product Manager’s Post-Launch Toolkit

by | Agile Transformation, Feedback, Product Management, Quick Read

The launch of a product is one of the most exciting moments in the life of your product.

There is, however, life after launch.

Once you have released your product to the world, it will be important for you to maintain complete visibility as to how users are engaging with it. Now, you have more than likely heard of a “customer feedback loop”. After launch, customers will (hopefully) provide praise, feedback, as well as – sometimes – criticism. They will also want to report technical bugs.

In the early stages of a product’s life, it’s one thing to pick up the phone and call five, or even ten clients. During the scale phase, however, dealing with thousands –if not millions – of customers across numerous time zones is a different story.

You will need tools that help you integrate that feedback loop at scale.

There are four primary categories of tools that can help you obtain and maintain visibility post launch.

Category 1: User Monitoring

The usage of the tool; session durations; locations; and feature popularity.

An example of a useful tool to monitor how customers are using your tool? Have a look at Amplitude.

If you find that Amplitude isn’t working for you, here are some alternatives worth considering:

  1. Snowplow
  2. Matomo
  3. Hotjar
  4. Google Analytics (this provides the bare minimum)
  5. Yahoo Analytics

Category 2: User Feedback

Following the launch of a product, it will be important to record and integrate user feedback into future updates of your tool. In order to ensure that you’re able to collect all relevant and important information, categorise responses properly, and act upon user feedback, you’ll want to use programs designed for just such a purpose. An example of such a tool? GetSiteControl

Here are some alternatives to explore:

1.   Tawk.to

2.   AddThis

3.   Lime Talk

4.   Userlike Live Chat

Must-Read Books On Agile Product Management

If you carve out some time to read up on Agile in product management you will give yourself the absolute best chance of success with it.  In my Agile Product Management Reading Guide I list the essential titles you should read, along with a short synopsis on each so you can decide which to read first.

Download

 
Category 3: Feature Toggle

Feature toggles are used to roll out new features to and for specific users and user groups. It’s also a really great way to engage in technical testing as well as beta testing.

If you’re at this stage in your product’s development, one possible tool to utilise to assist you is LaunchDarkly.

LaunchDarkly not suiting your needs? Then instead, try:

  1. Split

  2. Optimizely

  3. Flagr

Category 4: User UX Discovery

The User UX discovery category is used to provide users with an interactive discovery experience. It’s a wonderful way to present new features.

Have a look at AppCues as a potential tool to utilise during this stage of your product’s post-launch lifecycle.

Other alternatives worth considering include:

1.   WalkMe

2.   Newired

3.   Userlane

All of these tools are Software as a Service (SaaS) tools and usually have free entry packages.

 

The Next Step

As you know, I am big on product delivery. If you feel your teams can be more productive but you’re not sure how, consider reading up on Agile in product management to give your teams the absolute best chance of success.

Alternatively, get in touch with me directly. I’d love to be able to help.

This article first was published on my blog.

For more product management related articles please visit my blog: https://shirindanesh.com/blogs/

Download