User feedback is one of the most beneficial tools you can implement during product development. Without understanding how users feel about the direction your product is heading, it’s challenging for you and your team to ensure that development is on the right path.

As a product manager, I often struggle with deciding which methods to implement in order to receive optimal user feedback. So, I decided to turn to the professional community on Quora, and find out which methods the pros prefer.

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Ian Withrow, Enterprise IT PM Since 2001

“The best way to get user feedback is to talk to users in a structured interview. I don’t care if you are B2B or B2C, all the data in the world doesn’t count for a fig unless you have personal insight into your users. Data doesn’t provide that.

However, just having a chat isn’t enough. There are reliable methods for developing shared understanding and empathy:

1) Active listening

2) Preparation

3) Document

4) Background knowledge

5) Visual context

6) Synthesize

…This philosophy is a work in progress.”

To read the full version of Ian’s answer, click here

Hannah Chaplin, 5+ years on SaaS businesses heavily involved in product dev. CEO at Receptive.io

“It depends on the context. What stage are you at? What sort of feedback is important to you right now?

We gather feedback through all departments as we are a very customer-focused organisation. However, an important point to note is that all ideas / suggestions / feature requests all go into a single platform.

We have a link from our software product (we are a B2B SaaS business) which gives our customers a dedicated channel to add, discuss and prioritize their feedback. The prioritization is incredibly important.

By having an open channel, we found that engagement on feedback increased dramatically.”

To discover more user feedback insights, click here

Paul Lopushinsky, Product Manager

“TALK TO THEM. Sure, you can send out emails to get feedback, use a 1–10 system, smiley face or frown etc. but at the end of the day, the best way is to actually sit down with them, ideally face to face, to talk.

Drill down, keep asking why, and listen to what they have to say.

Now, be sure to get feedback from a number of people. You don’t want to sit down with just a handful of people, smile and know you’ve done your work. Keep talking to a variety of customers who use your product.”

Paul Unterberg, Vice President of Product Management at Prudential Financial

“I find there are two types of User Feedback, and lots of ways to get it. So, like most answers, it depends on the problem you’re solving.

Explicit User Feedback

You get this by engaging with users directly. To me, the best way to get this feedback is to interact with users one on one in a freeform discussion.

For example, you might do a web meeting with them and see how they use your product when looking for a solution. You might ask them for data to validate you get a correct result, or you could just talk through a process with them.

Other ways that might be better, though:

Looking for structured feedback: online surveys

Group feedback: a focus group

Discussion feedback: collecting responses on forums (or reddit or Quora)

(or reddit or Quora) Make a clear feedback area — add a Need Help? link, icon, or button to your page, so the user has a place they know they can provide feedback or get help (remember, support ticket conversations are great explicit feedback.)

Implicit User Feedback

Of course, users might actually do things differently than they think or say. For this, a healthy dose of analytics can provide metrics. Look at these in aggregate first, and try to get large samples of data.

Create a funnel — Use Mixpanel, Google Analytics, or your own homegrown suite to track completion of a goal.

— Use Mixpanel, Google Analytics, or your own homegrown suite to track completion of a goal. Track time spent — Do your users take a long time to figure out things? This can highlight things you can improve to make the user more efficient at the task.

Do your users take a long time to figure out things? This can highlight things you can improve to make the user more efficient at the task. Use cursor/finger heat maps — These can show you how a user is expecting to use the product, and highlight things that your UX/UI assumptions got wrong.”

Click here for Paul’s full answer

Minoo Razavi, Marketing Communications & Digital Content Strategist

“The best way to collect user feedback is while the user is using your product. This guarantees the feedback to be authentic and honest. How is this possible? By embedding a feedback system into your application… There are many feedback systems that can be integrated into another application.

The most flexible and most robust embeddable API comes from Qrvey.com. It is the only appified feedback API on the market. You can ask surveys in the middle of your app, you can ask for NPS (net promoter score of customer loyalty), you can even create fun quiz and polls about your product to engage your user.

In the end, an enhanced product means better sales but here are the steps along the way.

Ensure Usability

Developers can often miss usability issues and even the most hawk-eyed testers can let a few bugs slip through. Real-time customer feedback helps you catch errors ASAP. With surveys embedded on the page, it also makes problems much easier to isolate.

Developers can often miss usability issues and even the most hawk-eyed testers can let a few bugs slip through. Real-time customer feedback helps you catch errors ASAP. With surveys embedded on the page, it also makes problems much easier to isolate. Get the details

Sales figures and ratings won’t let you know what you’re doing right and wrong specifically.Since it’s significantly more expensive to gain a new customer than it is to keep an existing one, finding specific ways of improving current customer experiences is a must.”

To discover more useful methods for incorporating user feedback into your product, click here