A well-executed product and user feedback policy (PUFP) is a critical aspect of any successful business strategy. This policy outlines the steps taken to effectively gather, manage, and communicate feedback from customers in a manner that promotes trust, accountability, and a deep understanding of the needs and desires of the user base.
A strong PUFP is integral to improving products and services, fostering a sense of engagement and appreciation among customers, and driving growth and innovation. In this comprehensive guide, we delve into the critical components of a robust PUFP, providing guidance and a comprehensive template to help businesses craft an effective feedback program that maximizes customer engagement and drives continued success.
Why You Need a Product and User Feedback Policy
Everyone knows the process
A PUFP ensures that your team and customers know what to expect when submitting feedback. Customers often feel that their feedback gets lost and never reappears. A PUFP sets clear expectations and helps to create a better experience for customers. By outlining the process for feedback collection, management, and communication, your customers will know what to expect and will be more likely to provide feedback.
Creates accountability
Collaboratively creating a PUFP by involving all relevant teams will create accountability for handling customer feedback. This leads to happier customers, who understand what’s happening when they submit an issue or feature request. Your customers will appreciate the transparency and will have faith that their feedback is being taken seriously. When customers feel heard and valued, they are more likely to continue to do business with your company.
Building customer loyalty is a long and delicate process, however, it’s much easier to lose them – according to one study by Accenture 52% of consumers switched financial, retail or cable providers within a 1 year period due to poor customer service.
Companies have lost sight of the importance of human interaction and often make it too difficult for consumers to get the right level of help and service that they need
Robert Wollan, senior managing director, Advanced Customer Strategy, Accenture Strategy
Serves as a Service Level Agreement (SLA)
A PUFP serves as an SLA for customer feedback. Your organization can measure if they are progressing with excellence or if there are metrics to improve. You can track your progress and make improvements as needed by setting specific goals and metrics for feedback management. This will help you to continuously improve your products and services and provide a better customer experience.
Helps to Improve Customer Retention
When customers feel heard and valued, they are more likely to continue to do business with your company. A PUFP helps to build trust with your customers and ensures that their feedback is being taken seriously. They will know what to expect when they submit an issue, whether by using a feedback collection tool, instant messenger, or phone, and will know how soon and what kind of solution they can expect. This will help to improve customer retention and increase the lifetime value of your customers.
Small changes can make a difference. One study found that 11% of churn can be avoided by simply reaching out to customers after they have had a negative experience. This is a simple policy that you can add to your PUFP which can be regularly implemented as follow up to negative feedback.
A PUFP Helps to Identify Opportunities for Improvement
By collecting, managing, and analyzing customer feedback, you can identify opportunities for improvement. There are two types of processes that companies often use in order to sustain growth and the ongoing development of their products: the product development life cycle, and the listen, learn, improve & evaluate framework. Both approaches place a high value on incorporating customer feedback in product and development decisions.
Making sure your PUFP is a part of your company culture and approach will help you to continuously improve your products and services and provide a better customer experience.
What You Should Include in Your PUFP
1: Define your approach to feedback
- Explain why feedback is important for your company and what it will be used for.
- Outline the benefits for users of your product and the outcomes that you hope to achieve.
2: Expectations of customers
- Explain what customers can expect when submitting feedback.
- Outline the process for handling and communicating feedback.
3: Define the general process
- Explain where and how customers can submit their feedback (e.g. widgets, email, phone)
- Describe what will happen with feedback items in each feedback channel.
- Identify who is responsible for watching the process and who reviews open feedback items.
4: Communication
- Explain how customers can track the status of a feedback submission.
- Outline how communication with customers will be handled once an issue has been resolved.
5: Metrics and goals
- Set specific goals and metrics for feedback management.
- Outline how progress will be tracked and measured.
Product and User Feedback Policy Template
Creating a PUFP from scratch can be a daunting task, so we’ve provided a template to help you get started. The template includes all of the important elements that should be included in your PUFP, such as an introduction, a section on why feedback is important, and a section on the expectations of customers.
It also includes sections on the general process, communication, metrics and goals, and responsibilities. Remember, this is just a sample template. It’s a great starting point, however, you should take the time to tailor it to the needs of your company and customers.
Having a great PUFP in place is a great basis for how you will collect, respond to, and approach your customer feedback. But, that’s just half of the challenge. To make sure you hear the voice of your users you need a tool to collect and transmit what they’re saying. Usersnap is a great platform to collect feedback online from your customers, users, or team. By integrating seamlessly with your website, you can trigger it to ask for feedback based on events, or add the option to report a bug or submit a feature request.
Wrapping up the PUFP
A product and user feedback policy is an essential document for any business that wants to improve its products and services. It outlines the process for collecting, managing, and communicating feedback from users of your product, and ensures that everyone knows the process. A PUFP creates accountability for handling customer feedback, serves as an SLA for customer feedback, and helps to improve customer retention. By collecting and analyzing customer feedback, you can identify opportunities for improvement and provide a better customer experience. We hope that this article has provided you with the information you need to create your own PUFP and that the provided template will be helpful.
