No one likes to hear bad things about themselves. Same goes to getting negative feedback from the users of your product. Can you enjoy talking with somebody who starts the conversation by telling you how bad your product is? No. But still, this is the conversation you should really want to get involved in. Just think about it – if somebody decides to share his/her negative opinion about what you’re doing, above all it means that this person is engaged with your product, right? And engaged users are the users you really want to work with. With your effort, the same emotional intensity an unsatisfied user has when complaining, can be transformed into love. Love for your product, love for you – because you’ve found to be helpful and most importantly, love which will be widely spread and can get you more prospects.
As soon as I became the CEO at Attensee – a heatmapping tool which tells you where people look on your website, I realized that building and marketing a product from scratch depends on active listening and reacting to what people say. Since we’re offering a completely new approach to capturing the user attention distribution over a website we had to learn how to introduce it to the audience. The first paying customer we had was actually the user who despite being amazed by the product, had a lot of issues with the onboarding process. At the same time, he was the guy who fitted our marketing persona perfectly and was engaged enough to give us some hints on the direction we should move forward to. That’s how early adopters are born. And here are the principles I personally believe and follow when responding to user feedback:
Give love, get love
Don’t just pretend to be a caring company. Be one and give a damn. Surprise the user who sent you the complaint how much you care about his/her satisfaction. Ask questions to get a deep understanding of the problem and be an active listener – repeat what you’ve just been told using your own words just to show that you care and most of all to make sure you’ve got it. Showcasing the ways that you make changes based on the feedback cements that idea. If you care about your customers, your customers are going to care about you. A great example of company that manages to establish this kind of relationship with its users is UXpin. If you dig into their Twitter profile, you can see tons of micro-conversations with their users. Most of them are very positive, but I haven’t seen one left without notice and care. What’s more, the CEO Marcin Treder gets down to the frontline quite often and replies to tweets himself. That’s how you build an awesome company.
Social proof is what you get from active listening to your users.
Keep the conversation going
Think about the user as a friend you care about. A grumpy friend, but still a friend. You don’t want him/her to wait for your response too long, do you? Put yourself in a perspective of the user who reports something which is missing or doesn’t work properly. If you’re unable to fix something ASAP – you still cannot leave the user without any response. Send a quick update on the progress you are with taking care of the bug. Keep the conversation going and show that you care by responding in a timely fashion – even if the user eventually chooses the competition, your company will be considered as user-centered and therefore mentioned when somebody asks about a certain product recommendation. Otherwise, you’re risking bad online reputation.
I’ve personally helped Craig with his project. Karma pays back fast if you’re using Twitter
Focus on real prospects
Apart from being a really good human being, you also have to be a smart business developer. Remember that at the end of the day, you simply cannot please everyone. Your product is meant to solve a certain problem and satisfy certain type of people who find the concept you’re offering valuable. The important thing is to be able to differentiate true prospects from the false ones. The first ones are willing to pay real money for the product you’re offering and those are the people you need to focus on here. Before you start changing your product or adding new features – check who’s complaining in the first place. Is he/she a paying customer? Don’t get me wrong – you should definitely respond the all of the feedback you’re getting – because that’s just how nice people do, they respond to emails. But at the same time, if you listen and take actions based on the feedback from wrong people – your product (and its marketing!) will go wrong as well. The ideal user you want to listen carefully is the paying customer who fits your marketing persona perfectly. In the end, this is the guy who understands and pays for your product and also – can get more of his folks to do the same. This way, you can reach the product-market sweet spot and scale your business. Take a look at the chart below to know what I mean.
Aleksander Czyż is the CEO at Attensee during the day and a passionate film-maker at night. Split testing junkie with particular interest in the marketing use of Attention Economy. Always happy to connect. You can follow him on Twitter or drop a line at alex@attensee.com.
How To Turn Unsatisfied Users into Loyal Customers 5.00/5 (100.00%) 4 votes
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How To Turn Unsatisfied Users into Loyal Customers
No one likes to hear bad things about themselves. Same goes to getting negative feedback from the users of your product. Can you enjoy talking with somebody who starts the conversation by telling you how bad your product is? No. But still, this is the conversation you should really want to get involved in. Just think about it – if somebody decides to share his/her negative opinion about what you’re doing, above all it means that this person is engaged with your product, right? And engaged users are the users you really want to work with. With your effort, the same emotional intensity an unsatisfied user has when complaining, can be transformed into love. Love for your product, love for you – because you’ve found to be helpful and most importantly, love which will be widely spread and can get you more prospects.
As soon as I became the CEO at Attensee – a heatmapping tool which tells you where people look on your website, I realized that building and marketing a product from scratch depends on active listening and reacting to what people say. Since we’re offering a completely new approach to capturing the user attention distribution over a website we had to learn how to introduce it to the audience. The first paying customer we had was actually the user who despite being amazed by the product, had a lot of issues with the onboarding process. At the same time, he was the guy who fitted our marketing persona perfectly and was engaged enough to give us some hints on the direction we should move forward to. That’s how early adopters are born. And here are the principles I personally believe and follow when responding to user feedback:
Give love, get love
Don’t just pretend to be a caring company. Be one and give a damn. Surprise the user who sent you the complaint how much you care about his/her satisfaction. Ask questions to get a deep understanding of the problem and be an active listener – repeat what you’ve just been told using your own words just to show that you care and most of all to make sure you’ve got it. Showcasing the ways that you make changes based on the feedback cements that idea. If you care about your customers, your customers are going to care about you. A great example of company that manages to establish this kind of relationship with its users is UXpin. If you dig into their Twitter profile, you can see tons of micro-conversations with their users. Most of them are very positive, but I haven’t seen one left without notice and care. What’s more, the CEO Marcin Treder gets down to the frontline quite often and replies to tweets himself. That’s how you build an awesome company.
Social proof is what you get from active listening to your users.
Keep the conversation going
Think about the user as a friend you care about. A grumpy friend, but still a friend. You don’t want him/her to wait for your response too long, do you? Put yourself in a perspective of the user who reports something which is missing or doesn’t work properly. If you’re unable to fix something ASAP – you still cannot leave the user without any response. Send a quick update on the progress you are with taking care of the bug. Keep the conversation going and show that you care by responding in a timely fashion – even if the user eventually chooses the competition, your company will be considered as user-centered and therefore mentioned when somebody asks about a certain product recommendation. Otherwise, you’re risking bad online reputation.
I’ve personally helped Craig with his project. Karma pays back fast if you’re using Twitter
Focus on real prospects
Apart from being a really good human being, you also have to be a smart business developer. Remember that at the end of the day, you simply cannot please everyone. Your product is meant to solve a certain problem and satisfy certain type of people who find the concept you’re offering valuable. The important thing is to be able to differentiate true prospects from the false ones. The first ones are willing to pay real money for the product you’re offering and those are the people you need to focus on here. Before you start changing your product or adding new features – check who’s complaining in the first place. Is he/she a paying customer? Don’t get me wrong – you should definitely respond the all of the feedback you’re getting – because that’s just how nice people do, they respond to emails. But at the same time, if you listen and take actions based on the feedback from wrong people – your product (and its marketing!) will go wrong as well. The ideal user you want to listen carefully is the paying customer who fits your marketing persona perfectly. In the end, this is the guy who understands and pays for your product and also – can get more of his folks to do the same. This way, you can reach the product-market sweet spot and scale your business. Take a look at the chart below to know what I mean.
Aleksander Czyż is the CEO at Attensee during the day and a passionate film-maker at night. Split testing junkie with particular interest in the marketing use of Attention Economy. Always happy to connect. You can follow him on Twitter or drop a line at alex@attensee.com.
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