i think the main thing you need to gauge when listening to community is whether the feedback is a) representative, b) consistent, and c) aligned with the business.
sometimes it's hard to figure those out, particularly the 2nd one. however if you keep hearing the same comment in forum threads or blog comment or via email request, it might not be just a minority opinion. altho subject to bias, surveys can also be a way to add quantitative info to qualitative feedback.
when i used to work at PayPal, we often got requests for many features that didn't make sense for the business. however a few of them -- such as changing account creation at the time of transaction to an opt-in choice post-transaction -- actually resulted in reduced customer service or operational costs.
certainly not all community requests, even popular ones, need become features... however you do probably want to listen to the ones that come in volume and won't bust your budget.
the other great thing about actually putting some business muscle behind a few of the requests is that once you do, the community may help you sell & promote them.
(and for the record: just because you're organizing an ultimate frisbee group doesn't mean you know what they want... a phrase commonly applied to managing programmers 'herding cats' comes to mind. i've had the pleasure... cough... of doing both ;)
Tony Chung
· 2 years ago
Catchy title Noah!
Damon Billian
· 2 years ago
I think the main thing is trying to balance the needs of the community vs. the needs of the business. And while a community might get hot when they disagree with a certain change, you do have to tell them that the change is for the larger customer base as well.
What I would do: 1. Look for sheer volume of requests for a particular feature. 2. Look for qualitative feedback as well. 3. Explain why/why not a feature could/couldn't be implemented.
As Dave mentioned, some of the feature requests we received at PayPal didn't make sense for the larger customer base. When you run a website, notably a very large e-commerce destination, you have to make the product work for the average person that just wants to do something quickly & easily.
All Comments
i think the main thing you need to gauge when listening to community is whether the feedback is a) representative, b) consistent, and c) aligned with the business.
sometimes it's hard to figure those out, particularly the 2nd one. however if you keep hearing the same comment in forum threads or blog comment or via email request, it might not be just a minority opinion. altho subject to bias, surveys can also be a way to add quantitative info to qualitative feedback.
when i used to work at PayPal, we often got requests for many features that didn't make sense for the business. however a few of them -- such as changing account creation at the time of transaction to an opt-in choice post-transaction -- actually resulted in reduced customer service or operational costs.
certainly not all community requests, even popular ones, need become features... however you do probably want to listen to the ones that come in volume and won't bust your budget.
the other great thing about actually putting some business muscle behind a few of the requests is that once you do, the community may help you sell & promote them.
(and for the record: just because you're organizing an ultimate frisbee group doesn't mean you know what they want... a phrase commonly applied to managing programmers 'herding cats' comes to mind. i've had the pleasure... cough... of doing both ;)
What I would do:
1. Look for sheer volume of requests for a particular feature.
2. Look for qualitative feedback as well.
3. Explain why/why not a feature could/couldn't be implemented.
As Dave mentioned, some of the feature requests we received at PayPal didn't make sense for the larger customer base. When you run a website, notably a very large e-commerce destination, you have to make the product work for the average person that just wants to do something quickly & easily.