How Customer Connections Can Make or Break a Startup’s Success

By Robin Anderson

For many startups, seeking customer feedback during the product development process can be a challenge. There are many reasons startups don’t pursue this, such as spending the time to recruit people who are interested in being early adopters or team members who believe they know which features to focus on, etc. Then there are those startups that have incredible demand for their project, the challenge becomes including as many of those interested as you can. Connecting with customers early in your product development process is not just another checklist item, it is imperative to your success. To delay the customer connection can result in having minimal interest to flat rejection of your product.

Why you need to make an early connection

The biggest reason for incorporating your customer early into the process is to ensure you are solving the problem as viewed by the customer. That perspective is invaluable. 

The benefits of that early connection

1. Build a relationship of trust and respect. The customer feedback and insights you gain will help you build a higher quality product. Plus, early adopters are more forgiving should problems arise.

2. Including customers as a part of your development, contributes to them and new customers that you understand them which increases your customer loyalty

3. This early community will lay the foundation for building a bigger community

4. Your community will give you the words and phrasing to use when communicating through marketing making you even more relatable

5. All of this will contribute to build and strengthen your brand

To encourage customers to participate and to manage this process well, demonstrate the importance of them participating in your ‘trial.’ Show that you have their best interests at heart. Provide incentives, reward them for testing and sharing feedback. In order for them to feel heard, make sure you are responsive, communicate with them regularly. 

What you need to do

To help identify the key pain points your customers are facing, initially speak to 25-30 customers. Depending on the product you are offering, this may only take 15 minutes. If more complex, set aside 30 minutes. You want to listen to what they say. Not sway them or try to convince them one way or another. So don’t ask leading questions. Instead, have them tell you the problem you solve, how they use your product, likes/dislikes and why they wanted to try your product. Take notes after each call.

Depending on the complexity of your product and industry, you may need to speak to each and every customer that participates. They will provide you with insights, such as features they consider to be very important (low on your list) or use cases you never could have anticipated. This may happen at the very beginning, the middle, the end of your interview. Ongoing conversations are the most beneficial as you develop a relationship with the customer.

For the early adopters that signup and participate, it’s important you are responsive to their inquiries and concerns, and do so in a timely fashion. Doing this provides a positive customer experience which others will see.

Fix easy bugs right away. Spending time on the core fixes and features that they consider to be a priority helps them feel heard. Organize your feedback so as you fix and update your product, you can share that with your participating base ‘here’s what we did this month…’ An extra benefit to you is you may also learn how you are beating the competition.

Overall, provide excellent customer support from this point moving forward - be responsive to customer feedback and incorporate it into your product. It helps to build trust and respect - which will help with word of mouth through recommendations later.

As you and your business grows, there will be a number of different ways to continue to capture feedback. Conversations on social sites, surveys, email communications, and more. When you are ready to launch your product, thank those who participated in the development. You can even send them a company labeled gift. Afterall, who doesn’t love something free? 

Building your community as you build your product not only helps you deliver a product that meets their needs, but it helps strengthen the loyalty of your customers as they had a hand in the process. It’s good for business. It can mean the difference between making it or not. 

By involving customers early in your product development process, you’ll build a product that truly solves their problem, is usable, and on target. Plus, you get the benefits of them sharing their participation through word-of-mouth and customer testimonials will strengthen your credibility and brand.

Need help managing your product development process, or getting early adopters? Contact Us for a free 30 minute consultation.

FunFact Friday

Playdoh

Originally launched in the 1930’s as a way to clean coal soot from walls (primary means of heating), the market was declining due to the growth of gas heating. In an effort to find a new revenue source, they ‘found a teacher had been using the product for arts and crafts classes’. Seeing how a customer used their product in a new way, the old product Kutol, was rebranded to Play-Doh, was available in multiple colors and now is owned by Hasbro.