5 Major Benefits of Customer Feedback for Software Development
What is customer feedback? Why is user feedback vital for software development? What is user feedback used for?
Keep reading the post to know more!
What is feedback?
Feedback is information or criticism that helps in improving someone’s or something’s current and future actions. Similarly, customer feedback is the reaction given by consumers based on their interaction with the product or services of a company.
Though most applications go through a rigorous development cycle, their success heavily depends on customers’ satisfaction and feedback. Based on customer feedback, developers can optimize the user interface. Customer feedback adds great value while developing a mobile application, web application, or any other software.
A customer-centric approach by an organization is the best way to collect user feedback and integrate it into the development process. In a customer-centric approach, business focuses on providing a positive customer experience, improved customer loyalty, and increased business growth.
Involving users in the software development process helps developers analyze the issues better. Developers find it challenging to identify every minute problem faced by the users. Customer feedback can give developers a solid understanding of the problems and definite solutions.
Related post: The Nine Steps of Software Product Development Life Cycle
Here are the important data points that every customer feedback for software development should include:
- Operating system
- Specifications
- Features
- Loading time
- User experience
- New ideas
5 reasons why customer feedback is important
Customer feedback helps in understanding how customers perceive your brand. Organizations can make better decisions and improve the user experience with the feedback given by customers, employees, suppliers, stakeholders, and vendors. Effective customer feedback is important to do the following:
-
Identify customers’ preferences
While launching a new product or software, customer feedback is vital to understanding the pain points, requirements, and choices of the users. With the help of customer feedback tools, it’s easier to gather, segregate and evaluate the data. Some of the tools like Survey Monkey, Typeform, Survey Sparrow, User Report, and Customer Sure are available to gather online customers’ feedback.
This process of identifying the customer requirements and providing solutions accordingly will make the customers feel valued and involved in the product-building process. -
Enhance the team efficiency
Customer feedback is based on the users’ experience with the software. The user feedback provides valuable information that helps the team complete their task efficiently and deliver it on time. -
Increase the software quality
Several people test the application when the development team releases the beta version of the software. Users might face issues related to the features, loading time, operating system, etc., and provide comprehensive feedback based on the issues to the development team. Upon receiving the feedback, developers easily make the changes and improve the quality of the software.
Related post: What is Software Quality Assurance, and Why Is It Important? -
Lower the developmental costs
Early customer feedback allows developers to avoid major app changes and flaws. This way they can save time and eventually developmental costs. This step helps in fixing the bugs before the release of the software. Hence customer feedback saves time and developmental costs for the company. -
Augment the marketing strategy
Customer feedback provides vital information about user requirements and expectations. This information helps the marketing team to frame a better launch and positioning strategy.
How to ask for customer feedback?
The best ways to develop user-friendly software and derive reliable customer feedback are as follows:
-
Using the uninstall feedback surveys
These surveys come into action when users uninstall the application. This type of feedback survey includes open-ended and multiple-choice questions. This survey enables users to share their reasons for uninstallation. -
Utilizing bug reports
A bug report is a common way to gather users’ feedback. If the software corrupts unexpectedly, the users can send their log files to the support team. and the software development team can resolve the bugs. -
Reviewing instant online feedback
Adding dialogue boxes on the website help in getting instant customer feedback. They will allow the users to have a quick conversation on the issues. -
Circulating responsive emails
The users can send videos, images, and log files via emails that help the development team understand the problems better. -
Leveraging social media channels
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn are great ways to collect customer feedback. Many customers share their experiences and provide reviews through social media. Hence, you can leverage social media platforms for customer feedback by creating polls, votes, and surveys.
Continuous collaboration between the developers, users, and the business is crucial for a successful software development process. Getting real-time feedback from users positively impacts software development. According to Forbes, businesses focusing on improving customer experience will have an 80 percent increase in their revenue. And thus, maximizing customer feedback helps in positioning the customer expectations with the software feature in every stage of software development.
Experienced software developers can leverage customer feedback to build the best apps and websites.
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FAQs
What is user feedback used for?
User feedback helps companies understand what users feel while using a new product or software. User feedback gives actionable insights to developers and enables them to
- Identify customer preferences
- Enhance team efficiency
- Increase the software quality
- Lower developmental costs
- Augment the marketing strategy
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