Hello IH,
Hope you're having a great weekend ;).
I'm trying to learn more about how SaaS companies deal with reaching out to their customers at certain points of their lifecycle in order to collect feedback from them.
Feel free to chime in and share what your workflow is.
In our case because we deal with field experts we’ve been reaching out to folks directly via Twitter or LinkedIn and email. Right now about 4 in 10 have responded and 3 in 10 have actually led to 30-45min phone calls. We’re currently putting together our Partners program in order to secure their commitment.
What’s worked for us is 1) recognize they’re good at what they do for a reason, in this case I actually go thru and research what they do, why they do it. 2) how do we align? I ask the question and if I can’t answer with ultimate confidence that we’re aligned with the same goals then I don’t bother reaching out/cold-contacting.
These are my 2 cents and what’s actually for me.
As long as you can handle it at your company's scale, the best way is for the founder to reach out and ask for a 30-min call. I personally found the in an interactive setting it's the most effective way to get high quality and valuable insights.
Here some ideas that we apply:
We try to do these calls at least once a year, or when we haven't heard from a customer for a long time. We're a semi-high touch SaaS product with contracts averaging at $10-25k, and a lower amount of customers that a full self service Saas, so we prefer this method. I also really believe it's more valuable than simple statistics from a survey or NPS.
Aside that, the most valuable feedback we get are from our prospects. Users that are trialing and actively comparing our product with others. Doing a 30-min call with them teaches a lot about the current state of the market and things new users evaluate when buying.
Good luck!
Thanks for your thoughtful answer. I'll give it a try but I must admit it is sometimes hard to get customers on a call especially for low-touch SaaS products.
LinkedIn - I try to connect with as many decision makers in my target markets as possible. From here it's a short and simple message asking "Hi X, Quick question, I was wondering what systems you are currently using at ABC Ltd to deal with Y and what do you like/dislike about that?". From here get a conversation going and always remember to follow-up on any non-repliers.
Hey Nelson, we just sent out an NPS survey using https://www.wootric.com.
They've got a free version of their plan but I wasn't the one who implemented the survey so I can't say exactly how it works.
However, we did get a lot of helpful feedback from this