First, I try to 'prime the pump' by sending a post-registration email that is super friendly and informal:
Hey, glad you're checking out Buttondown :)
Please let me know if you need any help getting set up, or have any questions or feature requests! I'd be more than happy to help — I also offer concierge onboarding, so if you need any help migrating back issues or existing subscribers from Mailchimp/Tinyletter/whatever, I'd be happy to do that free of charge.
Have a great rest of your day, and don't hesitate to reach out!
(Seriously, replies go straight to my inbox, and I love getting email.)
This turns a lot of customer conversations from an outbound thing into an inbound thing, which helps a lot — folks feel comfortable and willing to reach out and give feedback.
When I'm looking for more focused and directed feedback ("how do I make life easier for folks who are sending emails that have to do with programming?", "what API features should I work on next?") I don't do anything particularly fancy: I have a Google sheet where each tab is a question that I ask. Keeping track of it this way has a couple advantages:
I get a good sense of who is willing to respond and who isn't;
I develop an understanding of response rates and timing;
I have an easy way of collating and synthesizing the responses.
I am still trying to figure this out too, but I'll share what I do today:
I send all new email subscribers a survey (automatically) 2 weeks after they join, and then a follow-up a week later if they don't complete it.
In that survey I ask some specific questions and some general ones to figure out what they value and what features might resonate with them.
I also send around surveys with requests to follow up to my most engaged subscribers from time to time (maybe once per quarter).
In these surveys I ask specific questions based on what I'm building or thinking of building.
I ask them to indicate if they would be willing to do a follow up call so I can get a little facetime.
The thing I like about this is that it's mostly asynchronous. Since I'm not working full-time on my project, I can't spend all day talking to customers, but I can send surveys and ask email questions anytime.
I pitch it as a 2-minute survey, so it's just a few questions. I use Mailchimp to add new subscribers to a drip campaign that receives the survey about 2 weeks after they sign up.
First, I try to 'prime the pump' by sending a post-registration email that is super friendly and informal:
This turns a lot of customer conversations from an outbound thing into an inbound thing, which helps a lot — folks feel comfortable and willing to reach out and give feedback.
When I'm looking for more focused and directed feedback ("how do I make life easier for folks who are sending emails that have to do with programming?", "what API features should I work on next?") I don't do anything particularly fancy: I have a Google sheet where each tab is a question that I ask. Keeping track of it this way has a couple advantages:
Thank you for sharing. This looks like a good way to 'open the gates' into engagement.
For a newbie for myself, would you mind explaining the inbound/outbound terminology?
For sure!
Inbound: folks reaching out to you. (A “contact us” form is the most basic version of inbound sales.)
Outbound: you proactively reaching out to folks. (Cold emails are the most basic version of outbound sales.)
Thank you. I am now learning this subject.
I am still trying to figure this out too, but I'll share what I do today:
The thing I like about this is that it's mostly asynchronous. Since I'm not working full-time on my project, I can't spend all day talking to customers, but I can send surveys and ask email questions anytime.
Will be interested to hear what others are doing!
What do you use to schedule the 2-weeks survey? Do you follow any guideline for designing your surveys? For example, survey length, wording, etc.?
I pitch it as a 2-minute survey, so it's just a few questions. I use Mailchimp to add new subscribers to a drip campaign that receives the survey about 2 weeks after they sign up.
chat functionality on the website / webapp / SPA and inside mobile apps. something like Drift or Crisp chat or Intercom
for mass, there's email newsletters and sms
for the beta groups there's a google group / fb group or a slack channel
@puoy
From my experience, it seems quite a challenge to manage so many channels of communication.