Building Community Through Surveys

Love it or hate it, the internet has turned media from a one-to-many communication channel to one that can either reach people one-on-one or open the doors to communicating in a many-to-many direction. Social media and messaging apps further increase the opportunities to reach your customers and invite customers to reach you.

With the increased opportunities to communicate with customers, it’s surprising how few companies actually take the time to listen and interact with their communities! As an open source company, Payara Services has always taken the feedback of our customers and community members into consideration when planning new features and enhancements for the Payara Platform and our support solutions. Not only do Payara Platform customers and community users’ feedback fuel product development of our open source server runtimes and support – but the Payara team also uses community feedback to help shape the future of the industry through our involvement as Strategic Members of the Jakarta EE and Eclipse MicroProfile working groups and as Solutions Members of the Eclipse Foundation.

One of the best methods to understand what your customers need from you is simply to ask them! You can find out pretty much anything you need to know through the use of the classic customer survey.

Payara uses surveys and customer feedback on a regular basis to create the Payara Platform roadmap and determine industry hot-topics for content creation planning. (Participate in our September 2019 community survey!)

Surveys are a simple gesture that show customers you’re interested in what they have to say and when you follow through with the results of the survey (such as putting requested features into your product, for example) your simple survey becomes a win-win for both your organization and the needs of the customer.

Your customer feels like their opinion matters. Their needs are met. They’re happy with your product.

Asking the actual users of the product what they want to see in that product is a foolproof way to make sure you’re meeting the needs of your customers while also making your customers feel valued in the process.

From the company standpoint, you avoid wasting time and resources developing product features that no one really cares about. From a marketing angle, the survey helps you introduce potential upcoming product features and discover any areas in your marketing messaging that has not had the intended impact, so adjustments can be made.

If you’re not already using customer surveys in your marketing and product development strategy, you’re missing out! Give it a try the next time you’re planning a product update, considering a new product or service, or just need to know more about your customers.

Topics: Fish Food

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