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There used to be a time when surveys were a great way of collecting information. However, this has now been replaced by clever analytics. Most surveys we see now are transactional in nature with companies offering rewards for customers to participate in surveys. I have taken in a few of these surveys. They can be drafted in a fun manner, however the ones that pay are often boring and not designed well at all.

While designing surveys for startup product development – note that very few people know about your company. Hence, you sometimes are forced to follow the transactional route of paying for surveys. However, if you already have an established product, surveys are a great way to collect quantitative information about product usage, desired features or additional pain points etc.

This discussion takes you through capturing customer feedback, key market intel and constant customer engagement for your product development. There are of course lots of software available to capture this intel and provide key metrics which can be used for various reasons. As a startup, my key rationale was – proving market demand, understanding customer needs and most importantly key insights into what can improve the product.

As a product manager at heart, the last one was always my most important concern. It was fascinating to see what people were looking for, how trends emerged in the thought process and the simple solutions that emerged through the process which helped us build a product and in turn raise finances to develop the product furthermore. In this post, we will tailor this product towards product development and the importance of surveys when you start.

Qualitative surveys to capture insights

Yes! Questions naturally are the most important source of data. However, when you are defining a survey, it is very important to keep these questions open-ended/Qualitative surveys. If you are using leading questions – then you are not doing a very good job at creating surveys.

The main problem: It is important to think of the stage of development your product is in. However, you need to come to the overarching problem you are trying to solve. If you are trying to design a body ache cream – you cannot be starting your questions about creams. They can be a part of your questionnaire – but if you are to collect useful intel – start with what people do about these problems, what solutions they use and the alternatives they choose.

The most important item you’d want to identify is what people would love as a solution. But you cannot be leading them to a solution you want them to think. If you are doing that, you might as well give up the idea of a survey. It must be open and looking at the big picture.

Identifying hidden needs

Asking questions is a good way of eliciting information out of people. But there are better ways out there. When you ask questions, there is often an invariable bias associated with it. People tend to give answers which are not always what they truly feel. There maybe an associated bias of the conventions, societal expectations, etc. The list of reasons can go on.

Questions are not reliable: You can see where I am going with this. Questions are not always the most reliable source of information for product development. For this reason, you will need to resort to alternate measures. And one of my favourites is identifying hidden needs. Once you know the problem you are trying to resolve, you’d need a closer look at how people are navigating around this problem.

Shadowing: A possible solution is in shadowing the people for whom you are designing a solution. Following them through their everyday experience, understanding what they go through brings a level of empathy to the solution you are trying to present. This will allow you to think of different solutions. Key aspects to think of are the problem, alternatives used to reach the end goal.

Getting customer validation

A part of the solution process is to create a buy-in for a solution you are thinking of. You will be able to use this principle at a later stage of product development when you have gathered enough intel about the product you are going to develop.

Surveys often tend to forget the joy audience can derive in devising a solution with you. If you are open and honest about the solution in the plan – you might benefit from sharing it with the key users of it. Not only do you get extraordinary intelligence, but also you get a feel of how they might react to the solution. For a software product, I loved the idea of wireframes and mockups. I am a huge fan of MVP – Minimum Viable Product concept which relies on continual development.

Minimum Viable Product: The concept gains its biggest advantage from being close to the audience right from the start of your product development. It is not a foolproof method of product development, but it will keep you grounded and close to your end goal. There is sheer joy in developing a product with the end-user in mind or else it is extremely easy to get lost in prototyping and devising a brilliant solution that no one will use. The key driver is to get something out there and continually improve the features and aspects which your customers really want.