Stormy Feature Rollouts

Ever change a design or launch a new feature that your customers just hated? It’s not fun! It pushes you back on your heels and makes you rush to justify the decision. Customer after customer complains about the same thing and in response you churn out rote explanations of how they can adapt and why the new way is better.

The problem is that those formulaic replies prevent your team from learning more about where customers struggle. It’s better to restrain your desire to explain the new feature or change in design and instead keep a curious mindset. Use that curiosity to ask about how the customer used to work and what they now find difficult. Lean on cues they mentioned in their message (or rant!). As one brief example:

I realize the editor’s new line spacing is frustrating for poets like yourself. Could you tell me more about how you used the old editor? I’d love to better understand your writing process as it may help our team reconsider how this works.

Your phrasing needs to give the customer an opening to talk about their positive experiences in times past. Not everyone will take that opening, of course, but it helps to make them feel heard right away. Echo their language back to them. Show that you’re listening and curious. And then ask open-ended, inquisitive questions that get them to share more about how they used the product in the past.

The goal is to not get bogged down in their frustration with the new design. You can always detail what their options are once you better understand how they expect things to work. You want to encourage a conversation about why this change made things difficult. You want to learn not just what the customer dislikes about the new version but what they loved about the old version. This will help you relay customer feedback back to your product team because the best products are those people love to use, not those they don’t hate.

As with so many things, this is easier said than done. And, yes, some customers are just going to vent. That’s okay. That’s where those formulaic responses can lend a hand, especially if you are swamped under a growing backlog. It’s still worth the effort to find those handful of customers who give you an opening. When you find them, it’s worth investing in some individualized conversations to understand your customers’ point of view.

As you talk with more customers, you build a model of how this particular change impacted them. That understanding is crucial for your product team. Knowing that many customers are unhappy isn’t actionable. Knowing that many customers are struggling to adapt because this new design complicates a common workflow is actionable, insightful gold. That’s fertile ground for the next design iteration.