Eat your own dog food

The phrase 'eat your own ? dog food' is based on the belief that companies should use their own products. While this can be tricky in many cases, it doesn't make it any less true. Using your own product intensively is the only way to learn the ins and outs first hand and to understand areas for improvement. Ultimately, this will improve both the quality of your product and your customer satisfaction.

Live the life of your customers

In theory, this means living the life of your customers. Upvoty founder Mike has another start-up called Vindy. The need for an effective ? feedback tool originated with that start-up and Upvoty will be used within that product. This is extremely interesting for Upvoty, because it allows us to live the life of our future customers.

What if I can't do it?

You, too, can live the life of your customers. A great example of this is Mailchimp, one of the biggest online ? e-mail providers. Despite having a client base consisting largely of retailers, they have nothing to do with the retail business. But that didn't stop them from opening their own website to learn the ins and outs of being a retailer. This helped them quickly gain new insights on ways to improve the Mailchimp product. Okay, I'll admit this is an ambitious way to go, especially for a small start-up, but the example could inspire new ideas.

Scratch your own itch

It all comes down to identifying potential issues. What problems are your users having? And how can your product help? Becoming your own customer makes this easier to identify. Create a fictitious start-up if you have to and appoint a small team to 'play' with the product every now and then.

Plan B

If you're really stuck, there's always a plan B. Invite some users to your office or location every once in a while to see how your product is doing. Most importantly: talk ? to them! What could be improved?
If you can't do this in person, the Upvoty feedback boards with feature voting is a great way to gain insight into your customer experience.
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How to handle customer feedback

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So, we advertised on BetaList; is it worth it?