Product suggestion category. Good or Bad?

bmaue
bmaue Vanilla Seedling
edited April 2023 in Talk Community #1

📢Heyo!

We are on the fence about adding a section to allow users to suggest product updates. Has anyone done this? If so, how has it worked out?

Our hesitation is that we don't want folks only coming to the Community to suggest product features. Is this something you have had a problem with?

Any insight would be super helpful.


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Comments

  • Hi there!

    When this community started (back before my time), the point was to provide support. What happened was that members came in and kept making suggestions. So, the community pivoted and met the members where they wanted to be. Eventually, the community's focus expanded, and more support came into play, but the point was that the community had to provide the members with what they wanted. One of the reasons people come to a community is to solve a pain point.

    A question for you is, do you think you can turn those suggestions into conversations? For example, do you think other community members would collaborate on an idea to make it better?

    Another question - what harm do you see coming from an influx of suggestions? My first thought is that your product team may not be willing to accept ideas from the community. If so, I would hesitate to open the community to official ideation. Being ignored is awful and breeds bitterness. I posted something about this recently - Guide the product team into supporting your community.

    Other than that, I am curious about the fear behind your reasoning.

    Thanks for posting this question. I look forward to the conversation!

  • bmaue
    bmaue Vanilla Seedling

    Hey @Genevieve P!

    Thank you so much for this insight!

  • Alex Dunne
    Alex Dunne Vanilla Flower

    Hi @PiperWilson ,

    I'd echo @Genevieve P 's points and just add that, whatever process you land on, make sure it's well documented so that users expectations are being level-set. We've had to be really clear that the Ideas space is a repository and that there's no guarantee they'll make it onto the roadmap.

  • Alex Dunne
    Alex Dunne Vanilla Flower

    Another benefit to an Ideas category is that it helps you ID some users who are great at giving feedback that you can reach out to when opportunities for things like Beta testing/Focus Groups come up.