To collect customer feedback, ask at the moment it is relevant (in your product, after a support ticket, after a key task) and give customers one always-open place to send ideas, such as a feedback board. Combine a few channels: an in-app widget or board for requests, short surveys for scores, interviews for depth, and your support inbox for everything else. Then route all of it into one system and tell people what you did with it.
This post is part of our customer feedback series. The hub is types of customer feedback; once you are collecting, read customer feedback analysis and see product feedback examples for an example form.
How to collect customer feedback in 7 steps
- Decide what you need to learn. "Which features to build next" needs requests and votes. "Why are trials not converting" needs interviews and an onboarding survey. Write down two or three questions before picking channels.
- Pick two or three channels to start. For most SaaS teams: an in-app widget or feedback board, one survey at a key moment, and support capture.
- Put everything in one place. Every channel should feed one system of record, with each item linked to the customer who sent it.
- Ask at the right moment. Ask about onboarding right after onboarding, about support right after a ticket closes, about a feature after someone has used it.
- Keep it short. One question beats ten. Ask for a score, then one "why" in free text.
- Make it public where you can. A public board shows customers what others asked for, cuts duplicates and lets them vote instead of re-posting.
- Close the loop. Tell people when their feedback is planned, shipped or declined. Closing the feedback loop is what keeps feedback coming.
8 channels for collecting customer feedback
| Channel | Best for | Effort to run | Feedback type |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-app widget | Requests and bugs in context | Low | Mostly qualitative |
| Feedback board | Feature requests with votes | Low | Qualitative plus vote counts |
| Surveys (NPS, CSAT, CES) | Tracking sentiment over time | Low to medium | Quantitative plus comments |
| Customer interviews | Understanding the why | High | Qualitative |
| Support conversations | Problems and hidden requests | Low if logged | Qualitative |
| Reaching inactive users | Low | Either | |
| Reviews and social | Public perception | Low | Qualitative |
| Usage data | What people actually do | Medium | Quantitative (behavioral) |
In-app feedback widgets
An in-app widget lets users send feedback without leaving your product, while the problem is in front of them. It gets the most relevant feedback with the least friction. Keep the form short: a title, a description and an optional screenshot.
FeatureOS has an embeddable widget that posts straight to your boards, so in-app feedback and board feedback land in the same place.
Feedback boards
A feedback board is a page where customers post ideas and vote on each other's. It is the best channel for feature requests because duplicates turn into votes instead of new tickets, and customers can see what is already planned. Read what is a feedback board for a setup guide, or see FeatureOS feedback boards.
Decide early whether the board is public (more feedback, visible to prospects) or private (for enterprise customers or a beta group). You can run both.
Surveys
Surveys give you numbers you can track over time:
- NPS: overall loyalty, sent every quarter or half-year.
- CSAT: satisfaction with one interaction, sent right after it.
- CES: how easy a task was, sent right after the task.
Short in-app surveys and microsurveys get more answers than long email surveys. Always add one open question ("What is the main reason for your score?"). For wording, see 11 customer feedback survey questions, draft one with the survey generator, and read survey vs feedback board to choose between the two. FeatureOS Forms and Surveys runs these alongside your boards.
Customer interviews
Interviews are slow but explain things no score can. Talk to five to eight customers about one topic. Ask about what they did last time, not what they would do in theory:
- "Walk me through the last time you did [task]."
- "What did you try before using us for this?"
- "What almost stopped you from signing up?"
Record the call (with permission), take notes, and log any requests on your board against the customer's name.
Support conversations
Your support inbox already holds a lot of product feedback; it just is not labelled. Give agents a quick way to log requests: in FeatureOS, they can create or upvote a post from Intercom, Zendesk or Salesforce without leaving the ticket, and your team can log what a customer said with the Slack shortcut or the Discord command. Our guide to tracking feature requests in Slack covers that workflow.
Email reaches customers who no longer log in, which makes it the best channel for churn and win-back questions. Keep it to one question and a reply-to address. With FeatureOS Letterbox, customers can email feedback to an address: the subject becomes the post title, and replies to the confirmation become comments.
Reviews and social media
Review sites (G2, Capterra, app stores) and social posts are unsolicited and public. Monitor them, reply, and copy concrete requests onto your board so they are counted with the rest.
Usage data
Product analytics show what customers do, not what they say: which features they use, where they drop off, what they search for. Use it to check what feedback tells you. If many people ask for a feature that already exists, the problem is discovery, not development.
Tips for getting more (and better) feedback
- Lower the effort. Guest posting and guest voting on a public board remove the sign-up step.
- Show that feedback leads somewhere. A public roadmap and a changelog prove that requests get built.
- Ask specific questions. "How was onboarding?" gets more useful answers than "Any feedback?"
- Do not over-survey. Space surveys out and skip people who answered recently.
- Thank people. A short reply when someone posts is often enough.
What to do after you collect feedback
Collecting is the first half. Next, sort it by type, merge duplicates and look for themes; customer feedback analysis walks through the six steps. For real examples of how companies ask for feedback, see 15 customer feedback examples.
FeatureOS brings these channels together: widget, boards, Letterbox email, support and Slack capture, surveys, roadmap and changelog. See customer feedback software and feature request software. Plans start at $60/month for 5 seats, and you pay only for team seats. See pricing for details and the 14-day free trial.
