Product Management Journal

Recently a product manager mentioned that he was doing a "quick little survey" of his customers. Being the curious sort, I asked "how quick and how little?" and he said "oh, with Survey Monkey I can do a thirty question survey in a couple of days." I let it go at that, but I could have asked " should you do it in a couple of days?" Yes, it's possible to post a survey and get results very quickly, especially if you have a pre-identified or captive audience, especially if you limit it to two or three concise questons. But if you whip up a few dozen questions and expect to pop the results straight into PowerPoint, you may be disappointed. First, asking the right questions is tricky. If you ask too many, or they're too complex, people won't complete the survey. Worse, if you ask ambiguous questions, you'll get answers that may be impossible to analyze, or may even mislead you. It's crucial to use the target person's lan...

Recently I was talking to a PM from a consumer products company. I mentioned that the feedback for his products on Amazon was pretty good. He looked a bit offended, and said "that's not very scientific - we try not to pay too much attention to it." There are a LOT of customer comments about his product. The majority are good, some are not so. As a sample of his customers (and possible customers), he's right that it's a pretty atypical group. But worthy of being ignored? There are two kinds of people who write customer reviews on the web: Those who tried the product and have a really strong opinion, and those who have a really high opinion of themselves and want to share their every thought. Kind of like bloggers and twitterers. And people will review almost anything - software, MP3 players, music, books, deodorant - you name it. Actually, there's one other type of contributor: People who review their own products or competitors products. But we'll i...