There are two ways to improve your product — you can tear down the assembly line, change everything, and make it better. Or you can upgrade the customers. (This concept was stolen from Jim Alchin at Microsoft.) If there’s something about your product that drives your customers nuts, of course it makes sense to improve it. But it’s entirely possible that, for whatever reason, you’re not able to do that. Or that you can’t do it right now.
But it’s always possible to teach your customers how to deal with that problem, or work around it, or at least know it’s coming and not have to be surprised about it in the middle of installing the fuel rods in the reactor! I’d much rather hear about that brake fade problem before I start heading down the mountain pass.
So don’t just focus on teaching your customers about your product, make sure you collect information on what they want fixed or upgraded. It could be that many of these issues aren’t issues at all — maybe they don’t fully understand how to use it, or there’s another option, or something that they can do to make life easier.
Maybe you’ve already got a fix or a plug-in ready to go that you can offer. Or another customer has come up with a great work-around and posted it on a forum. (Make sure you credit them — nothing worse than stealing work and pretending you did it!) Where can you find this kind of information?
Focus Groups
You should have regular focus groups scheduled of users (both “new users” and “old pros” that you bring together with a trained facilitator. Keep your tech types behind the mirrored window, and just let them talk about what they like, and what they don’t like.
Customer Forums
The cost of running an online forum is almost nothing. You will need an employee to run herd on it, making sure everyone plays nice. It also wouldn’t hurt to hand out some swag and free stuff from time to time to the folks who really help others. But you’ll get a wealth of info.
Shows and Events
Attending and presenting at public events in your industry and mingling with customers is another great place to collect unfiltered information for your content efforts. Wear your company shirt, give away some samples or links to a web site and see what people have to say. Bring an inexpensive video camera and shoot some man-on-the-street interviews you can bring back.
Support/Vendors/Distributors
If you’re a little bit larger, you have a network of people who represent you to the public. Answering phone calls, stocking shelves, pushing your products out to the world. They hear things all day long that would be amazingly useful, and they’ve got a vested interest in your success. Listen.