Don't confuse symptons with problem
This is what you should do instead while asking for feedback→
How many times have you asked for feedback to
make your website user-friendly?
improve your product?
understand what can be improved in your service?
or identifying the customer needs.
Whatever the reason is, asking for feedback is undoubtedly a great way to get audience insights.
But if done wrong, it can hurt.
Considering every feedback as a root problem is a mistake you should avoid even if the feedback comes from a loyal audience or an expert.
Let me cite an example here.
Imagine that you run a newsletter where you share your relevant case studies thrice a week.
You decided to take feedback from subscribers to know what your users like and dislike about your newsletter.
User A said, “Pure text-based newsletter is boring. You should try adding a podcast version of every issue.”
User B said, “I feel you should send one email a week. Not more than that.”
Based on the feedback, you may think of sending only one email a week or adding different content formats within your newsletter.
And, If you think so…. you need to understand a straightforward thing.
Every challenge, issue, complaint coming from users should be treated as symptoms instead of the root problem.
Why?
Because we often attack the symptoms without even considering the real problem.
Taking the previous example here.
It is possible that your newsletter copy isn’t that engaging, or it doesn’t add much value.
So instead of adding a podcast version to your newsletter, you may consider improving your copy.
Likewise, instead of sending one email a week, why not send helpful information and resources to your subscribers.
Note: I am not saying that every feedback can’t be a real problem. But once you treat every feedback as a symptom, you’ll be able to deep dive into the core problem.
“A useful practice in design thinking is to assume that every problem is a symptom.
The real problem is almost buried deep under, and it takes a lot of effort and patience to get to the core problem before it could be solved meaningfully,…
As a result, they attack symptoms to no avail and see the problems resurfacing in uglier manifestations.”
- Pavan Soni (Book: Design your thinking)
Final words
Next time when someone shares their feedback about your product/service/website/content, consider this as a symptom.
And try to deep dive to understand the real problem behind these symptoms.
One best way to validate whether you’ve targeted the real problem or not is by taking help from data.
Run A/B testing, use web analytics, run a quantitative survey from a large enough sample size to get as closer as possible to the core problem.