GO, GO, GO! Speed and accuracy are essential when launching a new product. In order to do this efficiently companies need to get as much testing feedback as possible, and their own employees can represent a fantastically diverse group of users. Getting employees to provide feedback is a great way to keep testing in-house, leverage a diverse group and gather important real-world feedback before consumers get hands-on. Afterall, a few bad influencer/consumer reviews can be the demise of an expensive launch.
Telecommunications and technology companies are constantly in a cycle of launching new products and therefore feedback loops are important, but this can also be draining for employees.
After initial trials, and with a continuous development cycle, product managers can struggle to gain all important engagement and feedback from employees. Testing fatigue sets in, volunteers become fewer, and potential for products with issues being released increases.
Being able to reduce that testing fatigue is where an engagement strategy can help.
How reward and recognition strategies can help overcome this challenge
Any activity needs to be motivating to people otherwise feedback will be short lived and limited. Creating a robust engagement strategy will help navigate this, leading to more robust and actionable feedback. Primarily when asking for people’s help they will want to know, what is in it for them. Understanding this need means the strategy can be aligned with company goals and well as the needs of the individual. For example, one mechanic might be that if you want weekly feedback then reward users for timely responses and increase that reward the more times they respond on time. It is both simple to understand and rewards desired behaviour.
Why Employee Feedback is Crucial in Product Development
When launching a product everyone understands the importance of testing to ensure the product is robust. Having a diverse and wide-ranging test audience is essential. This is most evident in the telecoms and tech industries, where their products might be used by tweens to centenarians. On the one hand you have users where tech is almost instinctual and on the other, the users were born before computers were even conceived!
While it is often not practical to have such a diverse test group, when leveraging your employee base you can often gather feedback from a number of user types and socio-economic backgrounds.
We have a client that wanted to release a new broadband product to the market and they needed to test with a wider audience. Their goal was specific feedback around the setup experience, accuracy of instructions, usage experience and, for advanced users, the networking features. Their company has thousands of employees with a wide range of technical know-how and experience. We created an engagement programme that would first of all onboard users, then let them know their obligation, and finally let them know the benefits of providing regular feedback – in other words, what is in it for them!
The feedback companies can receive from brand advocate employees is invaluable. Think about the instruction “fold a piece of paper in half.” Probably 99% of the population will fold the paper from short edge to short edge, but there is 1% who will fold it from long edge to long edge. What happens to the remaining instructions for that 1%. This is just one very small instruction, whereas a technical product may have a multitude of steps, so getting a wide range of testers can highlight any issues early on.
Test – Feedback – Fix – Repeat. The more you test, the more likely the chance you expose an issue through the feedback loop. You can then fix that and ask testers to test that fix. The feedback can also help shape improvements. A products may work fine, but if there are pain points for the user then these can also be looked at and addressed. User experience should never be undervalued, as a user will opt for an inferior product if the ease of use is greater. All of this feedback help the company better understand how the product will perform in real-world condition.
Promotional Mechanics to Motivate Feedback
Enticing employees to continually participate in a testing programme typically requires some kind of incentive. A promotional mechanic is a great way to persuade employees to join the programme. It shows straight away that we value your opinion and are willing to reward you for your participation.
There are a number of promotional mechanics that can be commissioned and below are just a few.
Prize Draws
The prize draw is a great mechanic for providing a headline reward that can be won for meeting particular criteria to get you an entry. Maybe it is a trip, or expensive tech, or an experience of a lifetime.
The great thing about prize draws is they can make a limited budget look a lot enticing. Rather than offering 100 people £10 – which is not very exciting, you could pool the rewards into a fantastic £1000 reward. Maybe that is hospitality at a sporting event, a red-carpet experience, a new TV, a weekend luxury spa break, or a simply a MasterCard to spend where you like.
The drawback of a prize draw is there is only one winner and employees may get put off thinking they will never win.
Leaderboard
Adding a competitive element can appeal and this is where a Leaderboard mechanic is of benefit. Like with prize draws users need to understand they are meeting particular criteria and then will get a leaderboard score. Criteria can be customised and may include number of feedback responses, confirmed issues found, or simply days participated.
The scores will be tallied and users ranked on the Leaderboard. This can be great for competition if the scores are very close. The drawback of a leaderboard is that it can become de-motivational for users if they feel they are off the pace for a win.
Prizes are likely to be similar to those of a prize draw – headline grabbing!
Points
The most versatile of the mechanic options is a points based system which can be converted into prizes. Defining the desired behaviours up front and ranking them in importance means points can be attributed to the activity. For example, valuable behaviours (confirmed bugs) should score higher than health check activity (weekly check-in).
The points can then be accumulated by users and means they can see that their efforts are being recognised. At the end of a test campaign a user can then covert their points to a range of prizes from a coffee shop voucher to VIP hospitality.
The benefit of points can also be considered its drawback. The more desirable activity a user achieves, the more points they earn, which means a highly engaged audience can achieve large point totals. Budgeting for this approach requires flexibility.
The Blend
Our recommended approach, and the one we see most success with, is the blended approach. Have the headline prize to entice employees in, to participate in the Leaderboard/Prize Draw but then also back that up with a point system to still reward desired behaviour and maintain engagement.
Best Practices for Running a Successful Feedback Campaign
Taking all the considerations into account here are a few best practices that we would advise to help support an employee feedback campaign.
Planning – make sure you give yourself time to map out and implement a programme. Approvals and legals can always take longer than estimated and that is before a programme is designed and implemented.
Communication – How are you going to capture the imagination of your employees? What is the requirement of employees? What is the communication cycle – daily, weekly, monthly? What is the communication medium – email, SMS, video?
Feedback – How are you gathering the feedback – online / offline? Is the questionnaire fixed or variable? How are you measuring and analysing the feedback? Are you communicating findings back to participants? Do users know how they are progressing?
Rewards – Do you have a fixed or variable budget? What is the size of the expected audience? Which promotional mechanic fits best? Is there anything internally we can leverage?
Employee Rewards & Motivation From FMI
Our team of employee engagement experts help businesses to address the challenges internal teams face when motivating employees. We can provide expert recommendations on how to tackle your issues, and deploy a selection of our incentive and employee motivation services.
If you’re not quite ready to invest in a new programme, or are writing your engagement strategy, why not read more on what an employee motivation scheme involves.
If your business is seeking more robust and actionable employee feedback then contact our team today.
