Closing End User Feedback Loops

Question, information, action, reaction, reconnection.

End user feedback loops are a practice of meaningfully responding to customers and clients when they share feedback. 

For example, if a person complains about a service experience with a private company, the company could respond with an apology and issue a refund. On the other hand, people also leave feedback when they have a particularly positive experience, and when they have suggestions for improvement.

Feedback loops identify and prioritize the most important changes for end users of a product, program, or service. Using and responding to client feedback regularly results in incremental, client-directed change. Systematically using feedback loops can also help to create a culture of responsiveness within an organization or community.

A feedback loop typically involves five distinct stages:

1) An end user experience must be measured, captured, and stored

2) Gathered feedback should be aggregated and analyzed

3) Prioritize the feedback for action, articulating specific tasks or changes that will be completed

4) Take steps to implement action points

5) Inform end users (same or new cohort) of changes that have been made in response to client feedback

The last step is critical, because this is the moment that you as the designer can ‘close the loop’ with end users. Whether you can or cannot integrate their suggestions or address their concerns, closing the loop is an effective way to invest in end user relationships and demonstrate that you value their input.

Feedback Loops in Action

Use these readings, videos, and other resources to learn more about closing the loop with end users:

Strategies & Tips for Success

Make your efforts to close the feedback loop more effective by keeping these strategies and tips in mind:

• Use a single feedback method to start so that you can systematically collect and compare perspectives

• Customers should feel confident that their feedback is tracked and reviewed by the product team – make sure to mention this somehow when they leave the feedback.

• Make feedback analyses useful and easily-accessible by organizing it in a single, centralized location. 

• The more often you hear about a problem, the more pressing and common it is likely to be.

• Attempting to react to every request and message is not a productive way to use limited resources.

• Identify the top few topics highlighted in end user feedback. These are likely to represent more than half of your total feedback volume.

• After analyzing and prioritizing response actions, share with clients how their feedback fits into the universe of priorities.

• When a requested change is made, take the opportunity to tell end users about it; you can also use this as a chance to follow up with an invitation to contribute more. 

• You can also communicate why something is not being prioritized; this is an effective way for end users and designers to co-educate each other and set practical expectations.

Practical Activities & Learning

1) Review the 3-5 key changes you plan to make to the prototype/journey map you created.

2) Review the feedback grids previously collected and prioritize the key changes.

3) Make the changes to the prototype/journey map.

4) Document any challenges or difficulties associated with making the intended changes.

5) Reconnect with end users and share the changes that were successfully made, and those that could not be implemented at this time.

In the Field

As a neighborhood consultant, you can submit up to 15 feedback loop worksheets from processes you are working to improve. Notes and outputs should be summarized and shared to enhance our learning.

Feedback Loop Field Journal Worksheets available on request from aaron[at]akroadvice.com