Product Suggestion Process

TeetimeNC wrote on 7/25/2010, 5:26 AM
A while back I offered up a suggestion to SCS to look at Drop Box's "vote box" for getting feedback from customers. Recently I used Smugmug's suggestion process and am really impressed with it. I'll be sending this in to SCS as well.

Basically, Smugmug gives you 15 votes. Every time you submit a suggestion you use up a vote. Every time a suggestion is accepted you get a vote credited back to your account. You can also vote for any other suggestions that have already been posted. If you start typing in a new suggestion the web site shows you a list of similar or related suggestions that have already been made. In addition to how many votes a suggestion has received, every suggestion has a status:
- Submitted
- Under Review
- Planned
- Started
- Completed

Because you only have 15 votes, you are encouraged to "spend" them wisely - not much soap box or whining to be found there. And I really like that you can look at any suggestion and see exactly where it is in the process, and how important it is to the overall community. And for Smugmug, they have an excellent guage of what their customers think is most important.

/jerry

Comments

farss wrote on 7/25/2010, 6:34 AM
I can see a number of issues with this:

1) Surely the most important people to be canvassing for suggestions are people who aren't using the product.

2) You could make suggestions which are obvious e.g. Support for AVCHD.

3) The suggestion could be a really good one that'll never be implemented because of technical constraints. You have no way of knowing this, the more technically savvy might be able to hazard a guess. The only way around this would be to have a "rejected" status for the suggestion. In fairness the developers would have to provide an extended response as to why it was rejected. Many would no doubt argue that a good suggestion that's rejected through no fault of the person making the suggestion should still get a vote back.

4) SCS have never acknowledged that features were implemented based on a suggestion. There may be good reasons for this.


Bob.
FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 7/25/2010, 7:37 AM
I think a "smugmug" badge would go to anyone who goes into the FCP forum and convinces someone to use Vegas to get the job done quickly. If you get a convert then SCS should give you 50% off on the upgrade to Sony Vegas Pro X.
TeetimeNC wrote on 7/25/2010, 9:17 AM
Bob, I think the fact that the community can vote on and discuss each suggestion mitigates some of the concerns you raise, especially when compared with the black hole approach used by most vendors. The proof is in the pudding - just take a look at the overall quality of the suggestions and the number that have been implemented.

/jerry