Making the Most of your Clients' Feedback

Do you know how your clients are doing? Any feedback from their games' users? Having a website and/or an online forum where users can leave their comments are great ideas but let's be honest, it has all been done before.The innovation of web page testimonials has gained popularity in online communities and testimonials are a way of getting 'creative' feedback from users. Testimonial pages are a way to interact with the public, get feedback, advertise a product, show your strengths, among others.
 
Truth be said, most of the testimonials we see show the fabulous side of your business/work, why you are better than others at developing games, how helpful you were, and so on. Of course, they provide that credibility that's so valuable in this online globalized world. Consumers want evidence that what you say is true.

The question is how to take advantage of what clients have to say, and not just use their comments (part of them) to decorate your site. Believe me, I'm not against testimonials by any means. They are great!

The personal touch 

Do you arrange interviews with your clients? Have you ever thought about it? There is nothing more valuable than being in direct contact with your clients. Personally, I've always felt more attracted to that kind of interaction, you can ask questions and analyse reactions. Their tone of voice, the way they address you and the issues they raise have a different feel when you actually listen to them. All this valuable information is lost on comment pages and online forums.
 
I strongly believe there's nothing better than a phone call, white paper and a pen. Listen, ask, take notes...and then respond! After the interview, you can split up the feedback you get from your clients into two parts:
 
    1) The positive feedback that you can then convert into attention-calling  and colorful testimonials to add to your site.
    2) The suggestions from clients’ feedback based on what he feels needs be improved or what is not to their taste.

Hands On!

It’s worth to take the time to create a chart sorted out by client's name to enter the interview details and have a special column for SUGGESTIONS. Let the scales fall from your eyes, there's always something to optimize. The development of your game leaves ground for improvement. Nobody's perfect!

Example starts at home - The very same clients that said how delighted they were with our translation service also made comments on how we could simplify some things or suggestions that would even help new-comers, tips they could give us from their own experience.

Based on these calls, we started adding “Help” tips to the site (some clients said they were lost after logging in), made some functionality more user-friendly (non-programmers users found it more difficult to navigate through the site), added new paying methods (only option beforehand was PayPal), included a review feature (some clients said: “How do we know the quality is good if we don’t speak many of the localization languages?”), added subject fields (clients will be able to find the the localizers with the expertise they need for their specific projects), among others.

To sum up

When you design your next game or update an existing one, make sure you take your clients’ feedback into account. If you are in a company and the person in charge of interviews is not you, by going over that chart will keep the ideas listed fresh in your mind. For sure, those suggestions will spring up during design.

Get started and convert creative feedback into creative action!

Would you like to share how client’s feedback helped your game development?