Fellow Brontos and I recently hosted our first ever focus group/user group/customer summit/whatever you want to call it. (We've been calling it Bronto Summit 0.1.)
My only previous focus group experience stems from the IBM hardware focus groups I used to attend. I'd get $100 cash and free dinner in exchange for spending 3 hours in a dingy IBM meeting room hemming and hawing the finer points of desktop PC ergonomics. (What fun!)
Our recent focus group - although a bit non-traditional - was a much more rewarding experience. Here are a few thoughts after the fact:
My only previous focus group experience stems from the IBM hardware focus groups I used to attend. I'd get $100 cash and free dinner in exchange for spending 3 hours in a dingy IBM meeting room hemming and hawing the finer points of desktop PC ergonomics. (What fun!)
Our recent focus group - although a bit non-traditional - was a much more rewarding experience. Here are a few thoughts after the fact:
- We're on point with the new release. The vast majority of the "we would like to have" feature suggestions are already in the release. If not in the release, they're on the 6 month roadmap. So - we're definitely keyed into what our customers (and future customers) want.
- Thad - Bronto Director of Engineering - added a number of tasks to his to-do list. Our customers have interesting ideas and we're listening.
- It was amazing how our customers talked to each other about how they use Bronto, their thoughts on email marketing, and how their experiences and businesses shape their strategies. (Fellow Brontos and I merely facilitated much of the conversation.) Personally, I found it very rewarding to hear customers tell how Bronto helps them solve their business problems.
- The meeting manifested the beginnings of the Bronto "community" - customers with shared experience using a product that helps them meet their goals and that they love to use. As such - I'm sure that we'll do more of these in the future - locally and elsewhere.