How to deal with software enhancement requests

Jeff_Perkinson

As you know, JMP thrives on feedback from our users, and it’s important for them to know that. Thanks for making it a part of your interaction with our customers.

Here are some important points that should be observed when dealing with enhancement requests from our customers:

 

1. Tell users to use the existing entry points for suggesting enhancements:
   • Tech Support, and/or
   • JMP Wish List in the Community - to garner other public support for it
2. You can (should?) ask to be copied/informed when they use these entry points for your own awareness

• If they provide other justification or explanation of value for the feature, pass that on to Product Management 
• If a customer provides some prioritization of their requests, in recognition that we will have to make choices of what we do, pass that prioritization on to Product Management

If the customer chooses not to send a suggestion to Tech Support or the Wish List, that may be an indication of the value they place on the idea. However, if you do receive an individual request, and feel that it’s valuable, and that the customer isn’t going to communicate it through Tech Support or the Wish List, post the idea in the internal wish list with background information (the customer, the problem they are trying to solve, ...). Or, as a last resort, send it to Tech Support yourself and ask them to enter a Jira Feature Request. Be sure to reference the customer and relevant information so it can be noted in the Jira request. 

Do not tell customers that you are their connection to development or product management. This can put you in the uncomfortable position of being in the middle of something you can’t really do anything about (e.g., feeling like you must lobby product management or development, which can create tension in that relationship, while the customer is looking to you to get the new feature in).

Only when necessary, reach out to product management to see if a conversation between the customer and product management is appropriate. Please do not contact development directly, and do not put the customer in contact with development. This puts you in the role of enabling the conversation, not being the conduit of the information. Connectors are valuable. Conduits are not. 

We should not encourage customers/companies to create “wish lists.” 

• This may set up the expectation that items will definitely be addressed.
• It may also set up the expectation that there will be regular communication as the progress of these items (which, most of the time will be, “There’s no update I can give. We’ve still got the request in our system.”)

If our relationship with a company organically progresses toward a “wish list,” the best option is to provide a private space in the community. Management of a “private wish list,” where possible, should be held out and offered only as a benefit of an Enterprise License, in recognition of the long-term commitment that the customer makes there.

Daniel_Valente

Thank you, Jeff, for putting this together. I have a couple more considerations when you hear and idea from a customer about something that should be added into the product and why I like the JMP wish list so much. When at all possible encourage customers to post ideas and wishes to the official JMP wish list. Why? Because the idea or suggestion might be something that is on the mind of a customer right now or a hot button of the day. Giving the customer a chance to think about it and have the energy of activation to post to the wish list can really help us separate out "Nice to have" vs "Must have" features in the mind of the customer. It also gives the customer a moment to think: "Is this really that important" or even find out that they can already do it in the product. Crowd-sourcing the later to the community is a really good strategy as well (as our other power users on the community will chime in and provide guidance once a wish is posted). If we do decide to enter a DEFECT, in addition to what Jeff mentions about (Tech Support + Customer Name) is it advisable to add the additional information below, if you know it. 1. Spell out as completely as possible what is desired. 2. Let us know the number of JMP licenses the site has, % of licenses that want the feature, whether the requester is a JMP champion etc.  Generally...will the addition of this feature help expand the JMP footprint at this customer site? 3. If the conversation happens at a conference, mention the conference.  When a certain request hits a threshold where potentially hundreds or hopefully thousands of seats could benefit from the addition of a feature, then we can start considering it. Again, this is where the wish list can be useful as an idea can be submitted by a customer, and then it can be discussed by other customers, who can add comments or register their interest in the idea by voting on in.