The art of community feedback
Issue 9: feedback formats, questions to ask, and how to take and implement feedback
Welcome to Issue 9 of Connection Engine! It’s my favorite time of year, so I hope you find a moment to light a cinnamon candle, open a window, and enjoy all that comes as a wonderful prelude to a season of abundance and thankfulness.
Speaking of thankfulness, I’m grateful for all the support I’ve gotten so far in launching this newsletter. It can be scary putting your ideas into the open, but I’m overwhelmed with the support and love from the community folks and others who have reached out. Thank you thank you <3
Now onto this week’s issue, feedback surveys! If you feel like you’re getting to a point in your community where things are stagnant or you’re not really sure what’s working, the best thing you can do is turn to your members for guidance. Your community has all the answers you’re looking for — you just need to find out what to ask and the right way to ask it.
Types of feedback
Feedback is a gift. Although sometimes difficult to hear, knowing exactly what’s not working and where to focus your efforts saves you a lot of guessing and time. Whenever you’re building something for someone else, it’s key to involve them in the decision making.
"When you build anything for people, including products, services, or community, the answers to your questions live in the heads of your audience.” - Jono Bacon
There are many ways feedback can take form: an online survey, a 1:1 conversation with a community member, or a poll in your community’s chat. Let’s review.
The Power of the Survey
There are many perks to sending your members online surveys: they can complete them in their own time, they can think about the questions you’re asking and how best to answer them, and they can be anonymous so feedback is honest.
But online surveys are also impersonal, can be confusing to track, and difficult to implement without follow up questions to anonymous responses. You can always include an optional field for a member to include an email if they are comfortable with providing more clarity on their responses.
Some tools I like for surveys: Typeform (my go-to), and Tally.
Meetings
Meetings with community members are a great way to not only get feedback, but also ask questions and have more thoughtful conversations. They help cement trust and relationships with your members and provide a space where members feel like they have more ownership over community strategy.
A con of these conversations is that they’re often time-consuming, can be tricky to schedule, and are not scalable, so you’ll only have a limited perspective from your membership base. One way to use 1:1 member feedback sessions is if you’re launching a new design or product and want feedback and questions in real time.
Polls
A great way to get quick answers on something is by polling your community in your community chat. Polling is efficient and can quickly get you answers on the right things, but it’s also impersonal and better for very specific questions with specific answers.
Sesh is a great bot to use for this on Discord.
So you’ve decided on a format, now what should you ask?
Feedback templates
Great feedback surveys are short, to the point, and gather feedback in the realms of what’s possible for a product or brand at a particular moment. Community feedback will be highly dependent on the stage of community building you’re at and areas you’re focusing on.
If you’re building a new community, asking for feedback is a great way to determine if you’re heading in the right direction and if your members like what you’re building. I usually like to send feedback surveys to new members a month after they’ve joined to make them feel included in community decisions but also to determine if I need to change my onboarding strategy.
Some things you can ask:
Best ways the community can be more valuable to the member
Main reason for member’s contribution to the community
Things that the member enjoys and wants more of
Things that the member thinks can be improved
Interest in specific programs or events you have in mind
Again, the more specific you can get with your questions, the more specific responses and advice you’ll get, which then leads to better and quicker application.
“Without a specific application point, a piece of classic wisdom is just a platitude. It lives in your world only as a concept, like an unread classic book.” - Raptitude
This goes right into my next section: things to avoid when asking for feedback.
Things to avoid
Feedback surveys are a waste of time if you don’t have a specific goal in mind. They should be used sparingly and only when there’s something to learn or take action on. Of course accepting general feedback from your community members is something you should always be doing, but I’m talking more about sending out specific questionnaires that ask your members for their time and effort to help the community.
There are some things not to do when surveying your community:
Sending surveys weekly without a specific goal or intention
Creating long surveys that take more than 10 minutes to complete without proper warning
Asking vague questions or allowing for vague answers (multiple choice is a great option if you’re limited in what you can be doing)
Offering nothing in return. This can be as simple as a thank you for taking the time to fill our your survey or something like a small gift card or chance to win a pair of branded Air Pods (you get the gist).
Implementing feedback
It can become overwhelming getting a lot of answers on what you and your community can be doing to improve. Don’t get discouraged. If people take the time to let you know the faults, they care and want to help. You can also ask a question on what your members enjoy or want to see more of to know which areas you’re crushing it in. Use feedback to guide you, educate you, and fuel you when things are hard:
After your survey, take a look at the results and use data to drive your strategy. Is a particular group feeling a certain way? Are younger versus older members drawn to different engagement practices? Use the info wisely when creating a strategy going forward and don’t be afraid to learn from your failures.
There’s always going to be something that needs work or something that could be better. Many community managers often feel like they can be doing more because the results of community work take much longer to manifest and give returns. This can be frustrating especially in the early days, but having a solid plan of action formed with your members can help you decide where to focus your efforts and what can make your community better. As a community builder, remember to be coachable:
Take the feedback and go back to your overall community strategy, deciding what needs to go, what can stay, and what needs to be changed. Revision to your strategy is a key part of community growth and evolution in your community cycle:
Surveys are a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of your community and feel out what’s working and what’s not. It is important not to get discouraged by feedback, but rather use it as a necessary tool to grow and make your community better. Don’t get attached to one vision or one outcome, but rather evolve with your members and listen to them to build something magical together.
As always, thanks for being a part of Connection Engine! Until next time.
About me
I’m Emilie. Why am I doing this? To share my learnings on community work, to learn more myself, and to make new internet friends!
Want to read more? Follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my newsletter here.
Have a community question for a future issue or interested in working together? Check out my website or email me at ekormienko@gmail.com.