

Ask HN: How to determine what's turning people off about your service? - gsaines

I have been an avid follower of the advice given by Jason over at A Smart Bear regarding how to encourage your users to complete surveys about your service. At our startup we have had no trouble getting people to tell us what they want out of our service and how to better improve it. The problem is that almost all of the criticism that we receive comes from interested users whom we have already sold on our product (or at least the idea). Logically, the most useful data for us as we grow would come from people who had chosen not to purchase, but collecting this data is proving very difficult.<p>We have tried various techniques none of which have been in any way successful. For instance, taking the advice of Jason, we offered to donate $5 and then $10 to Wikipedia in the name of the user if they would be willing to fill out a three question survey about why they did not purchase. We also tried offering users who did not purchase a little extra free time in exchange for filling out the same survey (we varied the amount of time we offered to make sure we weren't being too stingy).<p>We could continue trying to find services, sites, and products that people who do not purchase would be incentivized by, but before investing even more time I wanted to ask the knowledgeable HN community whether or not there were techniques we were totally overlooking.
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neovintage
I think you're looking in the wrong place. Who cares about what the consumers
think who've decided not to sign up? Personally, I don't think users know
exactly what they want or how to convey how they feel about something. Dont
get me wrong you need their input, but take it with a grain of salt.

Before thinking about why people aren't signing up for your service, think
about who SHOULD be signing up for your service. What I mean here is, who
exactly is your target customer for the service? Does this person use
particular websites, do they only spend a couple of hours on the web every
day, do they like to use twitter? (Since I really don't know what your service
is I can't make better suggestions) Basically, what are the characteristics of
your target customer? If your market is defined too broadly then your service
doesn't really stand for anything. If your market is defined too narrowly then
you'll be running into the problem where you don't have enough people signing
up.

In terms of actionable steps, this is what I've done in the past for a
business that's already running: 1\. Do some research on your current customer
base, mine your current database. Some questions to ask include: \- What
websites do they visit before hitting your site? \- What websites do they go
to once they've finished using your service? \- How long do they spend on your
site? \- In a survey, how many people work at their company or how much
revenue their company makes? \- In a survey, ask how people heard of your site
(subsequently visit those sites to see what context your site was mentioned)

2\. What patterns are emerging from the research you've been doing? \- The
goal here is to find a type of user that have grown a strong affinity to your
service. Once you've found that strong user, it's on to the next step.

3\. What needs to change based on the patterns you've identified to attract
more of those "strong users"? \- This is easier said than done, but you need
to think about pricing, value proposition for user (what is the user going to
get out of using your site), or are advertising in the right places. \- Much
like the others have said in this thread, A/B test is a good idea if the value
proposition is off. \- You may want to consider advertising, if it resonates
with the user. This includes all the typical social media outlets.

I hope this helps. Good Luck!

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pierrefar
Generally, there are two types of data you're looking for: qualitative and
quantitave.

You seem to know a bit about surveys which are great for qualitative data.
Keep em short, try different incentives (especially those tied to your product
like a discount on next purchase or free X days of premium account) and always
have the last question as an open-ended free form text to the voice of the
customer.

Quantitative data is basically analytics. Think about what you're offering,
who would want it, and what you would consider a successful outcome of a
person interacting with your company. Amazon wants me to buy stuff, but they'd
also like me to sign up or write a review of a product or one of their
merchants. A newspaper would like me to read more than one article, maybe
watch a video or write comment, or even click an ad. The point is that you
have an overall purpose and multiple related secondary offerings. Identify
them, figure out how to measure them, and then test test test (and test some
more) in a relentless drive to improve them. These numbers are your customers
(and potential customers) telling you directly what they want or like.

Happy to recommend web analytics books for you if that applies to your
product.

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soyelmango
Personally, I ignore exit surveys - I'm leaving, why would I bother spending a
precious 10 seconds clicking some check boxes? It's ridiculous, it's lazy, and
it's selfish, and it's what the vast majority of users are probably thinking!

Donating to Wikipedia is very worthy, though it may not be a cause the users
are interested in. I suspect they'd respond better to a donation to charity,
possibly one of their choice. However, users are not necessarily looking at
financial incentives to give feedback. The incentive to make a difference to a
product, to have some influence, to be credited somewhere may be all it takes.

That particular group of users who did not purchase but would accept a little
extra free time might be of value to you - they were about to go, yet you
persuaded them to stay. Ask them personally (an email?) - treat them like
people, not like survey box tickers.

If you have enough users, have you considered (or already have?) trying A/B
testing to see what gets these people to decline/accept your service?

Any chance that you could share a link to your startup so that the community
can have a look? [Regardless, good luck, and please report back with any
news!]

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patio11
Are you collecting email addresses? You can presumably figure out which users
have not logged in in a week. Send them an email saying "Hey, this is George
from Skritter. My friends and I are trying to make the best thing ever for
Chinese language learners. We'd really appreciate if you could give us two
minutes and tell us what you think, so that we can fix the problems students
learning Chinese are really having.

Regards,

George"

P.S. A/B test response rates with inclusion of a picture. I'm guessing they're
off-the-charts better with one, but you know what they say about guessing.

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faramarz
I was just having a conversation about this with a colleague yesterday.
something new came out of it. if it fits your offering.. give it a shot.

Consider giving the User an option 'Not to Purchase' on the pricing/product
page.

track it, measure it and force a quick two line feedback as soon as they click
it.

You need to be careful with the wording though, as you don't want to misguide
them into thinking this is a 'remind me later' kinda thing and hurt your
sales. It's worth discussing with your team. Gluck!

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rlpb
Why would a user click this rather than leave the site?

