As I mentioned in our first DNN Store Blog post, our goal in creating a blog on the DNN Store was that it would “become a resource for Store sellers, customers, and the DNN Community as a whole by providing information about products sold here, the sellers who develop them, and the community that uses them.”
But not only do we want to use this blog as a means of giving valuable information to the community, we also would like to collect information from Store users through the blog; this information will help us better understand our sellers and customers and what we can do to enhance the Store. So, please keep reading, and start commenting, because this blog is all about learning more about you – the DNN Store user!
Let’s consider this scenario: you’re a Store customer, and you have just bought a new module or skin. You’ve installed it on your site, and it’s working well, but as you spend more time using the product, you think: “Wouldn’t it be great if it could do this!” or “The only thing that would make this product better would be that.”
How do you provide this feedback to the product’s developer? Do you create a support ticket with your feature request? Do you leave a review on the Store (as pictured below)?
It is obvious to us that many of the developers who sell products here on the Store care about their customers and the needs and feedback of these customers. Take, for example, ZLDNN to which a customer sent “2-3 suggestions for new features, some of which [were] not really easy” and implemented them all in the next release.
From customer reviews like the one below, we know that many products keep getting “better and better,” and we know that this requires both customer feedback and developer commitment. What we don’t know is how these conversations most often occur. Customers, please take a minute to comment here about how you communicate your feedback to Store sellers. Sellers, how do you collect suggestions from your customers?
Thinking about a slightly different situation: customers, what do you do if you’re looking for a product that doesn’t exist? One example that comes to mind is a customer who was recently looking for a module to implement on his site with similar functionality as Ebay, where users could send and collect payments from each other. Although there are many ecommerce solutions available on the Store, nothing quite fits the requirements. Vendors, where do you look for ideas for new products?
As we think about the value of feedback, it’s important to note that understanding the consensus around the feedback is also important, and this is where we would like to step it up a notch. The DNN Store currently offers a few ways to provide a product’s developer with suggestions - the helpdesk and product reviews, but there isn’t a way for vendors to gauge how many customers share the same opinions, or for a conversation to take place around these suggestions.
However, if you’ve seen DNNHero’s May News, you may remember they discussed a public Wish List for the DNN Store, and we agree that this could be a very cool addition. Using the Ideas feature of Evoq Social (also used for the Community Voice on dnnsoftware.com) customers would propose ideas, which would then be voted on by other Store users. Ideas could include:
- Feature suggestions for existing modules
- New products DNN Community members would like to see
- New products DNN Store Sellers are considering creating
- Enhancements to the Store that sellers and/or customers would like to have implemented
DNN has always thrived on participation from the Community, and we think this could be a great opportunity to foster additional communication among Store customers, sellers, and DNN Community members, so please take a minute to comment on the questions we've explored in this post:
- Customers, how do you provide feedback to a product’s developer? Sellers, how do you collect suggestions from your customers?
- Customers, what do you do if you’re looking for a product that doesn’t exist? Sellers, where do you look for ideas for new products?
- Would you like to see a public Wish List implemented on the Store?
- Do you already have feature requests, ideas for new products, or improvements to the Store you'd like to share?
