Using Survey.io to Determine Customer-Market fit for ScreenSteps

This week we have been running a survey from Survey.io. Survey.io is a free tool that helps you gauge where you are in the customer development process. We received a few questions from users about the survey itself so I thought I would write a post about the purpose behind the survey and what it helps us learn.

Survey.io is pretty simple. You can’t change any questions. All you can do is run the survey. It took less than 5 minutes to set up. Our goals in running the survey were as follows:

1. Help us know if we have created a product that our customers not only like, but love.
2. Help us know what words our customers use to describe our product.
3. Help us know what type of people our customers think should use our product.
4. Help us know what we need to do to improve our product.

The Purpose of the Questions

Let’s go through the questions one by one to see how it works (we ran two surveys, one for ScreenSteps Desktop and one for ScreenSteps Live but the questions were the same in both surveys).

1. How did you discover ScreenSteps (Live)?

This just gives us insight into how people have heard about ScreenSteps. This becomes more important as we look at the results to the following questions. Were customers who came through a specific channel more likely to be passionate users than those who came through other channels? We are still analyzing this data.

2. How would you feel if you could no longer use ScreenSteps (Live)? (Very disappointed, Somewhat disappointed, Not disappointed, N/A)

The purpose of this question is to gauge the product-customer fit. Have we created a product that meets the needs of a specific type of customer? If we get a lot of “very disappointed” responses then we know that we are fulfilling a very important need. If we get a lot of “somewhat disappointed” responses then all we have done is create a “nice to have”, but unnecessary product. That is bad. As a business you want to create a “must have” product.

The results from this question also help us interpret the responses to some of the later questions.

3. What would you likely use as an alternative if ScreenSteps (Live) were no longer available?

This lets us know what products or services our customers are comparing ScreenSteps products against in their minds. In creating our products and services we have followed a lot of the ideas presented in the Blue Ocean Strategy (basically, create a product in such a way that you have very few direct competitors). The good news for us was that according to the survey results we have pretty much been successful in this regard. Most respondents said they either would not know what to replace ScreenSteps with or would have to replace it with a combination of multiple products (Word or Pages combined with some form of a screen capture utility). Many expressed their dismay at the very thought :).

An interesting note here. ScreenSteps Desktop users had a harder time thinking of replacement products than ScreenSteps Live users did. That means that our marketing job is a bit tougher for the ScreenSteps Live product. It also means that we need to do a better job at differentiating the ScreenSteps Live product in our customers’ minds.

4. What is the primary benefit that you have received from ScreenSteps Desktop?

Studying these responses helps improve our messaging. We have created a product that we believe creates certain benefits. But our customers may perceive very different benefits. Or, they may perceive the same benefits but describe them differently. Basically, we want to use these answers to help us “speak the language” of our customers better.

5. Have you recommended ScreenSteps Desktop to others?

This is another gauge of how passionate our users are. A low number here would mean that our marketing job is going to be very difficult. For both ScreenSteps Desktop and ScreenSteps Live the number came in at around 70%. We were very happy with that result. Thank you to all of you who have recommended ScreenSteps to others.

6. What type of person do you think would benefit most from ScreenSteps (Live)?

This questions helps us with both our marketing as well as our product development. We will be studying these results to see if there are groups mentioned that we haven’t considered before. Once again, this helps us know how to better speak the “language of our customers”. We know the job roles we are targeting, but how do our customers describe those roles? We are still looking at this data.

7. How can we improve ScreenSteps (Live?) to better meet your needs?

This seems like a simple product suggestion request but actually becomes much more valuable in the context of the other responses, specifically the responses to question #2.

Let’s break our customers into two groups based on their answers to questions #2. Those who responded that they would be “very disappointed” if they couldn’t use ScreenSteps or ScreenSteps Live are “passionate” customers. Those who would only be “somewhat disappointed” are “happy” customers. Our goal is to turn as many “happy” customers into “passionate” customers as possible.

Obviously we will read all of the responses, looking for overall trends (and we are definitely already seeing some trends). But this data becomes even more important when you segment it between the “passionate” customers and the “happy” customers. If you take the group of customers who would only be “somewhat disappointed” if they couldn’t use your product and then look at what features they are requesting you can get a better sense of how to convert “happy” customers into “passionate” customers.

How Did We Do?

We were very happy with the results. The people at Survey.io say that you really want to have at least 40% of your users who would be “very disappointed” if they couldn’t use your product. The numbers are still coming in for ScreenSteps Live (it is currently at 53%, but that might change with more responses) but for ScreenSteps Desktop are results are as follows:

• 61% would be “very disappointed”.
• 35% would be “somewhat disappointed”.
• 3.4% don’t care what happens to us.

We are still studying all of the responses and there is a lot of data to sift through. But we have already received some great insights into things we can do in the short term to improve both ScreenSteps Desktop and ScreenSteps Live.

Try it Yourself

Survey.io is a free service and really gives some great insights into your business. Try it out for yourself and see what you learn about how your customers perceive your product or service.