Customer Feedback by Product Lifecycle

Product managers never stop collecting feedback from their customers. Feedback is gathered prior to launching a product, and post-launch as well.

However, the type of customer feedback they elicit and the timing does at times depend on the stage in which their product is in. 

For example usability testing via design prototypes may be utilized more in the development stage, a customer effort score (CES) during introduction, and an exit survey in decline.

This relates to the product lifecycle, the journey that all products go through from birth (when it is first introduced to the market) to retirement (once the product has been sunsetted).

There are 5 stages of the product lifecycle. Each product that you use or have used falls into one of these 5 stages:

1. Development

2. Introduction

3. Growth

4. Maturity

5. Decline

Each stage of the product lifecycle presents various opportunities, risks, and challenges for product managers and business leaders. Product managers need to ensure that as their products are introduced into a market and work their way through to decline, that they maintain a very close relationship with their customers and stakeholders and elicit their feedback throughout their journey with the product.

This will help ensure that they are gathering the information that they need to understand customer and stakeholder sentiments, uncover which problems they need to tackle in each stage, and verify that their key stakeholders are receiving value from their products. 

Check out this article to learn more about how product managers navigate the product lifecycle.