As the newest member of the LiquidPlanner Customer Support team, I often feel like I’m learning right alongside our customers. Not only do I need to know everything about how LiquidPlanner works, but I also need to understand how all of our customers are using our scheduler. There are myriad functionalities within LP and, because every organization operates a little differently, there are many ways to use our product.

Understanding various use cases and the importance of certain features to a company’s workflow and productivity is key to crafting a product that’s essential to our customers’ successes.

Here are 3 ways our customers help us improve our products, and why they’re such valued collaborators in our success.

1. Customers teach us about our own product.

Customers use our product in ways we never expected. When I’m on a call with a customer, I’m not just troubleshooting, I’m also making observations about how they’re using LiquidPlanner to organize and schedule their work. We have a vision for how our software will be utilized, but actual use cases can vary greatly and it’s impossible to think of every scenario until we see it firsthand in a customer’s workspace.

Customers might not ask us directly for particular features, but just seeing the diverse ways in which they use their scheduler can be enough to jumpstart further innovation. One of our core values is “Always be learning,” so learning from our customer is a high priority.

2. Customers provide imperative feedback.

We’re proud of LiquidPlanner’s functionality and the number of features we’ve added over time, but our customers remind us every day that that there’s more we can do to make our product meet their project-planning needs. This is a good thing. Active feedback tells us we have a loyal customer base that’s invested in our success without letting us forget that there’s room for improvement.

What we do with customer feedback: Twice a week, representatives from the Support team meet with our developers to discuss each feature request, its priority, and the amount of time it will take to complete.  

Fulfilling customer requests doesn’t end with introducing the feature and high-fiving one another for having completed it. We follow up with our customers to let them know their wish has been heard, and granted.

One of our most popularly-requested features, Daily Limits, was recently introduced. Perusing the comments under the blog, it’s clear how excited our customers were to see this feature come to fruition, and how publicizing the news spurred additional feedback. Acting on feedback helps keep our customers satisfied and engaged in the use and enhancement of our product.

3. Customers challenge us by setting high expectations.

What I appreciate most about LiquidPlanner is being part of a team that is not only committed to designing the best project management software, but is also willing to change direction when needed. Our Product Team has a vision of how best to balance performance optimization and adding new features, but sometimes we have to reprioritize based on what our customers are asking for most – and not all customers ask for the same things. Keeping an open mind and changing direction can often impact other customers with different feature wish lists. But we always focus on making changes that have the most favorable effect on as many customers as possible.

Our ultimate goal is to design project planning software that maximizes our customers’ resources and increases their productivity. We couldn’t do this without the participation and feedback of our amazing customers.