Customer Feedback for Energy, Industrial, and Construction
Hear from the engineers, operators, and field crews who use your software, and weigh their feedback by account, site, or contract.
On this page
These companies now sell and run software platforms, and the people who use them work on rigs, at plants, and on job sites, far from the teams who build them. This guide covers who to hear from, capturing feedback from the field, structure, weighing by account, site, or contract, and closing the loop on long release cycles.
Why feedback matters
Software now sits at the center of how energy, industrial, and construction work gets done. The people who depend on it most are often the hardest to hear from.
A digital transformation program succeeds only if engineers and crews use the tools. Feedback shows what stands in their way.
Platforms sold to operators carry large contracts. Each account's needs affect renewals and expansion.
Plants, fleets, and projects run for decades, so the software around them has to keep up for just as long.
Crews on a rig, at a plant, or on a job site rarely meet the people who build their tools.
Treat field users as customers, even when they're employees. The crew using a field app has the same need to be heard as the operator who bought the platform.
Who gives feedback
Most companies in these industries hear from four groups. Give each a place that fits.
| Audience | What they tell you about | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Customer engineers and operators | Engineering and subsurface software, asset monitoring, and analytics platforms you sell | Your portal, with forums by product or platform |
| Field and site crews | Field apps, inspections, work orders, and anything they use on site | The same portal, reached from inside the app or a phone browser |
| Contractors and subcontractors | Construction project platforms, document control, and handoffs between companies | Your portal, signed in with the same login as your platform |
| Internal IT and digital users | Internal tools and digital programs your own staff use | A separate instance for employee feedback |
Capture from the field
Crews won't stop work to fill in a long form. Put a short path to feedback where they already are.
| Where | What to set up |
|---|---|
| A phone or tablet browser | The portal adapts to small screens, so crews can post and vote from site. |
| Inside your web apps | The UserVoice widget, which passes the user's name, email, and account so they don't have to type them. |
| Your company or platform login | Single sign-on with SAML or OpenID Connect, so crews don't need another password. |
| Native field apps | A “Share feedback” link in the app menu that opens the portal. |
| Supervisors and site leads | Contributor access, so they can capture what they hear on site against the right idea. |
Feedback channels are not for safety incidents. Say in each forum's welcome message that safety issues, injuries, and near misses go to your company's safety reporting process, not the portal. If one arrives anyway, move it there and reply to the person who posted it.
Connectivity on site is often patchy. Keep the path short, so crews can post in a minute once they're back in range, and let supervisors capture what they heard during the shift.
Structure it the way you operate
Organize feedback the way your customers and crews think about their work: by product, then by asset, site, or region.
| Use | For | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Forums | Each product or platform with its own team | Subsurface Suite, Asset Monitoring, Field App, Project Platform |
| Categories | Asset types, sites, or regions within a product | Pumps, Turbines, Substations; North Sea, Permian; Site A, Site B |
| Labels | Themes across products | Integrations, Offline use, Reporting, Accessibility |
| Owners | One person per forum or category who reads new ideas | The product manager for each platform |
| Instances | Business units that run separately, with their own products, admins, and customers | An energy software unit and a construction software unit |
Use categories for the place, and forums for the product. A request about the field app at one site belongs in the Field App forum, in that site's category.
Weigh it by account, site, or contract
A request from an operator with a multi-year contract and one from a trial user aren't the same signal. Bring that context into UserVoice so you can tell them apart.
| Detail | How it gets into UserVoice | What it lets you do |
|---|---|---|
| Account and contract value | Salesforce or HubSpot sync, or sent with the widget | Sort requests by the revenue behind them |
| Site, region, or asset | User fields, imported or sent through the API | See whether a need is local or company-wide |
| Role | User fields, from your CRM or identity provider | Tell engineers' requests from crews' and managers' |
| Importance ratings | Asked on every idea | Separate “nice to have” from “stops work on site” |
- Use the Idea Status Board, filtered by account, before a customer meeting to see what they asked for and where it stands.
- Save a grid view for your largest accounts, sorted by revenue.
Feedback on internal tools
Most companies in these industries also run digital programs for their own engineers, plant staff, and field crews. That feedback needs a home too, apart from customers.
| Why separate | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Employees and customers never mix | No internal request appears where a customer can see it |
| Its own sign-in | Restricted to employees, who sign in with your company login |
| Its own forums and owners | One forum per internal tool, owned by IT or the digital team |
| Its own reporting | Adoption issues and requests for internal tools, without customer data mixed in |
- Organize by tool, such as maintenance, inspections, permits, and timesheets.
- Bring in department, site, and role, so you can see which plants or crews a request affects.
- Post status updates when a fix ships, so crews see their feedback lead somewhere.
Close the loop on long releases
Releases in these industries often take quarters, and customers deploy them on their own schedule. Keep people informed between releases, not only at the end.
- Post a status update at each step, such as Under review, Planned, and Completed. Everyone who voted or posted gets the email.
- Say which release an idea is in when you mark it Planned, so operators can plan their upgrade.
- Link ideas in release notes, and mark them Completed the day the release is available.
- Review open requests with each large account, using the Idea Status Board filtered by that account.
- Explain a “not now”. Engineers accept a reason. They don't accept silence.
Status update: Planned
Start with one platform or site
Start where you can respond. One product, or one site, is enough to prove the program.
- Pick one platform or one site with an engaged team.
- Set up a forum for it, with categories for its assets or areas.
- Turn on single sign-on, and add the widget or a feedback link inside the app.
- Write a welcome message that sets the review rhythm and points safety issues to your safety reporting process.
- Give supervisors and customer-facing teams contributor access.
- Post a few status updates in the first month, then add the next platform or site.
Welcome message
Try it with your AI assistant
1 of 4 prompts in the PDFAttach the PDF to Claude, ChatGPT, or another assistant, then paste:
Using the UserVoice guide I attached, help me plan a feedback program for [platform]. Ask me about our customers, field users, and release cycle first.
Three more prompts and the checklist are in the full guide. Get it by email →
Read next
Get the full guide
We'll email you the 11-page PDF. It adds two things that aren't on this page:
- A seven-step checklist to put the guide into practice
- Four AI prompts for Claude, ChatGPT, or your assistant of choice, including ones that use the UserVoice MCP to work with your own feedback data
