5 Channels for Gathering Feedback from Internal Stakeholders

Gathering feedback from internal stakeholders in your organization is fundamental to developing a successful product. Remember that team members are also internal customers, and will likely be as or more vocal than your external customers about your product — they have a lot to say, but where and how should they say it? Let's look at some ways to gather feedback from stakeholders.

While product teams rely on a combination of several communication channels to share feedback with colleagues, others find it better to pick one and stick with it. Here are a few common feedback communication channels and a brief look at the pros and cons of each so you can make a considered choice about what works best for you:

1. Email & Chat

Have your team share feedback with you via email and use labels or folders to stay organized, or if your organization uses a chat platform internally, create a room specifically for feedback.

Pros:

• Convenient for customer teams to use.
• Feedback can be shared virtually anytime.
• You can search feedback later.

Cons:

• Neither option scales well for the Product Manager.
• Chat and email can be distracting.
• Does not aggregate data or provides analytics.
• Requires extra manual work to extract the feedback.

2. Team Meetings

Consider holding bi-monthly or monthly feedback meetings with customer teams to let folks share and discuss what they've been hearing.

Pros:

• Opportunity to provide product updates/share what's next on your roadmap.
• Allows you to ask follow-up questions.
• You can clarify feedback with those who have shared it.

Cons:

• Getting everyone in the room at the same time can be hard and inconvenient.
• Can lead to confusion if customer teams have to hold onto feedback for a month before relaying it. (Think of the game "telephone.")

3. Feedback Reports

In lieu of (or in addition to) facilitating a feedback meeting, have every team generate a customer feedback report every two weeks or so and share it with your team.

Pros:

• Contains both qualitative and quantitative data.
• It's a resource you can return to for information when you need it.

Cons:

• Time-consuming and possibly inconvenient for customer teams to produce.
• Does not look at long-term feedback trends.