How I realized that customer inquiries are a gold mine after listing products on STORES
I recently started listing products on STORES, and inquiries started coming in non-stop.
And what I realized was that inquiries are actually a gold mine!
At first, I thought, 'Ugh, another question... this is going to be a lot of work to handle.'
In this post, I'll write about the three values of customer inquiries that I discovered after actually selling products on STORES.
The 'creator's blind spot' revealed by STORES inquiries
One of the most common inquiries after a purchase was
'I got an error when I tried to upload the zip file as is.'
In reality, the contents of the zip file are
instruction manual + plugin (zip file)
, so if you upload it without unzipping it first, you'll get an error.
As a creator, I thought, 'If they just read the manual, they'd understand...'
But when I put myself in the buyer's shoes,
zip file = WordPress plugin, something you upload as is
You can learn about these kinds of 'blind spots' through inquiries.
Inquiries are 'future product planning documents'
What's even more interesting are the inquiries where the current product doesn't meet their expectations.
'Do you have a feature like this?'
'Does it support XX?'
At first, I would just end the conversation with 'I'm sorry, it's not supported'...
But this means that if I fulfill those requests, there is demand for them!
It's as if the customers are telling me directly, 'I want a product like this.'
Things you can't find through competitor research or surveys
raw voices, real demand
are packed into these inquiries.
In other words, customer inquiries were "future product planning documents"!
The best "paid testers"
And this was the most surprising thing.
When you respond to requests from buyers who send inquiries,
the buyers end up doing the debugging for you!
Normally, you would need to prepare a test environment, anticipate various patterns, and check for bugs... (of course, I do that too)
Yet, having buyerspay meto even performoperational checksis something I can onlybe gratefulfor!
Feedback from actual usage environments is incredibly valuable to a developer.
You get real voices about issues you wouldn't notice in a test environment and how things feel in actual operation.
This is a win-win relationship, isn't it?
Buyer: The product becomes better suited to their needs
Seller: Quality improvement + hints for new products
The mindset to turn inquiries into a "gold mine"
Thank you for reading this far.
The point of this post was that handling inquiries is not a tedious task, but rather a "gold mine for obtaining valuable information".
📝 Customer inquiries are
・A valuable source of information that reveals the creator's blind spots
・Packed with hints for future product planning
・A way to improve quality while getting paid
and are an important place for gathering information.
From now on, every time an inquiry comes in, I think I'll be able to say, "Another treasure has arrived!".
Thank you for reading until the end.
Likes💕, comments😄, and follows💞 are very welcome, feel free to reach out.
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