Kampyle Closes The Feedback Loop
Roi Carthy
28 comments »
One of the key ingredients to success on the Web is rapid iteration, and to do so, eliciting user feedback is a must. As we know, TechCrunch is a breeding ground for avid beta testers keen to provide input and suggestions. Yet, more often than not, when we do offer feedback to a site all we receive in return is an auto-reply, thank-you email. When was the last time you submitted feedback to a site that was then followed up with an actual acknowledgment that the bug was fixed or the feature integrated? My guess, not very often.
Kampyle—yet another Yossi Vardi startup from Israel—has developed a feedback management platform aimed at assisting site owners better manage this feedback loop and, along the way, increase customer loyalty and satisfaction. The underlying premise here being that users expect not only to be heard, but also responded to. This is especially true when providing feedback on services, products or customer experiences. Sites that manage their feedback right end up with deeper customer engagement, lower shopping cart abandonment, and better usability.
There are four moving parts in Kampyle’s feedback analysis platform:
1. Collection: A feedback collection form (see screenshot on right) is launched through buttons scattered across a site. Kampyle will roll out advanced customization options throughout the coming weeks.
2. Analysis: Kampyle provides user feedback along with contextual data such as screen resolution, browser type, operating system, etc. Slicing and grouping functionality delivers a greater understanding of why an issue occurred, which ultimately translates into what to do about it.
3. Management: Data and suggested corrective actions are arranged in intuitive dashboards. Data is exportable to XML & Excel. Nothing much to write home about here.
4. Action: CRM-like functionality completes the feedback loop by allowing site owners to inform groups and individual users of the corrective action they have taken. The notification even includes a link to where the fix was made and offers a thumbs-up/down rating to further express satisfaction.
All-in-all a wide variety of companies can benefit from a service such as Kampyle’s, which is bridging the gap between CRM and site-side analytics. Extending the CRM functionality to piggyback on full-blown CRM platforms such as SalesForce, SugarCRM, and even Zoho would go a long way in popularizing the service.
Kamplye is still in closed beta so pricing is yet to be established, but once the service is commercially available 250 TechCrunch readers will get their first month free. Sign-up here to get on the list.
I have to say the best company at responding to user feedback has been Zoho. I have testing and using their system for over a year now and they have personally responded to 100% of my feedback submissions. I have no idea how they do it, but they are great at cultivating loyal users and keeping them in the loop on everything that is happening.
I have to second Zoho’s personal touch. After I blogged about them a year or more ago I received a personal email in response to my concern. Not only is that good PR it’s good marketing. I won’t forget the name of the company . . .
After a horrible experience on Kingston.com (ram manufacturer) with bizrate (survey company) - I realized this is a ‘hurt point’ on the internet
time for a site redesign techcrunch, the site is looking like dogcrap.
Why would I want to pay for what is already available for free?
If someone sends me a bug report and it’s not anonymous I always send a message back saying thanx and then follow up on when resolved.
A solution looking for a problem.
Look out Squishlist, someone’s looking to steal your Web2.0 bugtracker lunch.
the saying is that for every 1 unhappy customer you have 9 others who don’t complain to you - they just don’t return, and usually say negative things to their friends, family etc. Thus everyone should treat 1 (legit) complaint as if they are 10x.
It’s about time someone developed something like this. This will really help us with our beta launch to get our users feedback.
I was very interested until it failed to render pages on Safari. How well engineered can it be?
So what is the incentive for the user to give feedback through Kampyle? Other than having a place to track his feedbacks?
In response to 10 - from what I read, the great value is for the site owners who get the analytics and management of the feedbacks.
Don, it looks like it was fixed. It renders perfectly well on my Safari….
I got a beta account a few hours after seeing this post. So far pretty impressed and should defenetely help with identifying problem areas in our interface.
@1 Asad, @2 Aesthetic, thank you for your kind words. We do read every single feedback about Zoho - and the “we” here is by now a large set (over 200!). Our product teams care a lot about good and bad things users say, particularly the bad experiences, and try to resolve them.
Thanks,
Sridhar
I’m failing to see the product added value..
Why should I pay for a “contact us” link.
This is nothing new.
http://www.kayako.com/ has been providing services like these since 2001. Including a liveresponse realtime online chat system.
We just startet to use their products and are evaluating, but so far we are very satisfied.
But i will still have a look at Kamplye.
@Jens - we use Kayako support system too and while that is great for managing support issues and provide live chat it does not provide a simple interface like Kamplye. I think having a Feedback button on your site and allowing guests to send anonymous feedback about your site is something that goes hand in hand with a support or live chat system.
Hey Roi –
We’ve build something similar, called UserVoice, that enables any company or community to have a tool like this, but we are doing a little more to be transparent to the end user, yet highly customizable to the site owner.
You can check out UserVoice and request your own page (we’re in semi-private beta) at http://beta.uservoice.com
@Jake and Jens (15,16): the way I see it, it is not similar to any of the mentioned solutions. It allows to quickly integrate the (very nicely designed I must say) feedback form to the website – which means no need to develop anything (which is great). As a new startup working on our website, it can surely take the task of handling the feedbacks off my shoulder.
I think that their product is not targeting only getting bugs from the users. It’s for “…providing feedback on services, products or customer experiences”. This might also be suggestions, compliments and new ideas from the users. The best thing here is to let your users know that you not only hear but also listen. From my experience, this really turns into greater customer loyalty.
Don’t forget OpinionLab - they’ve had a product like this for years too.
We reviewed OpinionLab some time ago. Their product is nice but expensive and they sell their product as a software, meaning there are also implementation costs. As this solution is Software as a Service I suppose the price of the service will be dramatically lower and probably no implementation costs.
FYI a detailed review at http://www.ekampf.com/blog/200.....dback.aspx
All is nice, however the real story here is will users use this product.
The average user won’t spend the few minutes that takes to write a bug/error msg.
I don’t see how something like this product can succeed.
Lisa, from my experience users DO give feedback once provided the channel and when getting the feeling that someone cares and listens. I think that this product provides the means for both, especially with such an appealing UI that makes providing feedback feel like fun.