Be assertive in the communication.

Regardless the kind of comments or feedback that you get, you should be able to reply without being aggressive or violating someone rights. It doesn’t mean that you cannot answer to any disrespectful comment, but do it in a professional way.

Be open and honest with your customers.

If you continue having an open communication with your customers, telling them not just the success but the problems that your facing, they will feel more involved with your company and more willing to give you feedback and help.

Ask them specific questions.

You can use your feedback in order to get insights about specific topics. E.g. if you want to know what your customers think about your new product, if you want to ask them which topic they want you to write about, or regarding the last update of your software. In this order you will get feedback related to the most interesting topics for you.

Give rewards for their feedback.

Show to your customers that you appreciate their participation. A contest can be a great way to show them that you really care about their opinion. It will help as well to increase the number and quality of the responses.

Allow them to comment or agree the feedback of some other users.

If you allow your customers to discuss and comment their own ideas it might increase the participation. It can help you to better understand what they really want and get deeper in their needs.

Show them that what they say matter.

Show to your customers that what they say is taken into account. They appreciate when you show a new development or improvement suggested by them. You can express your gratitude in your website, your blog or even better, rewarding them.

Ask them relevant questions.

If you are developing a new product or you are improving your current one, involve them in the decision making process. If you want to change the logo or you need a new name for your new product, ask them. Crowdsourcing is a powerful tool to engage your customers and get great ideas out of them.

Spot important issues earlier

If you have a continue communication with your customers, it will be easier to face important issues. If you spot any of them, try to go deeper and get as much information as you can. It can make you save time and money.

Change your question from time to time.

Ask about different aspects of your company or product, discuss about the evolution of your market, create a conversation with them in order to make them more interested in your product or service and feel that you are continuously evolving.

Be creative

Be original with your questions and answers, use the feedback to engage your customers and make them feel part of your company.

There are different characteristics that make tricider a powerful tool to get the feedback of your customers. For example the different channels that you can use to get the feedback like e-mail, Twitter, Facebook etc; the high interaction that you can get with your customers and between them; the customization; and the simplicity of the process to start using it. With only 4 steps you can easily set up tricider as your feedback system.

Step 1 – Set up the question

Setting up the question

Once you will be in the homepage of tricider. You just have to insert the question that your customers should answer.

Editing the question

After pressing the Go button, you will get into the configuration page. Here you could edit different aspects such as a further description of the question or a deadline.

Advance Settings

You can use the advance settings at the bottom of the page in order to limit the number of characters per idea or to disable the voting option. Some extra features, such as personalizing the design and hiding the ads are available with myTricider Plus.

Step 2 – Start a contest! (Optional)

Setting up a contest

Set up a contest in order to increase the response of your customers. With tricider you can reward your customers for the best ideas or the ideas that get the higher number of votes. A contest is a good way to tell your customers that their ideas matter and they are important for you.

Step 3 – Share the question with your customers

Share the feedback

You can use different channels to distribute tricider depending on your needs. You can embed it in your website or blog, you can send it to an email list, or you can use social media and distribute it through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Step 4 – Sign up (optional)

Sign-up

We suggest you to sign up in order to save all your questions and have all your feedback organized in a unique dashboard. You won’t have to save any URL and you could set up alerts to your e-mail account. It is really easy; you can do it with your Facebook, Gmail or any other e-mail account.

After setting up tricider as your online feedback tool, you can continue editing your questions and some of the characteristics through your dashboard. Now it is time to listen your customers and get the best out of them!

Feedback example

tricider is almost one year old. It’s a free service for brainstorming and decision making online. It has taken us much effort to get it from the very first idea to where it is today. It was hard work and took many, many small steps and feedback loops with users and fans. However, that does not hinder anyone from copying just the finished product. Here are some screenshots for you to see:

One of the craziest things is how the product video has been copied. They even took the same music. Not only the same song (which we paid for), but I recut it as well to fit what is happening and it is excatly the same!

Original

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvLuwL9Quzw

Copy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZY5_YR-9cA

We know there is a big discussion about ethics and morals of copycats. Many people have argued for and against cloning. Let me just tell you: When it happens to you, you really feel like being robbed. It´s like you have been cooking dinner for your friends for hours and when you turn around someone else is already sitting at the table eating your dessert.

Taking the same name is the biggest slap in the face. The name, the brand is so personal. It’s odd enough when two people in a room wear the same sweater, but believe me, this is worse. “Hey, is this your twin-brother?” “No, he is just a clone…” Even the Samwers don’t do that.

Who is behind that? We do not know yet for sure. The domain has been registered in St. Petersburg, Russia and tehre is a guy running a fanpage on the russian clone of facebook. We are trying to get in contact. If you have any hints or suggestions on how to proceed, please contact us at mail@tricider.com.

So many questions are now turning in our heads: How will it influence us? How is our reputation being hurt, especially by the low quality of the design and all the dead options on the page? Should we do anything about it? Can we actually do anything about it? Unfortunately, we are not Microsoft or Facebook with 2000 lawyers and millions of silly patents.

I guess, now we are in the position to lead by innovation. And somehow that is something that we like. Since the beginning, we tried to listen to our users and fans and built a product that really helped. Now – more than ever – we rely on the support and feedback by our fans and users.

If you would like to support us, please share this post or become a tricider supporter on our tricider fanpage.

UPDATE April 27, 2012

We managed to get in contact with the probable owner of the russian clone via ICQ and he told us direct and straightforward, that he got the idea for the website from tricider.com.

Look at the screenshot from this chat:

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

This time, learntank was all about “How to create a buzz”. After a short introduction by Robert, the group was split in two in order to brainstorm and discuss the topic with real life examples. One example was a lovely blog (huxlipux) with stories for children written by a well-known eastern German old lady who was once famous for her stories about Bummi. The other example was an online tool: tricider!

In our part of the workshop, we were following a structured method. Although it was all focused on tricider, the aim was to offer some new ideas to everyone for his own project. The discussion spread from target groups to multiplicators and scarcetiy of resources.

Con motivo de estos cambios y en vista de su próximo aniversario, la junta directiva ha decidido tomar esta oportunidad para cambiar su imagen y su logo. Luego de pedirle a un diseñador algunas propuestas y de llegar a un acuerdo entre las tres mejores, la junta encuentra dificultades para ponerse de acuerdo en cuál debería ser el diseño final. Es aquí cuando uno de los socios propone realizar una campaña de crowdsourcing y preguntarle directamente a los clientes cual es el logo con el que más identifican a LaBarra. La idea mejora aún más cuando se dan cuenta del potencial que tiene para realizar una campaña de marketing aún mayor en la cual podrían no solo involucrar a sus clientes en la toma de decisiones sino también incrementar el numero de fans en su página de Facebook.

Un contacto les sugirió utilizar tricider, una herramienta que posee justo las características que ellos necesitan: es fácil de configurar, tiene diversas posibilidades de personalización, la pueden embeber en su página de fans de Facebook y pueden decidir que premios dar.

Como fue el proceso con tricider:

Creación de la pregunta

Primero LaBarra creo su preguntá “¿con cuál de estos logos identificas más a LaBarra?”. Posteriormente se subieron los logos que la junta había previamente seleccionado como los mejores.

Personalización de la campaña

Luego personalizaron la campaña de acuerdo a sus necesidades:

Configuración de los premios y las reglas

Después se establecieron los premios y las reglas.

Editando

Y regresaron a modificar los parámetros tantas veces como fue necesario.

Y finalmente LaBarra embebió la encuesta en su página de fans de Facebook.

Los resultados:

Los resultados no podrían haber sido mejores, luego de unos pocos días en Facebook y respaldado por una campaña via e-mails y mensajes en Facebook, la junta notó que varios de sus fans en Facebook eran diseñadores y algunos emprendedores que entusiasmados opinaron y compartieron sus ideas respecto a los diversos logos. Por suerte la mayoría de estos diseñadores y muchos de los demás clientes, estuvieron inclinados por uno de los logos, aquel que representará a la barra en los próximos años.

Resultado

Ahora todo está listo para realizar la presentación oficial del nuevo logo en el aniversario de LaBarra y debido a los resultados de esta campaña, la junta directiva está planeando realizar una nueva campaña de crowdsourcing con tricider en los próximos días!

As a result of this changes, the board has decided to take this opportunity and change their image and their logo, too. LaBarra asked a designer to make some proposals, but when they had to decide which one to choose, some disagreements started to rise and the board couldn’t agree in the final design. At this point one of the partners suggest to do a crowdsourcing campaign and ask their customers which was their favourite logo. The idea got better when they realized that this opportunity could be used to develop a bigger marketing campaign where they could engage their customers and increase the number of likes in their Facebook fan page.

A contact suggested them to use tricider, a tool that has the characteristics that they needed: Easy to set-up, several customization options, possibility to embed it into their facebook fan page and possibility to decide what award to give.

How was the process with tricider:

Setting up the question

First LaBarra created the question and uploaded the logos that the board has previously agreed:

Personalizing

Then they personalized the campaign according to their needs.

Prizing

Afterwards, they established the prizes and rules.

Editing

They could always come back to edit and change the question, the description, the time and the ideas.

And finally LaBarra emebed the tricision in their Facebook Fan Page.

The results

The results of the tricision couldn’t be better. After a few days in facebook and helped by a mail campaign and personal Facebook invitations, the board realized that several of their fans in Facebook were designers that were eager to comment and give ideas regarding the different logos. Luckily most of the designers and the customers were inclined for the one logo that will represent LaBarra in the upcoming years.

Result

Now everything is ready to make the official presentation of the new logo in the anniversary of LaBarra and the board is planning to use this event for launching a new crowdsourcing campaign with tricider!

Cleaner design – easier handling

At the end of the day, making a tool easier and more beautiful is the same thing. We decided that for some areas, like the administration box, it was time for evolution!

New feature: Agree with an argument

One of the great things of brainstorming with tricider is the discussion right next to every idea. Instead of posting arguments redundantly, you can now agree with arguments.

New feature: Interesting Insights

And when you start using tricider with clients or your colleagues, there are some extra features you might need.

However, some problems are of general interest and a lot of thinking is necessary to come up with a perfect solution. This is when users approached us and asked us, why there was no way to make tricisions public. So that all of you could answer a particular question and brainstorm as a world-wide team. We thought: What a great idea!

And this is why we created the tricider public idea space!

You can add tricisions to the public idea space and have all tricider users help you out with their creativity and imagination. It´s like crowdsourcing for everyone!

Of course, this is absolutely optional, you have to actively publish tricisions to be in the pool. By default, a tricision is private.

We are very excited to see what will happen to the open idea space. People from all over the world will be looking at your questions and ideas. But that´s what brainstorming is all about: Build on the ideas of others, discuss in a team and use the wisdom of the crowd.

Can brainstorming and crowdsourcing for ideas really work?

As far as we have seen, it only needs a simple tool like tricider to unleash the creativity of the crowd. You already twittered the most interesting tricisions and got amazing ideas and comments. Let’s just try and see where a collective idea space will lead us!

Now see who is in need for your ideas: Enter here.