Learn about Savio

How To Be Successful with Savio

One great—and common—question we get from our new Savio users is this: How can I get the most out of Savio? What do I need to do here to really dig in?

This article is our answer to that question. In it, we’ll cover two scenarios:

The dead-simple getting started guide
Some useful add-ons for getting more out of Savio

The dead-simple version: Get you up and running with the most important features:

The fancier version: Get even more out of Savio with these additional steps:

The dead-simple version to get started with Savio’s central features

Here’s the quick-start guide to getting up and running with Savio. We’ll start getting feedback flowing into your vault, assign it to feature requests, and use it to prioritize what to build next.

1. Identify your most important feedback source and connect it to Savio

The first step is to begin collecting feedback and feature requests. Most of our users receive customer feedback from a variety of places. But for this quick-start guide, start by identifying your most important source of feedback.

For example, your most important source of feedback could be:

A support tool, like Zendesk, Intercom, or Help Scout
Customer emails
Customer calls
Slack

Once you’ve decided on your most important source of feedback, connect it to Savio. You can use one of our integrations, the Chrome extension, email, the API, or the app. The most common ways to send feedback to Savio are as follows:

Zendesk: Use the Zendesk integration
Intercom: Use the Intercom integration
Help Scout: Use the Help Scout integration
Slack: Use the Slack integration
Customer emails: Email the feedback to Savio
Customer calls: Take notes in an email and send it to Savio
Web applications: Use the Chrome extension

For more ways to get your feedback into Savio, check out our integrations page.

2. Import Users, Companies, and Attributes

You really start to see Savio’s power when you import your list of customers and attributes. Here’s what you need to know to get started.

Why should I import customers and attributes?

Savio’s power comes from its ability to link the feedback you get with data about your customers. That connection lets you slice and dice your feature requests by customer attributes. For example,

Knowing the MRR of your customers allows you to filter for feedback to see what your most valuable customers want.
Knowing what plan your customers are on helps you see which feature requests are most popular among, say, your Enterprise plan customers.
Knowing the feature requests that matter to your clients in Asia versus your clients in Europe can help you better prioritize your features based on geographic location.

And so on. Savio lets you slice and dice your feature requests by attributes like MRR and customer plan, but to do it, you need to bring those attributes into Savio.

How to import customers and attributes into Savio

Savio is very flexible and can pull in data from a number of tools. Here are the integrations we currently support (links point to the instructions for setting up the integration).

Savio imports users when you connect Savio to a support tool like Intercom, Zendesk, or Help Scout
Savio can import users from CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce
Savio can import users from Segment
You can send Users, Companies, and Attributes into Savio using our API
If none of those work, you can add customers manually inside Savio

Once you connect your source of truth for customer information, Savio should have a list of your customers and their attributes so you can slice and dice your feedback data to better understand your customers’ needs.

3. Get your teams on board

Now, you want to set your teams up for success. That means training relevant teams on how to use the tool. So for example, here are some of the steps you could take to support your teams to use Savio:

Zendesk: You could help your Support team connect Zendesk to Savio and then ensure they know how to tag a ticket so that it is sent to Savio as feedback.
Chrome extension: You could help your team download the Chrome Extension and teach them how to use it during their customer calls.

You’ll get the best results by socializing your teams so that everyone understands the expectations around getting feedback into Savio.

If you need some extra support with this, let us know. We’re also happy to do a demo or training session with you and your team. Just email us or book a time here.

4. Triage regularly

Now you have to triage your feedback. By “triage” we mean answering the following questions:

Can you imagine solving this problem one day? If no, delete the feedback or just mark it as triaged, but don’t assign it to a Feature Request.
If you can, does it make sense? Can you use the feedback as-is? If not, go back to your customer and ask for more information. Hit “snooze” to deal with it later.
Which feature request does this belong to? This is the most important step—attach your feedback to the feature request it belongs to.

During the triage step, you can also make sure that the feedback has the right person attached to it, has any relevant tags added, and so on.

How often should you triage? At minimum, we recommend a cadence that matches your product meetings. So if you have product meetings every two weeks, we suggest triaging at least once every two weeks. That will ensure that you understand your feedback well when you go into your product meeting.

Read more: How Do I Triage Feedback?

5. Use Savio to run your product meeting

Now you have feedback coming in, and it’s being assigned to feature requests. One more powerful way to use Savio is as a guide for your product meeting. There are two main ways that we recommend doing this: using Savio to review features that are in progress, and figuring out which features to build next.

Use Savio to review features in progress

You can use Savio to quickly find a list of the features you decided to build last time. Find this list by filtering for all the features that are planned, or in progress, or both. This will give you a list of the features that you’ve already agreed to.

To filter for your planned and in-progress feature requests, navigate to the “Feature Request” page, click the filter icon, choose “Planned” and “In Progress” in the status box, and click “Filter Requests”.

In your meeting, run through this list to get a quick update on the progress of each feature. Change the status if appropriate. For example, when you review a feature that has been shipped, you can change the status right in the meeting so everyone is on the same page.

Figure out which features to build next

Prioritizing the right features is one of the most important—and challenging—steps in the development process. We have lots to say on this and have actually written an in-depth guide on how to effectively prioritize features. But here’s the quick-and-dirty version:

First, find a list of the features that you’re considering. You can find this easily in Savio by filtering by the “Up Next” canned filter will give you all your feature requests that have the status “Under Consideration” or “Planned”.

Depending on when you’ve last triaged your feature requests, you may also want to look through your “Untriaged” feature requests, too.

Once you’re looking at your entire list of features to prioritize, think about your business goals. Here are some potential business goals and how they can guide your prioritization:

Increase conversions and decrease lost deals. In this case, you may prioritize features that came from lost deals and build what those potential customers would have liked.
Support our lighthouse customers. You may want to focus on those customers that meet your ideal customer profile. In that case, you can choose to prioritize features that these lighthouse customers have requested.
Increase retention and decrease churn. In this case, you might prioritize features requested by your Enterprise customers or those with a monthly recurring revenue over, say, $500.

These are just some potential ways you can filter feature requests to support your business goals. Think about what matters most to you right now and then use Savio’s powerful filters to find and prioritize the features that are consistent with your goals.

Read more: Using Savio to run your Product meeting

6. Use Savio to close the loop with your customers

Closing the feedback loop just means letting your customers know when you built a feature they asked for. It’s a fantastic way to build relationships with your customers and get credit for listening to them.

Check out this article to learn how to close the loop with customers in Savio.

At Savio, we typically close the loop in three buckets.

Active customers

Our Customer Success team closes the loop with our active customers as soon as we’re ready to market a feature. Our message includes:

A thank you to the customer for providing feedback
Information about the feature and where they can learn more about using it
Encouragement to submit more feedback

Churned customers

Closing the loop with customers that have left your product can sometimes bring them back—especially if they left because your product didn’t have a feature they wanted. Your Customer Success team can send a message that includes:

A thank you to them for providing the feedback
Information about the feature
An invitation to try your product again or contact information to renew their account

Lost deals

Your Sales team can also use closing the loop to revive lost deals. This is especially effective when your prospects don’t choose your product because it’s missing a feature they’d like. Your message to lost deals can include:

A thank you to them for providing the feedback
An acknowledgement that they chose not to use your product together with an indication that the product has the feature they asked for
Information about the feature and how to use it
An invitation to contact you if they’re interested in trying the product out.

You can send these emails directly from Savio, or copy customer emails to your clipboard and send them from your email client or CRM.

The fancier version to get even more out of Savio

Got the basics down and looking for more? Here are some steps you can take to level up your use of Savio.

7. Identify secondary sources for customer feedback

Earlier, you connected your most important source of feedback. Now it’s time to connect all the rest of your feedback sources so that Savio becomes your centralized feedback hub.

Make a list of all your feedback sources

Start by making a list of all your feedback sources. You want to include each of the places that you receive feedback and where it lives. For example, your list could look something like this:

Zendesk
Customer calls
Surveys
Customer emails
Web forms

Map your feedback sources to Savio

Now, you want to create a quick plan for how each of those sources can link to Savio. We recommend making a table and simply mapping the source of the feedback with the team who is responsible for it and the plan to get the feedback into Savio. It could look like this:

Source	Team	How to get into Savio
Zendesk	Support	Use the Zendesk Integration
Customer Calls	Product Management	Use the Chrome extension
HubSpot notes	Sales	HubSpot Integration
Customer Emails	Customer Success	Email feedback to Savio

Tip: We’ve made a quick template you can use to help guide you through this mapping process.

As you’re working out how to get your feedback into Savio, you may want to check out our list of integrations. Between all the native integrations, the Chrome extension, the API, and the ability to email feedback to Savio, we’re confident we can help you import feedback from anywhere you’re keeping it. We can also help you import any historical data you have from other feedback tools if you need that. If you need help with this step, just book a call with us.

By the end of this step, you should have a plan for how each team will centralize all feedback within Savio.

8. Get all your teams on board

Just like in the dead-simple version, you’ll need to ensure your teams are all on the same page. Any of the teams you included in your mapping exercise in the last step should be included. That could include Support, Sales, Product Management, and any other relevant teams.

For each team, you’ll want to make sure that they have the appropriate integrations installed and that they know how to use Savio. Again, we’re also happy to do a demo or training session with you and your team—just email us to schedule it.

9. Identify secondary sources of Users, Companies, and Attributes to Import

Savio’s even more powerful when you cover off multiple sources of User, Company, and Attribute information.

For example, if you import users from a Support tool like Zendesk, you’ll have Active users (and some Churned users) in Savio. But you likely won’t have Prospects or Lost Deals because they’re less likely to email your support or success team.

So consider all the places you receive feedback.

If you use a CRM tool, like Hubspot or Salesforce, consider connecting it.
If you send user data to Segment, consider connecting it to get every one of your users into Savio.
Or send users into Savio via API.

Savio’s at its most powerful when you can assign every Feature Request to a User. So make sure all your users are in Savio.

10. Consider skipping the inbox

As you’re setting up your teams to use Savio, think about what triage model you’ll use. We see users most commonly following one of these two models:

Assign a dedicated feedback manager. In this model, there is a single person who understands the list of feature requests and does the triaging. Many team members can submit feedback, but one person is responsible for going through it all and assigning it to feature requests. This model is more work for the feedback manager, but feedback is accurately assigned to the right feature request more often. This is better if you've got a dedicated person who can triage feedback.
Each team member assigns feedback to a feature request. In this model, each submitter includes all the required information and assigns feedback to a feature request. The feedback they submit can, at your discretion, skip the triage inbox and go directly into the feedback vault without anyone taking a second look. It’s less work for a single person, but feedback is more likely to be assigned to the wrong feature request. This is better if your team receives hundreds of pieces of feedback per week.

Both of these models can work under the right conditions. We recommend starting with the first one if you’re not sure.

For more on these two models and how to set Savio’s settings to optimize for them, check out this article: Power-User Tips for Triaging Feedback Effectively.

11. Consider a voting board

Finally, consider setting up a public voting board. Voting boards are a public way to solicit feedback from your customers. They are useful because they give your customers another channel to make feature requests and they allow you to see which requests are popular. It’s very easy to set one up.

Tip: you can choose the features you want to display on your voting board. You can also hide vote totals.

Read more: Voting Boards in Savio

Last Updated: September 20 2021

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