| Most positive feedback is basically fluff. I am kind of a Shirley Temple-esque personality and I have a long history of attracting gushy positive attention and it has been enormously problematic. It almost never tells me anything useful about what I am actually doing right. In fact, it tends to suck the oxygen out of the room and make it impossible to have any kind of meaningful discussion about anything. But, then, Ford supposedly said that if he listened to customer feedback, he would have been trying to build a faster horse. So, I will suggest a high percentage of people will not have good feedback for you, period. Even most people with the problem won't understand the problem space well enough to give good feedback. This is part of why metrics are so popular. Over time, I have become less focused on what people say and more focused on moving certain numbers. Is it getting me traffic? Is it improving the bottom line? Etc. Most negative feedback is equally emotionally driven and uninformative. If people react very negatively, it can be useful to know that you are doing something seriously wrong, but it probably won't tell you what you are doing wrong. A couple of things are really useful and you won't see them often: Statements quantifying relative or subjective value, i.e. "This works better/worse for me than (other thing)." Statements quantifying absolute or objective value, i.e. "I need a thing that goes X speed and yours is the only one that does that" or "I need a thing that goes X speed and yours does not do that so it has no value for me." Or even "You have a typo/grammatical error/etc" When I paid insurance claims, we were taught to evaluate red flags and refer things to the fraud department if there were enough suspicious indicators. A lot of that has to do with context and patterns of behavior. I already focused a lot on patterns of behavior, but working there firmed up some of my understanding of how to do that well. Some people will talk trash about you but use your product anyway. Others will say glowing things and not give you a dime. Actions always speak louder than words. Don't let their words distract you overly much. |