Utilizing WooCommerce extension feature requests

It is important to keep track of all feature requests, and have some sort of system of record where anyone can see what kind of feedback the product is receiving over time.

We recommend a daily or bi-daily check-in, where you:

• triage new feature requests,
• celebrate positive reviews and;
• act upon negative reviews.

Carefully maintaining feature request boards (or similar system) is key, as the average board contains a lot of duplicate/spam content, requests about features that have been implemented and requests about features that will likely never be implemented. Poorly maintained boards make merchants feel unheard/neglected.

This results in more negative reviews on the premise that the product teams were not reading/listening to their feedback.

We’ve seen good results with the following procedures:

Starting with the most affected products, go through all open requests, reply to most/all of them and categorize them as:

• “Open”, for requests that we still want more feedback,
• “Planned”, for requests that we plan to implement,
• “Completed”, for requests that have already been implemented and;
• “Closed”, for requests that we do not plan to implement, as they are not a good fit for the product, for duplicate/spam requests and for requests that were actually support questions.

Replying to all “Open” requests is the goal, but if that’s not attainable currently, make sure to reply to 100% of the requests that are closed.

For new open requests that arrive as a feature request, discuss/triage them, reply promptly, and assign a status to avoid having the board become unmanaged, and ensure merchants feel (and are) heard.

In addition to the effect a tidy board has on merchants, it also helps product teams better understand which requests are most wanted and most impactful and then plan work accordingly.