Social App Review: UserVoice

How can companies improve their products to meet the changing needs of the consumer market? Customary market research techniques are expensive and the timeliness of the information is a little lack lustre.

Introducing…UserVoice.

Founded by Richard White & Marcus Nelson in 2007, UserVoice acts as a liaison between customers and organizations. By fostering community around your business, it invites collaboration and communicates real-time feedback on customer needs.

Suggestions, Forums & Voting

UserVoice is like a suggestion box. It encourages customers to suggest product improvements, report flaws and give feedback. Customers are allowed a maximum of three votes per suggestion, minimizing the impact of a vocal minority. UserVoice automatically ranks the votes accordingly (similar to digg.com), allowing companies to see how important each idea is to users.

But wait, it gets better…..

UserVoice has a feedback widget to upload to your website (look to your left!). Once opened, it will display the top 3 suggestions. When users click, it takes them to the full company profile on UserVoice where they can view all suggestions posted.

Registration & Profits

All that is needed is an email address and username. But the site is also integrated with facebook, twitter, google, yahoo!, openID and MySpace, making it so easy to sign up! The profits come from the six account options companies can register for with fees ranging from $19-$589/month. I opted for the 15-day free trial.

My Favourite: This is more than just a user-friendly social app. It allows companies to communicate to consumers on how they are taking action to remedy user concerns by updating its status. These include options such as, “planned”, “under review” and “completed.”

Check out this great step-by-step video of Marcus @ Information Week 2009

Investors

This B2B company based out of Santa Cruz, CA recently raised $800,000 from various VCs including Baseline Ventures & Betaworks. Their client base includes Facebook, Tweetdeck & NASA to name a few, and Bob Pearson, former vice-president of communities and conversations at Dell Inc. recently joined their team as an advisor. Needless to say, this company is definitely a gamechanger!

This is one of the most important PR social application tools because it creates mutually beneficial relationships. It empowers users and enables companies to uncover and monitor the most important and specific consumer needs in real-time. This all-in-one social application closes the feedback loop between users and corporations. Any company looking for long-term success needs to sign up for UserVoice NOW!

For some info on UserVoice competition in the market, visit the SalesForce.com site.

Check out Kara's blog for more info on UserVoice and make sure to watch this great video she found!