"The ability to learn faster from customers is the essential competitive advantage that startups must possess."
"Hey, someone mentioned your product on Hacker News. I don't think they're happy with it though". Did a friend ever send you a message like that? Dreadful. And it usually comes a day or two too late. That sucks.
But it doesn't have to be that chilling to suck. Perhaps there is a thread on Reddit titled "I'd like to solve Y, can X do that?". Google will happily show that as the #1 result. The problem? No replies.
Or maybe someone likes you so much they posted a link to your blog article for you. Unfortunately the thread died after just a few views. If only there was someone around to nudge it with an upvote while it was still fresh.
Wouldn't it be nice to get notified every time that happens, learn what your users really think and always be the first to reply?
Syften has enabled us to keep an eye on the topics related to our product. We can easily track posts about discount codes, email marketing, and e-commerce. We can then suggest using our service, or just be helpful answering questions on subjects that we are familiar with.
"The companies that learn the quickest, win. This is partly because they do not make decisions based on assumptions and partly because they learn from their predecessors. While your competitors are debating which assumption is better than the other, you can build a competitive advantage by gathering real information from your customers."
It's very nice to work on features that your existing customers ask for. The things is that, well, they're already your customers. But that guy who signed up, tried your service, and left without replying to your emails - what was he looking for?
Users are not very good at articulating their needs. But as Henry Ford and Steve Jobs have shown us, that's not their job - it's your.
Observe your users in the wild, see what their problems are and focus on features that help you expand.
Syften constantly discovers actionable conversations related to our product. This allows us to engage with useful and timely replies, as well as focus on features that actually solve real user problems.
"The genius of niches is they are too small for large competitors, allowing a nimble entrepreneur the breathing room to focus on an under-served audience."
What are people saying about your competitor? Are they lacking a feature that you have? Is there a subset of their audience that you can serve?
And what are they up to anyway? How are they engaging their audience? Are they running a brilliant social selling campaing?
Let your competitors' acitivies be a source of your inspiration and their users' complaints drive your feature development.
Syften has been a great tool to understand in which communities my website is being mentioned, or topics relevant to my business. It allowed me to engage in meaningful discussions and to identify some important actors in my niche.
"Customers are used to being maltreated. Most of the companies they deal with are quasi-monopolies that get away with atrocious customer service. Try making your customer service not merely good, but surprisingly good."
Always be the first to respond to questions, immediately after they get asked. Maybe it's someone struggling with a bug in your software. Maybe someone is complaining about their pains with a competitor's product. Or maybe someone is experiencing a problem that your product was designed to fix.
With Syften you can jump in on a conversation as it's happening and provide outstanding user support.
I've written a couple books and like to keep an eye on how and where folks are talking about them. Syften has helped me catch several key conversations that I otherwise wouldn't have seen. Even on the days without any notable alerts, I'm still happy to know that I haven't missed anything. A very useful tool.
Get your notifications while they're hot. The Slack App will send you alerts as they occur, allowing your team to react in real time.
Receive E-Mail reports immediately or once a day.
Old school? We've got an RSS feed too.
Cook your own notification method. Set up a new integration with Zapier or interface with our API directly.
