How The StoryGraph uses Noora to build the most valuable features for their customers

Nadia Odunayo is Founder and CEO of The StoryGraph. Through being a customer research led product, she has built up The StoryGraph to have over a quarter of a million users and tens of thousands of followers on various social media platforms.

Problem

Due to the size and scale of The StoryGraph's customer base, it had started to become a challenge to break through the noise of the individual pieces of feedback that their team received, and see the areas that their paying customers wanted them to focus on.

"We know that our paying users are some of our most invested, and so with Noora, we were hoping to find a way to streamline all of the feedback that we receive on a daily basis and use it to support the prioritisation process."

The team began searching for a tool that:

• Helps them understand the most important product pains that their paying customers were facing.
• Made public their product priorities and encouraged feedback and discussion between users and the team.
• Would automatically follow-up with users that left feedback and close the feedback loop.

Solution

Nadia and the team at The StoryGraph opted to use Noora to solve their product feedback challenges. They created a public feedback board, called "Features", where the team would add the features that they were actively working on. They then created a separate board for their paying members to contribute their own product ideas and feedback. This was the area that addressed their problem of customers not having a dedicated place to leave feedback and engage in an open discussion with other members and The StoryGraph team on.

"Everyone can view our roadmap and it’s powerful when someone requests something on Twitter or Instagram and we can link them to a Noora post."

Another benefit from using Noora is how the tool helps them automatically close the feedback loop with their customers:

"Something that our users particularly love are the automated emails they get on the suggestions they’re tracking. There’s a sense of buzz or excitement, which is awesome. Noora gives us an easy, built-in way to draw people back to the product, without us having to put together a new marketing email for every feature request. We know that the people that care the most will be the first to get notified."

Noora has also been easy to adapt into their everyday processes. Once per day someone on The StoryGraph team will catch up on new posts and comments, provide feedback directly to the customers that have contributed, building a sense for their customers that their input is valuable and respected.

Results

For Nadia and the team at The StoryGraph, the results have been immediately clear. In a matter of a few months, their customers have provided over 250 separate feedback posts, 500 comments and over 3,500 votes. Their public roadmap is visible to existing and potential customers, and has become a powerful tool when someone requests a feature on Instagram and Twitter, as the team can easily link them to a Noora post.

There have also been additional benefits that the team didn't necessarily anticipate. For example, by opening up their feedback, their users have started to help each other and also drive the product in a direction that wouldn't have been possible with a closed product roadmap.

"What we particularly love to see is when the users develop ideas amongst themselves, without any involvement from the team. It’s wonderful to see how different people’s minds work and which areas are most important or painful for them as they use our product."

If you're looking to start working in a more transparent way with your product roadmap and gather feedback from your users, Nadia and the team at The StoryGraph would recommend trying Noora.

"It’s worked out brilliantly, on many different levels."