Introduction
Public roadmaps are quickly becoming the tool for SaaS companies looking to showcase upcoming features, changes, and updates to their product. These public product roadmaps serve as a transparent window into the development process, showcasing what users can expect in the future and keeping everyone in the loop in a way that energizes a user base.
By using effective roadmap tools, SaaS companies can provide a clear timeline, all while building trust and brand loyalty amongst their community. Let’s explore the top reasons why you may want to include public roadmaps directly on your website to keep your customers informed and your product growing in a data-driven manner!
The Benefits of Using Public Roadmaps for your SaaS Company:
- Gathering Customer Feedback: Public roadmaps invite direct input from users, helping you understand their needs and preferences.
- Increasing Transparency and Trust: Customers appreciate knowing what’s coming next, especially when they’ve paid for a product that is intended to evolve. Sharing your roadmap builds trust and demonstrates a commitment to transparency.
- Enhancing User Engagement: Engaging users in the development process builds a sense of community and loyalty, and can even help the news spread via word of mouth.
- Aligning Product Development with Customer Feedback: By aligning your roadmap with actual customer feedback, you ensure that your product evolves in a way that meets user expectations, and this means your community feels heard.
Look, there are a ton of tools out there designed to capture feedback and to put customer requests directly into your development process, but it can be tough to sort through them all. We’re hoping to shine some light on some of the best options, most of which are entirely free!
For instance, PathPro is a platform that offers entirely FREE public roadmaps in there free plan, no strings attached. You’ll be ready to emphasize the importance of transparent product development by quickly setting up your own public roadmaps directly into your site. Additionally, PathPro provides guidance on how to collect product feedback, an essential aspect of refining your roadmap based on user needs, amongst a ton of other features, such as feature voting. Harnessing the Power of Feature Voting in Software Development empowers product developers to make informed decisions about which features to prioritize, ensuring that the roadmap aligns closely with customer demands. All in all, the goal is to make informed decisions, while also keeping everyone, well, informed!
So, what’s a Public Roadmap?
A public roadmap is a visual tool that outlines the planned features, updates, and improvements for any given product. It is typically accessible to all team members (which helps them keep on-task), but it can also be made available to customers. Simply put, public roadmaps are a strategic communication tool that keeps users informed about the direction of a product’s ongoing development.
Differences Between Public and Private Roadmaps
- Visibility: A public roadmap is openly accessible to a product’s customers and community, while a private roadmap is restricted to internal teams.
- Feedback Integration: Public roadmaps often incorporate user feedback directly into the planning process. Private roadmaps typically have communication features restricted to assigned team members.
- Purpose: Public roadmaps are designed to build transparency and trust with users (customers, clients, etc.), whereas private roadmaps focus on internal alignment, strategic planning, and task management.
Tip: PathPro allows for all of the above!
Why SaaS Companies Are Choosing Public Roadmaps
SaaS companies adopt public roadmaps for several reasons:
- Transparency in Development: They demonstrate a commitment to openness and honesty about their product’s development process, bridging the gap between customers and development teams.
- Ongoing Customer Feedback: Public roadmaps allow users to provide input on features they value, ensuring that development efforts align with customer needs.
- Reduce Support Tickets: By providing a direct line of communication on a per-task basis, support tickets can be drastically reduced. Customers not only help craft a feature, but they can ask questions and otherwise engage with developers in an extremely focused manner.
- Trust Building and brand loyalty: Sharing development plans fosters trust and loyalty among users., and show a community that a product developer can make good on their promises to deliver updates as promised.
Public roadmaps have become essential for SaaS companies aiming to stay competitive and to align their product development with actual customer feedback. Not only do they keep customers informed about upcoming features, but they can build brand loyalty and organic growth in some truly interesting ways, all while letting your team and product development to be guided by real customer data:
Build trust, engage with your community, and watch your product grow, all while optimizing your development process? It’s little wonder why the product development industry is embracing this new movement of transparency.
Examples of Public Roadmaps Being Used by SaaS Companies
Since explaining the true benefits of public roadmaps can be tough to truly convey, let’s take a peak at how public roadmaps are being used by the industry’s top SaaS companies. From tech giants like Microsoft to developer staples like GitHub, below are some key examples of how these businesses are presenting their product’s roadmap and keeping their users informed:
GitHub’s Public Roadmap:
GitHub is a popular platform used by developers worldwide for version control and collaboration. Their public roadmap stands out for its clear structure and focus on community engagement. The roadmap is hosted on GitHub itself, allowing users to track upcoming features, provide feedback, and see the current status of projects.
Key Features:
- Clear categorization of upcoming features
- Continuous updates and community input
- Integration with GitHub issues for detailed discussions
Supahub’s Public Roadmap:
Supahub specializes in building tools for product management. Their public roadmap is noteworthy for its simplicity and accessibility. Supahub uses their own platform to manage and display their roadmap, offering a seamless experience for users to suggest features and track progress.
Key Features:
- User-friendly interface
- Easy feedback submission process
- Transparent prioritization based on user demand
Microsoft 365’s Public Roadmap:
Microsoft 365 offers a suite of productivity tools that are essential for both businesses and individuals. Their public roadmap provides detailed insights into future updates across all Microsoft 365 products. This helps users plan ahead and stay informed about new functionalities.
Key Features:
- Comprehensive coverage of all Microsoft 365 services
- Detailed release timelines
- Regularly updated with new information
PathPro’s Public Roadmap:
PathPro, as you may have guessed, is platform that includes tools for collecting customer feedback, feature voting, Public/Private roadmaps, and more. They use their own tools to present their official roadmap, keeping customers informed of what’s coming next in a timeline-based approach.
Key Features:
- Simple to implement for any user level
- Customer analytics and interactions
- Private/Internal roadmaps in addition to public roadmaps.
Airtable’s Public Roadmap:
Airtable combines the simplicity of spreadsheets with database functionalities. Their public roadmap is designed to be highly accessible and interactive. It helps users understand what new features are coming and provides an avenue for feedback.
Key Features:
- Interactive elements for better engagement
- Clear timeline of feature releases
- Open channels for user suggestions
Buffer’s Public Roadmap:
Buffer specializes in social media management tools. Their public roadmap, hosted on FeatureOS, provides a straightforward Kanban view that showcases what’s coming next in their software. This approach ensures that users are always aware of upcoming improvements.
Key Features:
- Simple Kanban-style layout
- Release dates included for transparency
- Focus on customer-driven development
Loom’s Public Roadmap
Loom offers video communication tools designed to improve workplace collaboration. Their use of Productboard for their public roadmap allows them to clearly communicate upcoming features while collecting valuable user feedback.
Key Features:
- Detailed feature descriptions
- Timeline view for better planning
Looking to add Public Roadmaps to Your SaaS Company’s Development Pipeline?
Adding public roadmaps can be daunting, and sometimes expensive! However, it’s now become VERY simple to add entirely free public roadmaps to your site (Hint: PathPro gives you 100% FREE public roadmaps on their free plan. Simply sign up here, no credit card needed.). Let’s walk through a few key steps you’ll want to consider in deciding if public roadmaps make sense for your particular business…
Step 1: Defining Your Product Strategy and Objectives
Creating a clear and effective public roadmap starts with understanding your product strategy and objectives. This ensures that your roadmap supports the main goals of your SaaS company.
- Vision: Define what you want to achieve with your product in the long term.
- Objectives: Break down the vision into specific goals that can be measured.
- Initiatives: Identify key projects or actions that will help you reach these objectives.
Having a well-defined product strategy helps you prioritize tasks and make better decisions during the development process.
Step 2: Collecting and Managing Customer Feedback
Listening to your customers is crucial for shaping a public roadmap that meets their needs. Here are some ways to gather useful feedback:
- Feature/Idea Submissions: Offer a focused channel where your customers can submit feedback, such as new feature ideas, or tweaks to existing features.
- Talk to Your Customers: Have one-on-one conversations with customers to dive deeper into their pain points and preferences on any given feature, or your product in general.
- Feedback Tools: Make use of tools like Canny or UserVoice to easily collect and organize feedback from various sources.
- Feature Voting: This function allows customers to vote on potential features, letting you gather critical data as you decide what to work on next.
Building a culture where feedback is encouraged and valued allows you to gather insights from your customers, both positive and negative, which is essential for growing your product. And hey, it even saves you a ton of time and development fees since you’ll be able to confirm what your customers actually want!
The key to managing feedback however is being able to effectively capture it, organizing it, and prioritize it based on how often it’s mentioned, how important it is amongst other customers, and finally incorporating it into your roadmap.
Step 3: Selecting the Right Public Roadmap Tool
Choosing the right tool is important for maintaining a well-structured and accessible public roadmap. Here are some of the most popular options:
- Trello: Offers a simple board layout that’s easy to navigate.
- Canny: Allows users to vote on features they want and integrates smoothly with other tools.
- Productboard: Provides detailed roadmapping features along with insights from your customers.
- PathPro: Yep, that’s our platform, but we can’t help but love it. PathPro is also the only platform that lets you add public roadmaps to your site entirely free, no strings attached.
Regardless of your choice, these tools make it easier for you to update and share your product’s roadmap while keeping it interactive and user-friendly.
Step 4: Prioritizing Features Based on User Demand
Once you have gathered feedback, prioritize features that are most important to your user base. Here are some methods for prioritization:
- Repeated Submissions: When a feature request comes in multiple times from your users, that’s officially data! Capturing repeated requests is one of the first steps in determining the value/demand of any given feature or idea.
- Feature Voting: Let users vote on the features they find most valuable.
- Impact vs Effort Analysis: Evaluate features based on how much impact they can have versus the effort needed to implement them.
- Budget: determine the value of a feature depending on the cost involved, and weigh it against the demand provided by customer feedback data.
- Customer Segmentation: Focus on feedback from your most valuable customers or specific target groups. Platforms like PathPro let you analyze customer contributions, as well as ranking customers based on merit, ideas contributed, and so on.
Effective prioritization ensures that your team focuses on building features that will bring the most value to users.
Step 5: Managing Expectations and Communicating Updates Regularly
Being transparent and keeping users informed is crucial for managing their expectations. Regular updates show them the progress you’re making and any changes in your plans. Here’s how you can do it:
- Regular Updates: Set a schedule for sending out release notes, notifications, or change logs of when your product has been updated.
- Clear Communication: Use simple and direct language to explain what changes or new features are coming.
- Engagement Channels: Make use of comment systems directly in your roadmap, alongside in-app notifications to actively involve customers in discussions about your product.
By managing expectations effectively, you build trust with your users and keep them engaged in your product’s journey, all while drastically reducing support requests, and increasing stellar product reviews.
Conclusion
Implementing a public roadmap strategy can transform your SaaS company by enhancing transparency, trust-building, and customer engagement. By leveraging the best practices shared in this article, you can maximize the benefits of public roadmaps.
Public roadmaps significantly contribute to long-term trust-building. They allow you to communicate your vision transparently, which can resonate with users and stakeholders alike. This ongoing communication forges a bond with your community, a crucial factor for customer retention in the incredibly competitive SaaS industry.
Encouraging customer feedback through your roadmap aligns product development with user needs. This not only improves user satisfaction but also drives continuous improvement based on real-world usage and preferences. Engaging customers directly in the development process creates a sense of ownership and loyalty towards your product.
The top SaaS companies in the world are using tools like PathPro to streamline the process of collecting and managing customer feedback. For instance, PathPro offers an affordable alternative to Canny, providing more features at reduced costs, which can be crucial for growing companies. With its comprehensive range of features and cost-effectiveness, PathPro emerges as a clear choice for businesses looking to enhance their feedback collection process. For a great example of a public roadmap, exploring PathPro’s demo will give you a great idea of how a SaaS company presents their development timeline to their customers (not only is PathPro’s roadmap a demo of their product, but it’s also their official roadmap that they use to keep their customers informed!).
Finally, it’s important to understand that public roadmaps also serve as a strategic tool for aligning internal teams around shared tasks, while keeping external stakeholders informed about upcoming developments. This alignment is essential for efficient collaboration and maintaining focus on a unified vision, especially in our world of remote working environments! To achieve this level of cohesion within, be sure to explore resources such as PathPro’s article on building effective product paths or read up on what PathPro’s team members consider the Golden Pipeline of product development.
In Summary:
By implementing the insights and leveraging the tools included in this article, you’re on your way to insuring that your SaaS company thrives through enhanced transparency, trust-building, and customer engagement, all but a fraction of the benefits your product will enjoy by adding free public roadmaps to your site.
Speaking of, you can quickly add FREE Public Roadmaps to your site now, no strings attached, by creating your free PathPro account. No credit card needed, and tons of features are included entirely free, easily making PathPro the best way to add free public roadmaps to your site. Once registered, simply check out our knowledge base article on how to create public roadmaps, and you’ll be on your way!