I've wanted to do this for a very long time - to send out a survey to our DeviceAnywhere customer base to find out what they think of us, what they think of the product, the company, the features, our roadmap, etc. etc.
Finally, two weeks ago, thanks to Rachel Obstler, our VP of Produt Marketing, our first every customer survey was sent out. And while I have wanted to do this since we landed our 20th customer (at which point it may not have been that useful), with our current base of 1000+ subscribed companies, the suvey made a lot more sense.
I applaud Rachel for putting together a nice list of questions that asked the right things - things our customers wanted to tell us, and things that we wanted to find out from the market. As I understand it, composing a customer survey such that you ask meaningful, result-oriented questions that yield actionable data is an art in itself, and Rachel is pretty good at it. Also, thanks to Survey Monkey - cool product - takes the effort out of the logistical aspects of executing customer surveys.
What was our goal in sending out this survey? Quite succintly, to get our customers' perspective on:
- how we are doing as a company
- how our product (quality, support, features, roadmap) is doing in the market
- whether our product roadmap is inline with our customers' expectations
...above all, my message to the team was...we are a customer-centric company and I need to know how our susbcribers are feeling about us. Where can we improve? What are we doing well? What are we doing not so well? I always want to hear what our customers have to say, because that is what defines our company - and ultimately the viability of our company...
And now, to the results....
First - a hugely encouraging greater than 10% of the people who the survey was sent to responded! Thanks to everyone who participated, This in itself is a success.
As I have claimed previously, our customer base covers the gamut of the mobile landscape, and that was evident from our question about the type of business the respondent was engaged in. The top four categories were: Mobile Games, Mobile Content (ringtones, wallpapers, etc.), Mobile Marketing, and Content Aggregation. The 'Others' category, which is always interesting included everything from Mobile Search to Social Networking to Healthcare Software to Mobile Chat to Mobile Commerce.
| What mobile business is your company predominantly in? | |
| answer options | Response Percent |
| Ringtones | 3.44% |
| Mobile Games | 25.43% |
| Mobile Video/TV | 5.50% |
| Various Content (ringtones, games, videos, wallpaper, etc.) | 18.56% |
| Content Aggregator / Platform Provider | 9.62% |
| 3rd-Party Testing | 1.72% |
| Messaging | 6.53% |
| Mobile Marketing / Advertising | 9.97% |
| Mobile Payment / Banking | 2.75% |
| Handset OEM | 0.00% |
| Mobile Operating Systems | 1.37% |
| Other (please specify) | 15.12% |
Our users use DeviceAnywhere for a range of activities (many use the system for multiple activities) in the following order of emphasis: QA of content/applications, followed by Testing of ported applications, followed by Development of content & applications, followed by Access to remote networks. Some customers also use the system to create product demos and to create marketing materials.
| What do you currently use DeviceAnywhere for? Please choose as many options as apply. | |
| answer options | Response Percent |
| QA of content / applications | 77.66% |
| Development of content / applications | 45.70% |
| Testing ported applications | 49.14% |
| Access to non-local devices/networks | 44.33% |
| Replacement for physical devices | 36.77% |
| Creating marketing presentations or other marketing materials | 7.90% |
| Product demos | 8.93% |
| Other (please specify) | 1.72% |
One question gave us great insight into what we should be focusing on - some of this has been evident from spot customer requests for a while, but this survey made it very clear. When asked about what features are most important to our customers, an overwhelming number of respondents wanted Device Specifications, followed by information on Device Popularity. Other notables included Device Search capability and Test Automation tools inside DeviceAnywhere.
The next question is very important to us as we embark on rolling our DeviceAnywhere systems across the globe - where would you like to see the next DA deployment? The order was: (I'm holding off on putting this info here for competitive reasons)
So...what other tools do our users use for their mobile development/testing activities? In order of most used: Eclipse, BREW SDK, Windows Mobile SDK, Java NetBeans, Symbian SDK, BlackBerry JDE, Palm SDK.
| What other tools do you currently use to develop mobile applications? | |
| answer options | Response Percent |
| Java NetBeans | 33.17% |
| Eclipse | 50.24% |
| Borland JBuilder | 5.85% |
| BREW SDK | 45.37% |
| Symbian SDKs | 29.27% |
| Windows Mobile SDKs | 36.10% |
| BlackBerry JDE | 24.39% |
| Palm SDK | 9.76% |
| Adobe Device Central | 3.90% |
| Other (please specify) | 15.12% |
People expressed interest in attending a DeviceAnywhere User Conference (we are planning one - more details to come later...)
| If we held a DeviceAnywhere User Conference, which of the following topics would be of interest to you? | |
| answer options | Response Percent |
| Best Practices in Porting and Testing | 61.40% |
| What's Next in Mobile Handsets and Services? | 54.88% |
| How to Command Premium Real Estate with Carriers and OEMs | 20.93% |
| Battle Between On-deck and Off-deck Approaches | 34.42% |
| What are Carriers and MVNOs Doing to Make Life Easier for the Content Developer? | 43.72% |
| Test Automation Workshop | 55.81% |
| Other (please specify) | 1.86% |
...and a very large percentage of folks said 'Yes' to become a part of our Customer Testimonial program...which is just wonderful - thank you all!
Most importantly...a very large number of customers responded that they love the product...and we love that...
In the areas we did not come out with flying colors, we'll be reaching out to our customers to see how we can improve, what we can do better on, and hopefully positively impact these perceptions the next time around.
nothing
Posted by: none | April 10, 2008 at 04:07 AM
DeviceAnywhere is a service that lets developers access about 1,500 different mobile devices located throughout the world in real time. They can interact with the devices to ensure all development, porting, testing, and monitoring needs are met.
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Angel
Surveys
Posted by: Angel444 | March 03, 2009 at 05:23 AM