In-app feedback is a goldmine for understanding your customers and crafting experiences they’ll love.

This article dives into best practices for collecting actionable feedback, along with some top tools to streamline the process.

What is in-app feedback?

User in-app feedback is the data you collect within web, desktop, or mobile apps to understand the user experience and note areas for improvement.

In-app feedback can be both passive and active. The former involves having a feedback widget within your app that users can click to provide feedback whenever they want. On the other hand, active feedback is when you purposefully prompt users for inputs about specific experiences.

Why collect user feedback?

In-app feedback provides a direct line of communication between your business and the people who matter most—your users.

Here are some of the benefits you can unlock by actively gathering and analyzing user feedback:

• Identify user preferences: Feedback pinpoints what your users love, dislike, and desire to have. For instance, if more users request a particular feature, that’s your sign to consider adding it to your product roadmap.
• Improve user satisfaction: The whole point of collecting in-app feedback is to act on it. By proactively addressing user concerns or doing more of what they love, you’ll increase their satisfaction levels and motivate them to stick with your brand.
• Increase customer loyalty: Feeling valued and heard fosters strong customer relationships. When users know their feedback matters, they become invested in your product’s success, leading to loyalty and positive word of mouth.
• Reduce churn: Customers churn when they’re no longer satisfied with the value a product provides. By collecting and analyzing in-app feedback, you’ll address any underlying issues and reduce churn. But that’s not all—your product quality generally increases as you listen to users, making it more appealing to potential customers.

How do you collect in-app feedback?

Here is how to do so in four steps.

1. Identify the objective for collecting in-app feedback

Before you jump into implementation, clearly define your goal for collecting user feedback. This will inform the type of questions you ask and the timing of your in-app feedback surveys. Your objective also makes it easy to decide who should see your survey and how you’d analyze the survey data.

Some examples of objectives could be:

• Feature usage: Are users interacting with a new feature as intended?
• Feature requests: What do users think your app is missing?
• Customer satisfaction: How happy are users with the app’s general performance?
• User frustrations: Where are users experiencing friction?

Whether you plan on rolling out new features or just want to gauge user satisfaction, use this goal-setting framework to set clear objectives for your in-app feedback surveys.

2. Segment your users

Create user segments that best suit your survey goals. For example, only disengaged or in-active users should receive in-app feedback surveys asking why they have reduced engagement.

Similarly, new users have no business seeing in-app surveys asking them to submit feature requests. They’ve not had time to explore the app in detail, so they may suggest features you already have.

To be effective with this step, use a tool like Userpilot to create granular user segments based on factors such as demographics, in-app behavior, journey stage, and so on.

3. Build your survey with an in-app feedback tool

Choose a suitable feedback tool that fits your needs. There are multiple in-app feedback tools, and we’ll review some of the best in the next section, but the software you choose should at least have the following features:

• Survey templates to save you time.
• Multiple styling options.
• Easy to use interface.
• Multiple trigger and display options

Once you’ve chosen a tool, it’s time to start building. Ensure your survey questions are short and phrased neutrally to avoid skewing the results.

4. Collect feedback and analyze the data

Once you’ve crafted your survey questions, select the placement and timing, then hit publish. Monitor the responses as they come to ensure users see the in-app feedback survey and respond.

Once all (or a good chunk of) the responses are in, it’s time to analyze them and draw conclusions. For example, consider the NPS survey report below. Only 10% of the respondents said they were extremely likely to recommend the platform to others. That could be a sign of dissatisfaction.

6 best in-app feedback tools to gather in-app feedback

This section shows you some of the best in-app feedback tools on the market and how they can help you collect customer data easily.

1. Userpilot – Best for web app feedback with powerful analytics

Userpilot is a product growth platform with features to help you collect, analyze, and act on real-time feedback.

What makes it stand out among most in-app feedback tools is the fact that you don’t need to juggle between tools before you implement the user insights from your analysis. For example, if your survey shows users need more guidance, you can utilize Userpilot to create in-app walkthroughs or a resource center to help users along the way.

Userpilot features

• In-app user feedback surveys: From customer satisfaction surveys to feature request forms, Userpilot has many in-app feedback survey templates you can customize to meet your needs. The platform also has a dynamic builder that enables you to create in-app surveys from scratch.

• NPS: The Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey lets you measure how likely users are to recommend your company, product, or service to others on a scale of 0-10. Userpilot helps you build this survey code-free in minutes. It also has features to analyze NPS responses and glean valuable insights.

• Survey settings: Userpilot gives you enough flexibility to build and trigger your surveys as desired. For example, you can select the timing (e.g., after a specific in-app event) and display format (pop-up, slide-in, targeted banner, etc.). This feature also allows you to choose who sees the survey.

• Survey analytics: Userpilot’s survey analytics helps you visualize user responses, identify experience gaps, and draw actionable insights on what to do next.

• User sentiment analysis: This feature lets you track survey responses for individual users, providing in-depth insights into their behaviors and sentiments for a deeper understanding of your segments.

Userpilot pricing

Userpilot offers three pricing plans:

• Starter ($249/month): This option allows you to trigger NPS surveys and track up to 2,000 Monthly Active Users (MAUs). It’s ideal for smaller teams starting their product growth process.
• Growth ($749/month): This plan includes advanced event-based content triggering, plus unlimited product analytics, surveys, and feature tags.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing based on your specific needs and MAU volume.

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2. Hotjar – Best for microsurveys

Hotjar is a powerful tool for understanding user behavior through visual representations such as heatmaps, session recordings, and user feedback via surveys and polls.

Its unique ability to combine user analytics and in-app feedback tools in one platform makes it invaluable for gaining insights into user experience.

Hotjar features

• In-app feedback widget: Collect passive user feedback directly within your app. As users interact with your platform, they can use the feedback widget to leave comments, rate their experience, or answer quick multiple-choice questions whenever they want.
• Targeted surveys: Create contextual feedback surveys that trigger based on user behavior, like completing a specific action within the app, spending a certain amount of time on a page, or encountering an error message. This lets you collect customer feedback from relevant segments at specific touchpoints in the customer journey.
• Polls: Embed short, one-question polls on specific pages to get quick user insights on features, design choices, or overall customer satisfaction. Polls are a great way to gather real-time feedback without interrupting the user experience.

Hotjar pricing

• Basic (Free): Receive a maximum of 20 survey responses monthly. It also lets you create and store a maximum of three customer feedback widgets.
• Plus ($48/month): Receive a maximum of 250 monthly responses, unlimited surveys, and trigger options.
• Business ($64/month): Receive up to 500 monthly responses, advanced reporting options, AI-powered sentiment analysis, and white-labeling features.
• Scale ($128/month): The Scale tier offers Hotjar API, access to in-depth user analytics, and webhooks to send user feedback responses to third-party tools.

3. Typeform – Best for embedding custom surveys

Typeform is a dedicated survey and form builder known for its simple UI and engaging user experience.

It focuses on creating surveys and feedback forms that feel more like conversations than traditional questionnaires. While it can be used for a wide range of user feedback surveys, the platform excels more in helping its customers collect mobile app feedback through visually appealing forms.

Typeform features

• Conversational interface: Typeform’s signature feature is presenting questions one by one, creating a more natural flow. This can lead to higher survey response rates and potentially more thoughtful answers.
• Logic jumps and branching: Typeform allows you to build complex in-app feedback surveys that cater to different user needs and situations. This means, all users in a specific group can begin the same survey but will end up seeing different questions based on their responses.
• Customization and embed options: You can customize and embed in-app feedback surveys in your app through pop-ups, slide-ins, or dedicated pages.

Typeform pricing

• Basic ($25/month): Create unlimited surveys with up to 100 monthly responses and one user seat.
• Plus ($50/month): Collect up to 1,000 monthly responses and enjoy three user seats. It also allows you to create a subdomain and removes Typeform branding from your surveys.
• Business ($83/month): Collect up to 10,000 in-app feedback survey responses per month and five user seats. It also allows you to track drop-off and conversion rates.
• Enterprise (custom): Access custom domains, Single Sign-on (SSO), and with tailored monthly responses and user seats.

4. Alchemer – Best for collecting mobile app feedback

Formerly SurveyGizmo, Alchemer is a versatile survey tool that offers robust in-app feedback tools for creating, deploying, and analyzing surveys.

It stands out for its ability to help users collect feedback directly in mobile apps. The platform offers deep customization capabilities, allowing users to craft in-app surveys that closely align with their branding and complex workflows. Alchemer also supports advanced data collection and analysis features, making it also suitable for detailed market research.

Alchemer features

• Wide range of question types: Unlike most in-app feedback tools, Alchemer offers a substantial collection of question types. The options range from basic surveys to more specialized formats like image choice, matrix tables, sliders, and even the ability to embed video or audio.
• Advanced survey logic: Alchemy allows you to implement complex survey flows with skip/branch logic, answer piping (using responses to personalize later questions), quotas, and custom scoring.
• Reporting and analytics: You can generate detailed data visualizations, perform statistical analysis, and filter in-app feedback results to drill down into specific segments. This particular feature differentiates Alchemer from most mobile app feedback tools.
• Message center: Alchemer’s message center allows you to communicate directly with customers. You can use this feature to respond to feedback, answer questions, provide support, and close the feedback loop.
• Sentiment analysis: You can automatically analyze customer feedback sentiment. This helps understand how customers feel about your app and identify areas for improvement.

Alchemer pricing

• Collaborator ($55/month per user): This plan focuses on mobile-app feedback collection for individuals. It comes with unlimited surveys and basic reporting features.
• Professional ($165/month per user): Unlock advanced question types, logic features, more comprehensive reporting, and the ability to create custom themes.
• Full Access ($275/month per user): Access the complete Alchemer suite, including text analytics, offline survey capabilities, and advanced customization.
• Business Platform: This final tier is geared toward large organizations and priced based on needs.

5. Qualtrics – Best for accessing in-depth survey analytics

Qualtrics is a leader in the experience management field, providing sophisticated in-app feedback tools that are part of a broader suite designed to capture, analyze, and act upon various forms of experience data.

The platform stands out for its powerful analytics engine and AI-driven insights that help predict customer behaviors.

Qualtrics features

• Survey design tools: Qualtrics offers a drag-and-drop survey builder that helps create surveys quickly. Find a wide array of question types (multiple-choice, ratings, open text, etc.), sophisticated logic options (branching, skip logic), and multiple customization options.
• Closed-loop feedback: The platform allows you to set up automated actions triggered by in-app feedback. For example, you could automatically alert your customer support team when new users provide negative feedback about your onboarding flow.
• NPS surveys: Similar to Userpilot, Qualtrics has a built-in NPS question that follows industry-standard best practices. The system automatically calculates and displays your NPS in dashboards, helping you monitor your score’s evolution over time.
• Predictive Intelligence and text analytics: Qualtrics leverages AI and machine learning to analyze open-ended feedback, identifying user sentiment, themes, and trends across responses.

Qualtrics pricing

Unlike other in-app feedback tools on this list, Qualtrics does not publish standard pricing tiers. Their pricing model is highly customized, based on several factors, including:

• Modules purchased (e.g., CoreXM, EmployeeXM).
• Number of user licenses.
• Response volume.
• Add-on features and services.

6. Intercom – Best for managing overall customer communication

Intercom is a customer communication platform that integrates messaging, management, and feedback collection into a single system.

It’s particularly notable for its real-time chat interface, which allows immediate interaction with users, gathering instant in-app feedback and resolving issues quickly.

Intercom features

• In-app messaging and surveys: Intercom allows you to proactively send targeted surveys to app users based on their behavior or attributes. Surveys can appear as conversational chat-like messages or more traditional pop-up forms within your app.
• Closed-loop feedback: Connect survey responses with customer support interactions so you can follow up on individual feedback and build stronger customer relationships.
• Multi-channel surveys: Capture feedback across multiple channels, including traditional surveys on web and mobile apps, email surveys, live chat, and app rating prompts (asking users to rate you on app stores).
• Results-driven workflows: Set up workflows to collect in-app feedback and automatically integrate survey responses with individual user profiles. This is useful for targeting. For example, if a user indicates a preference for a particular product feature in a survey, you can customize future communications to focus on these interests.

Intercom pricing

• Essential ($39 per seat/month): Provides the basics of Intercom’s messaging platform and in-app feedback tools, including the ability to target surveys based on basic user data.
• Advanced ($99 per seat/month): Unlocks more advanced survey functionality, including AI workflows, custom survey targeting based on user behavior, and detailed analytics.
• Expert ($139 per seat/month): Includes multiple help centers, AI replies in your tone of voice, and better workload management.

Best practices for collecting customer feedback

Follow these best practices to receive high-quality responses to your in-app surveys:

• Keep the survey short and straightforward: Long forms can lead to survey fatigue, causing respondents to abandon the survey or provide less thoughtful responses. Keeping questions clear and direct helps ensure that the in-app feedback you collect is relevant and valuable.
• Avoid leading questions: Leading questions steer respondents towards a particular answer. Instead of “How amazing was our customer service?” Try: “How would you rate your recent customer service experience?”
• Leverage open-ended questions: Open-ended questions allow respondents to express their thoughts freely, providing more qualitative insights than closed-ended questions. These responses can reveal new information that predefined answers might miss.
• Trigger surveys contextually: Ask for feedback at relevant moments in the customer journey, such as right after account renewal or a support interaction.
• Always close the feedback loop: Closing the feedback loop involves thanking users and informing them about the changes or improvements you made based on their suggestions. This practice not only shows that you value their feedback but also fosters trust and encourages users to provide feedback in the future.

Conclusion

In-app feedback provides valuable data regarding the user experience. When paired with in-app analytics reports like funnel, trends, and path analysis, you’ll gain a comprehensive view and better understand the reasons behind user actions.

Ready to start collecting in-app feedback for your SaaS? Userpilot can help. Book a demo now to see how our platform makes building, triggering, and analyzing feedback surveys easy.

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