How to Use Receptive Statuses

The statuses on each request or idea in Receptive are visible to your teams and (potentially) customers so they know what your plans are for each piece of feedback. They are very flexible and work really well for a variety of workflows and processes. You can use a status message to set additional expectations for each item, and custom saved responses are a huge time saver.

There are six status options for your feedback in Receptive:

How to use Receptive statuses

When feedback first comes into your account, it's marked as "Not reviewed".

We recommend moving most of your feedback straight into "Awaiting feedback". Read about our recommended workflow.

Awaiting feedback

Awaiting feedback typically means "We're gauging demand for this idea."

Your status message might say something like...

Before making a decision, we're allowing our other customers and team members to vote, prioritize, and add their use cases. We can then get a complete picture of what the pain point is and what the best solution might be.

You can use your own wording for the standard status message, but we have some ideas here.

Think of all of your requests in "Awaiting feedback" as a library. You don't need to check in with each item every day, but the stories, use cases, and data is there when you're ready to work on your product.

If, for example, you're working on a reporting project, do a quick search for "reports" or "reporting" to gather customer ideas and pain points around that project.

Other notes on "Awaiting feedback":

• It's totally fine, in fact, it's expected, for your company to have most of your feedback in "Awaiting feedback" status for many months or years. Learn why.
• It's also ok to use the same response for all items in "Awaiting feedback". You need to spend time building products, not managing every single piece of feedback that comes into your account. Linking to your feedback policy (see below) helps with this step.
• Use the status message to provide further context, set expectations, and link to your product feedback policy.

Planned

Planned is used for requests which you have decided to build at some point in the future.

Your status message might say something like...

This request is now on our list of things to build. While we're unable to provide an exact time frame right now, keep an eye on our roadmap for more information on when you can expect this to be built.

Once again, feel free to use your own wording for the message, but here are some ideas.

Your "Planned" requests are those which you want to build at some point in the future. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to build them right away. This is why your roadmap can be helpful for extra information and clarification.

Other notes on "Planned":

• Don't feel that planned means you have to prioritize it. It's reasonable to assume that you might plan a request to be built at a time in the future.
• Planned requests are added to the list of requests that you are able to add to the roadmap. So if you have an idea of when you'll be building it, you can easily add it on.
• Planned requests are automatically added to your "What's coming" list.

Building

Building is saved for the requests that you're actually in the process of building.

Your status message might say something like...

We are currently working on this request. Please keep an eye out for updates soon!

As always, you can use your own wording, here are some ideas to help.

Your "Building" requests are the ones you're literally in the process of building, and so this status will generally be a stop-gap between Planned and Released, but it's important for letting your customers and team members know what you're currently working on.

Other notes on "Building":

• Make sure you don't get trigger-happy and set the status to Building before you've actually started working on the request.

Released

Released is the final status that a request is given, meaning that it is now rolled out as part of your product.

Your status message might say something like...

We have now released this request! Thank you so much for your feedback, and for helping us to improve our product.

Your "Released" requests are those which have been built and rolled out, and are now implemented into your product. They will appear automatically on your release log.

Other notes on "Released":

• Consider including details in your message on how to use or find the new part of your product, and direct them to relevant help documentation.

Declined

Declined is used for requests which you never have any intentions of building.

Your status message might say something like...

Unfortunately, we're going to decline this request as it doesn't fit in with our strategy.

You should change the message to suit you, but here are some ideas.

Your "Declined" requests are exactly that - requests you've declined. Declined requests will no longer show up for customers and team members to vote on, but they will still exist in Receptive and people can access them with the link.

Other notes on "Declined":

• You should make sure to include the reason(s) why you are declining the request. A little explanation goes a long way.

FAQ

Which status should we use for requests that we are discussing, but haven't yet planned?

If you're yet to make a decision about whether to build a request or not, then your best option is to set the request to "Awaiting Feedback" with a custom response to explain.

You might, for example, say something like:

"We're currently deciding whether to build this request. In the meantime, feel free to add a comment with relevant feedback or use cases and we will use these to help us make a decision."

This way, you can continue to gather feedback on an idea without having to commit to building it.

How frequently should I contact customers about a request?

A request that you have set to "Awaiting Feedback" can be left alone for as long you require. As long as you set out a timeframe in your Product Feedback Policy and you explain your feedback process, then your customers won't mind.

As for contacting them, if you need to specifically gather more feedback on a request, then you can send a flexible email to those interested. Otherwise, Receptive will handle any communication automatically when you change the status of the request.

If you have any more questions, please get in touch and we'll be on hand to answer them.