Latest / Community Marketing with Fexingo: Discord, Slack Groups, and Brand Communities / How a Brand Community Vetted Its New App Design
Transcript
- Lucas: So you know how we always talk about communities as this engine for growth, for support, for referrals. But today I want to talk about something a little more granular. A company using its community as a design review board for a major product update. Luna: Oh, interesting. Like letting members vote on the color of the button, or actually shaping the user experience? Lucas: Way beyond a button. I'm talking about a fully redesigned mobile app. The company is Brightly, a mid-sized SaaS firm that makes scheduling software for field-service teams. They have a community of about 3,000 active members, mostly their own customers, and they used that group to vet a massive overhaul of their mobile app. Lucas: And if these marketing conversations have sparked something you've actually used in your own work, the way we keep this show ad-free is listener support. You can help by buying us a coffee at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It genuinely keeps these episodes going. Luna: Yeah, we appreciate anyone who's ever done that. It makes a real difference. Lucas: So back to Brightly. They were facing a classic problem. The app had grown cluttered over five years. Features stacked on features, the navigation was a maze. They knew they needed a redesign, but the risk of alienating their existing users was high. So instead of hiring an expensive design agency and hoping for the best, they decided to bring the redesign into their community. Luna: And how did they actually do that? Just post a wireframe and ask for thoughts? Lucas: Pretty close, but more structured. They created a dedicated channel in their community, called it 'App Redesign Beta,' and they posted a clickable prototype. But they didn't just say 'tell us what you think.' They set up a two-week feedback window with specific prompts: What's confusing? What's missing? What would you change? They also asked members to rate each screen on a scale of one to five. Luna: So they got both qualitative and quantitative data. That's smart. But how do you prevent, like, the loudest voices from hijacking the conversation? Lucas: That's the key. They had a dedicated community manager who, every day, summarized the top themes and pushed back on anything that was too subjective. And they used a simple weighting system. Feedback from members who had actually used the app weekly for the past six months carried more weight than feedback from someone who logged in once a month. It wasn't perfect, but it kept the signal pretty clean. Luna: Did they get any surprises? Like a feature they thought was essential that the community hated? Lucas: Oh, absolutely. The most surprising one was the home screen. Their team had designed a dashboard with a big calendar as the centerpiece. But the community consistently said they wanted the most frequent actions — like 'start new job' and 'log hours' — front and center. The calendar was nice, but it wasn't what they needed on a daily basis. Lucas: In fact, 68 percent of the feedback specifically mentioned that quick actions were missing. That changed the entire information architecture of the app. It wasn't just a tweak; it was a fundamental shift. Luna: Wow. So they actually listened and made that change? Lucas: They did. And that's what made the process work. They made 14 specific changes based on member suggestions, and they documented every one in a public changelog within the community. That transparency built a lot of trust. Members saw their input actually mattered. Luna: I bet that also created a sense of ownership. Like, 'this app is partly mine.' Lucas: Exactly. And that ownership paid off at launch. They rolled out the redesign in early July, and in the first two weeks, support tickets related to the mobile app dropped 22 percent compared to the previous version. They also saw a 30 percent increase in in-app satisfaction scores, measured through a simple one-to-ten rating prompt. Luna: That's a huge win. But what about the risks? I mean, a community can be a bubble. What if they only heard from power users and missed what casual users needed? Lucas: That's a real concern, and Brightly tried to address it. They didn't just rely on the community. They also sent out a survey to a random sample of all their users, including inactive ones. That survey data flagged a few things the community didn't catch. For example, the community loved the new dark mode, but the broader survey showed that many older users found it harder to read. So they made sure the default theme stayed light and made dark mode an opt-in. Luna: So they used the community for depth and the survey for breadth. That's a pretty solid approach. Lucas: It is. And the other thing they did was they set a clear scope. They told the community, 'We're not looking for new feature ideas right now. This is about the usability of what we have.' That kept the feedback focused on the redesign, not a wish list for version six. Luna: That must have been hard to enforce. Did people try to suggest new features anyway? Lucas: Of course. There were maybe a dozen posts that were like, 'This is nice, but can you also add offline mode?' The community manager gently redirected those to a separate 'Ideas' channel and kept the beta thread clean. Lucas: One thing that struck me was how they handled the 'loudest voice' problem. They didn't just count comments. They also used sentiment analysis on every piece of feedback, looking at the emotion behind the words. So a comment like 'this is confusing and frustrating' scored differently than 'I don't like this color.' That helped them prioritize what was truly a pain point versus a preference. Luna: So they were basically doing qualitative research at scale. That's something most product teams would pay a consultant for. Lucas: Right. And the cost here was basically their community manager's time and some coffee money for the members who tested the prototype for an hour. They also gave a few members a free month of the premium plan as a thank you, but that was about it. Luna: What about the timeline? How long did the whole process take, from posting the prototype to making the final changes? Lucas: The feedback window was two weeks, but the entire process, from the initial announcement to the final changelog, took about six weeks. They spent the first week just setting expectations and sharing the prototype. Then the two weeks of structured feedback, and then three weeks to synthesize everything, make the changes, and test internally. Luna: Six weeks feels pretty fast for a redesign of that magnitude. Did they have any kind of design team in-house, or was it just a community manager? Lucas: They had a small product team, maybe three people, plus the community manager. But the community did the heavy lifting in terms of validation. They didn't have to run a bunch of user interviews or usability tests because they had this built-in panel. Lucas: The interesting thing is, they could have done it even faster. But they deliberately stretched it to two weeks to let people have time to really use the prototype in their own workflows. They wanted feedback from real usage, not just a quick look. That's why so many of the suggestions were about efficiency — people were trying to do actual jobs with it. Luna: That makes sense. It's the difference between 'I like this' and 'This helped me finish a job in half the time.' Lucas: Exactly. And that's the kind of feedback you only get when you give people a working prototype and enough time to really use it. Luna: What about the members who participated? Did they feel like it was worth their time? Lucas: They ran a quick post-launch survey in the community. 82 percent of the participants said the process made them feel more connected to Brightly. And 91 percent said they would participate again. That's a massive engagement metric. Lucas: And it's not just about the app. It's about the relationship. Those members are now more likely to renew, more likely to refer, more likely to speak up in other channels. It's a flywheel. Luna: So what's the takeaway for our listeners? If you're thinking about doing something like this, what's the first step? Lucas: Start small. You don't need to redesign your entire app to test this. Pick one screen or one workflow that you know is underperforming. Post a static mockup or a simple clickable prototype in your community, and ask three specific questions: What's confusing? What's missing? What would you change? See what happens. You might be surprised at the quality of feedback you get. Lucas: And the second piece of advice is to be ready to act. If you ask for feedback and then ignore it, you'll damage trust. Brightly's success came because they made visible changes and told the community exactly what they changed and why. That's the loop that builds loyalty. Luna: It's like they turned their community into a product advisory board. And honestly, that's a resource most companies don't even realize they have. Lucas: Yeah. And the cost is so low compared to traditional research. I mean, a good user research agency would charge tens of thousands for a study like this. Brightly spent the equivalent of a few hundred dollars and a few weeks of time. And they got better results because the feedback came from people who actually care about the product. Luna: That's the power of community. It's not just a marketing channel; it's a product development asset. Lucas: Exactly. And it's something any company with a community of even a few hundred engaged members can start doing. It's not about size; it's about trust and structure.