Customer feedback and continuous improvements: The perfect AppSec match

Building industry-leading products in application security is about more than just crafting a powerful platform that delivers results with zero noise—it’s also about the customer experiences that help us forge lasting relationships and add more value to our tools. According to data from Salesforce, the proof is in the experience: 73% of consumers fully anticipate vendors will understand their unique needs and expectations, while a weighty 88% consider their experience with a vendor company to be as important as the products or services they use. 

One crucial aspect of the customer experience is knowing that your vendor listens to your feedback and acts on it. This works both ways: without consistent feedback informing the decisions a company makes to improve its solutions, product teams are flying blind on essential updates that can take their customers’ experiences to the next level. In application security, that can mean missed opportunities or critical delays on features customers need as soon as possible. 

What exactly is customer feedback and why is it important? 

It may seem like a no-brainer that talking to your customers about their experiences with your product is essential to building solutions that deliver real value, yet not every organization takes this as seriously as they should. Product feedback delivered from the customers who know your tools and use them every day is critical to delivering what your users need most and important for prioritizing their requests. But what exactly qualifies as customer feedback?

Feedback can take various forms, from feature requests to bug information and reviews of the overall user experience—we love speaking with customers about their application security strategies, including problems they face day to day, and working together to understand how we can help them leap over hurdles. Support tickets may include broader customer feedback that goes beyond a specific issue and could be invaluable for staff outside the support organization. When all this feedback is properly identified, absorbed, understood, and acted on, organizations building critical tools and products continuously improve for their users, as they genuinely take a customer-centric approach to their business. 

How Invicti collects customer feedback and what we do with it

Listening to our customers has always been a top priority at Invicti. We’re always looking to collect feedback around how customers use the tools, what problems they are solving, how Invicti fits the customer’s own strategy, issues and bugs, and the user experience. We conduct interviews, share customer feedback surveys, and keep the communication doors wide open with multiple options for submitting feedback, including email, our Service Portal, and of course our Product Managers and Customer Success Managers. Listening to customers and treating their requests with respect enables us to translate feedback into tangible, valuable changes that make security easier for everyone. 

The product is high-value but so is the organization. In my experience, doing business is about people—security is all about people. My interactions with Invicti have been incredibly positive. They treat every organization with the same level of respect and care; whether you’re a huge organization or a medium organization like Zen Internet, you feel like you are still being treated in the same fashion. I know a great company when I see one.

– Michael Thompson, Information Security Manager, Zen Internet

With the Invicti process for collecting feedback, we make sure that every customer is heard. All feedback is filtered into our product management software where the team has a clear view of which features are requested most often and what the current status is. That way, we can efficiently work toward resolving common requests first and help our customers achieve their security goals faster and more efficiently, delivering the features and updates that matter most to their success. After all, security is about arming the right people with the tools and confidence they need to execute effective strategies. 

The benefits of feedback are far-reaching and long-lasting

While the Invicti team has already seen process and efficiency improvements after continuously refining how we collect feedback, our customers will continue to be the ones reaping the greatest benefits. By gathering, processing, and applying customer feedback, Invicti can:

• Enhance the user experience within our suite of security solutions
• Understand and remediate product issues and bugs efficiently 
• Continue making informed, customer-centric business decisions 
• Enable customer support with the right materials and services
• Know our strengths and understand areas that need improvement

Because each application, API, and environment scanned by our customers poses its own unique challenges, incorporating feedback allows us to continuously make our products even more accurate, scalable, and effective for everyone. Ultimately, these improvements increase ROI for our customers and bolster their security posture in the long run by allowing our tools to be used to their maximum potential. And when we’re able to make an impact on these core activities and incorporate them into our business infrastructure, our customers are much more likely to succeed in achieving their own goals and implementing strong security strategies.

Our goal is to create a closed customer feedback loop—because in cybersecurity, closed feedback loops translate into better security posture and better security solutions for everyone.