UserVoice Technology Intelligence

What is UserVoice?

UserVoice is a product feedback management platform that helps companies collect, analyze, and prioritize customer feedback at scale. It enables organizations to make data-driven product decisions by aggregating user suggestions, tracking feature requests, and measuring the business impact of potential improvements.

Founded in 2008, UserVoice pioneered the concept of public feedback forums where customers could submit ideas and vote on others' suggestions. The platform has evolved to serve enterprise product teams with sophisticated analytics, CRM integrations, and workflows that connect customer feedback directly to product roadmaps. Companies like Microsoft, Intuit, and Electronic Arts use UserVoice to understand what their customers want most.

Core Features

Feedback Collection

• Public Forums: Community-driven feedback boards where users submit and vote on ideas
• In-App Widgets: Embedded feedback collection within your product
• Contributor Sidebar: Browser extension for internal teams to capture feedback from any source
• API Integration: Programmatic feedback submission from any touchpoint

Analysis and Prioritization

UserVoice automatically merges duplicate feedback and identifies trends. The SmartVote algorithm weights votes by factors like customer revenue, helping teams prioritize high-impact features.

Product Roadmap Connection

Link feedback directly to roadmap items. When features ship, UserVoice automatically notifies users who requested them, closing the feedback loop and building customer loyalty.

Revenue Impact Tracking

Integration with CRM systems attaches revenue data to feedback. Product teams can see how much ARR is associated with specific feature requests, making business cases easier to build.

Segmentation

Filter and analyze feedback by customer segment, product area, or custom attributes. Understand what enterprise customers want versus SMB, or compare feedback across product lines.

Use Cases

SaaS Product Development

Product managers use UserVoice to aggregate feedback from support tickets, sales calls, and direct submissions. The platform helps identify which features would retain at-risk customers and which would attract new segments.

Enterprise Feedback Programs

Large organizations collect feedback from thousands of customers across multiple products. UserVoice's analytics help identify patterns that wouldn't be visible in individual conversations.

Customer Success Alignment

Customer success teams log feature requests during account reviews. When those features ship, UserVoice tracks which accounts to notify, creating opportunities for expansion conversations.

Internal Product Requests

Companies use UserVoice internally for IT requests, internal tool improvements, and employee suggestions. The voting mechanism helps prioritize limited development resources.

Public Beta Programs

Beta participants submit feedback through UserVoice forums, vote on priorities, and see status updates. This transparency builds community engagement and surfaces issues before general release.

Feature Deprecation Planning

Before removing features, product teams can gauge usage and sentiment through UserVoice, identifying which customers would be affected and planning migration paths.

Implementation Examples

Embedded Widget

<!-- UserVoice Widget -->
<script>
(function(){
  var uv = document.createElement('script');
  uv.type = 'text/javascript';
  uv.async = true;
  uv.src = '//widget.uservoice.com/YOUR_WIDGET_KEY.js';
  var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
  s.parentNode.insertBefore(uv, s);
})();

UserVoice = window.UserVoice || [];
UserVoice.push(['set', {
  accent_color: '#448dd6',
  trigger_color: 'white',
  trigger_background_color: '#448dd6'
}]);
UserVoice.push(['identify', {
  email: '[email protected]',
  name: 'John Doe',
  account: {
    id: 'acct_123',
    name: 'Acme Corp',
    monthly_rate: 299,
    plan: 'Professional'
  }
}]);
UserVoice.push(['addTrigger', '#feedback-button', {}]);
</script>

API: Submit Feedback Programmatically

// Submit feedback via UserVoice API
$feedback = [
    'suggestion' => [
        'title' => 'Add dark mode support',
        'text' => 'Please add a dark theme option for the dashboard',
        'forum_id' => 12345
    ],
    'email' => '[email protected]'
];

$ch = curl_init('https://YOUR_SUBDOMAIN.uservoice.com/api/v2/suggestions');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode($feedback),
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Authorization: Bearer ' . $apiToken,
        'Content-Type: application/json'
    ],
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);

Salesforce Integration Trigger

// Sync opportunity feedback to UserVoice
trigger OpportunityFeedback on Opportunity (after update) {
    for (Opportunity opp : Trigger.new) {
        if (opp.Lost_Reason__c == 'Missing Feature') {
            UserVoiceAPI.createSuggestion(
                opp.Feature_Request__c,
                opp.Contact.Email,
                opp.Amount
            );
        }
    }
}

Benefits and Considerations

Key Benefits

• Data-Driven Decisions: Replace gut feelings with aggregated customer evidence
• Revenue Attribution: Quantify the business value of feature requests
• Reduced Duplicate Requests: Automatic merging prevents counting the same request multiple times
• Customer Engagement: Voting and status updates keep users invested in your product
• Cross-Team Alignment: Sales, support, and product share a single source of truth
• Closed-Loop Communication: Automatic notifications when requested features ship

Implementation Considerations

• Public forums require moderation to handle spam and inappropriate content
• Vote counts can be misleading if not weighted by customer value
• Setup requires integration with CRM for full revenue attribution
• Enterprise pricing may be significant for smaller teams

Alternatives

Other product feedback tools include Productboard, Aha!, Canny, and Pendo. UserVoice differentiates through its mature enterprise features, Salesforce integration, and public forum capabilities. Smaller teams might prefer simpler tools like Canny or feature voting built into project management platforms.