I have been in the software sector for many years and have yet to see a well organized, customer friendly way to keep customers updated on a regular basis efficiently, and with solid customer facing, timely updates about their product enhancement requests.
How do we welcome product enhancement requests and keep customers updated on the progress when:
We know most will never make it into the product.
The requests that do will often take months, even years, to get into a build.
Often they come in the form of support tickets or other interactions that are closed or managed according to a strict timeline. (I was all for keeping cases open for years, if necessary, to track the progress but other groups were opposed, noting it would kill a number of key metrics they are measured on.)
What do you do?
What works?
What does not?
I would love to hear from you! Share your experiences?