Sean Ransom is the VP of Technology at BatchBlue Software, maker of software for small businesses and entrepreneurs. An advocate of open source software, he can be found sourcing stripers around local waters when not thinking about, writing or pushing code. BatchBlue Software will be presenting at the next Providence Geeks Dinner - Wednesday, June 18th. RSVP and Details Here

It's been a few months since BatchBlue Software opened our virtual doors and started to accept actual money for our online contact organizer, BatchBook. I was never really comfortable with the "beta" tag and was eager to move beyond beta and get out there in the world. Beta to me in some ways implies that you are not serious or confident with what you are offering. It can be a good thing (if a little terrifying) to look at your product and realize it's never going to be perfect but what the hell, let's go with it. The beauty of a software-as-service (SAS) offering for both us and the consumer is that the app is constantly improving. When you buy into BatchBook, you are not getting a static offering but something that is constantly getting upgrades tweaks and refinements. With BatchBook, like other SAS offerings coming out, it's a great time to be a consumer because you can get directly involved in shaping the product.

Customer feedback has been crucial to BatchBook's evolution. Through careful monitoring of our support email, forums and in-person user studies, almost everything we do is based on customer feedback. The Rhode Island community has been great in this regard, as we've received crucial feedback from our local beta users, hooked up with some helpful Providence Geeks, and been allowed a peek into the places where people do their work to see our product in action.

I've never been much into the bravado and the "we know better than the customer" attitude that some software makers employ. Customers are the ones using the software that's hopefully is making their lives easier, and they are also what keeps the light on. I mean, if it was up to me BatchBook would have a terminal interface and I would use UNIX command line tools to access it; however that would be a hard sell to small business owners like my Mom who still think the Internet is magic.

Unfortunately, customer service is often viewed as what happens when something goes wrong. I've been lucky that in my previous jobs, this was never the philosophy. While I did have direct contact with the customer, I was not in a position to help them directly by changing the software, workflow, etc. I could refund or otherwise throw money at them as a temporary fix, but a lot of times that never resolved their core issue. Now that we have a small, nimble team and a dynamic application, listening and acting on customer feedback has never been easier or more fun.

An eye-opening realization has been that our customers have been, and continue to be, right. All of the features coming up in the next three months are being driven by customer feedback. Every single one of them. It's quite amazing but they have been so on the mark it's a little spooky. It feels great to give them features and fixes they ask for, and it also builds a certain amount of mutual trust that's refreshing and makes you happy to go to work every day.

So listen to your customers. I mean, really listen to them. Visit where they work and watch them use your product, look online where they are talking about their businesses, solicit feedback at every opportunity. Even when they are telling you your software is crap and to please cancel my account, take a deep breathe and listen. There is always something you can find to improve upon. Always.

Editor's Update: Web Worker Daily, a major blog, just today published a glowing review of BatchBook. Thanks for alerting us to it, Matt G.