One of the BIGGEST challenges I see SaaS companies run into on a regular basis is not getting responses to their emails asking for feedback or thoughts on their SaaS. 

The only way to really understand your customer is to talk to them. The problem is, most customers won’t respond to your email because your offer isn’t clear enough OR your offer just isn’t right.

Getting responses is all about how you position the offer in the eyes of the customer so they see value.

The email below is a good example of how to position an offer in a way that will get your users/past users to respond and for you to get feedback that could turn into an extra 5-6 figures for your SaaS.

You may have to adapt it to your needs, but the basic template will work great:

Subj: Can I get your advice?

Hi Joe,
As CEO of XYZ, there’s nothing that keep me up at night more than thinking about how we can make a better product for you.

What I’ve learned though, is that what WE think is best for you, sometimes isn’t what you really need (or want). What matters most is what challenges YOU are having and how we can help solve them for you.

I’ve made an effort to get to know our customers (you) but I wanted to spend some time and go deeper than I ever have before.

So over the next few months, I’d like to have a conversation with all of our customers (past customers) — yes, every single one — and get your advice on how to make our product even better.

I want to hear about your experience with XYZ. What you like. What you don’t like. What features you’d love to see. Whatever else that has been on your mind that you just haven’t had time to email us about.

Do you have about 10-15 minutes to get on a Skype call and chat? It would mean the world to me, and I will use your feedback to make XYZ the best product it can possibly be.

If you’re interested, reply to this email and I’ll setup a time for us to chat.

Thanks so much for being such a loyal XYZ customer.

Cheers,

You

CEO of XYZ

If you have a lot of users, I would suggest using a meeting scheduler like https://www.canumeet.com to help organize the meeting setup.
Once you get them on the phone or Skype call, you can start digging into why they signed up for your service, how they found about you, etc.

Go into this conversation pretending like you don’t know anything. Don’t assume you know the answers. Go deep in your questions. Here are a few questions you should ask:

1. Why did you sign up for the service?
2. What were things like before you started using it?
3. How are things now?
4. Tell me more.
5. What else?

Try not to answer their questions for them. Don’t be afraid of silence. I’ve found that it’s usually the 3rd of 4th challenge, issue or pain point that they mention that is the real gold. This is the insight you can use to craft a very powerful marketing message to not only reactivate inactive free users, but attract and convert more of your ideal user.
You’ll get a lot of information in that call, and all of it will be useful. But for our purposes, we’re going to focus on the pains that your software solved for them. Specifically you want to know:

What was their life like before they found you?
What is their life like know that they found you?

Make a list of all these pains. Add to this list as you find new pains. This list will prove to be a gold mine as you continue your marketing and re activation efforts.