Whether you make wearable tech, food products, or complex devices, December brings fresh eyes and untrained hands to your creation.

These fresh new users are super valuable. They often:

• Haven’t read the manual (especially if they’re dudes)
• Don’t know the typical workarounds
• Haven’t developed brand loyalty
• Haven’t made the “flip” from “want” to “need” — and will provide brutally honest feedback

Think about it: A thermal regulation device that made perfect sense to buyers who sought it for themselves might confuse gift recipients who don’t understand what it does. A gourmet bake-at-home item that delighted food enthusiasts could perplex inexperienced cooks. A 3-D printer or smart doorbell that excited tech enthusiasts might boggle grandparents.

In a couple weeks, a lot of your new users will have the most free time they’ll get all year to share their feedback.

This is golden data. December and January support tickets, return reports, and reviews tell you exactly where your product succeeds or stumbles with mainstream users.

Smart product makers:

• Ask for holiday-time feedback (and create a mechanism for it with your teams away)
• Note common confusion points
• Track unexpected use cases
• Document feature requests
• Identify packaging issues

Pay attention to how gift recipients differ from your typical buyers.

They didn’t go through anyone’s funnel or have a buyer’s journey. Their struggles often reveal your biggest opportunities for improvement.

Action for you: Set up a simple system to capture holiday season feedback patterns. Create categories for common issues, unexpected wins, and “wtf?” use cases. Review in January to inform your 2025 roadmap.

Laurier

P.S. Personal favorite holiday feedback story: a complex tech product discovered their biggest issue wasn’t the technology — it was that gift recipients couldn’t open the darned packaging without looking for scissors. Sometimes the simplest fixes make the biggest impact.