Planet RoadmapFeature requests arrive from everywhere: support tickets, sales calls, Slack messages, user interviews, and feedback portals. Without a consistent format, you end up with vague one-liners like "make the dashboard better" that are impossible to evaluate or prioritize. A well-designed template ensures every request captures enough context for your product team to understand the need, assess its importance, and make an informed decision.
What a Good Template Captures
An effective feature request template balances completeness with simplicity. If it is too short, you lack the context to evaluate the request. If it is too long, people will skip fields or avoid submitting entirely. Focus on the information that directly influences prioritization decisions.
- Problem statement: What problem is the requester trying to solve?
- Current workaround: How are they handling this today?
- Desired outcome: What would success look like?
- Who is affected: How many users or customers experience this?
- Business impact: Is this blocking a deal, causing churn, or increasing support volume?
- Priority: How urgent is this from the requester's perspective?
Templates for Different Sources
Different channels need different templates. A customer-facing feedback portal should be short and accessible. An internal template used by sales or customer success can be more detailed because those teams understand the product context. The key is that all templates feed into the same system so requests are comparable regardless of where they originate.
Planet Roadmap provides built-in feedback portals with customizable templates, making it easy to collect structured requests from customers and internal teams in a single, searchable backlog.
Processing Requests Consistently
A template is only useful if you have a process for reviewing submissions. Set a regular cadence, weekly or biweekly, to triage new requests. During triage, tag each request with a product area, link it to related requests, and make an initial prioritization decision: investigate further, add to backlog, or decline with an explanation.
Closing the Loop with Requesters
The fastest way to kill a feedback culture is to ignore the people who submit requests. Acknowledge every submission, even if the answer is not now. When you do ship a requested feature, notify everyone who asked for it. This encourages continued engagement and shows that submitting feedback is worth the effort.