What's in this template
One ranking question with five example features. Replace them with your candidates and share with customers, your team, or both separately.
Why ranked beats a feature request inbox
Loud customers aren't representative
A request inbox measures who writes in, not what most users want. A ranking poll sent to your whole list measures demand across the base.
Everything is important in isolation
Ask 'would you like dark mode?' and everyone says yes. Ask people to rank it against four other things and you learn what they'd actually trade away.
Second choices reveal the safe bet
The feature that's nobody's first choice but everybody's second is often the right thing to build first.
You can segment the result
Run the same poll separately with customers and with your team. Where the two orders disagree is usually the most interesting conversation you'll have that quarter.
Run it in three steps
List your candidates
Five to eight features. Describe them in customer language, not internal ticket titles.
Send it to the right people
Email list, in-app link, or a link in your changelog. No account needed, so response rates stay high.
Read the rounds
The elimination sequence shows which features consolidated support and which were nobody's second choice.
The data behind ranked choice
We simulated 660,000 group votes to measure how often single-choice voting picks a different winner. With five options the plurality winner held no outright majority 84.3% of the time, and the two methods disagreed in 28.7% of votes. The gap widens as options increase.
Read the full study → · methodology and code published.