I oftentimes get feature requests from my customers. Examples are customizing e-mails the app sents, GUI customizations ( so that they can upload their own company logo for example ), and so on.<p>Sometimes these features are useful for most other customers of the app, but it makes the app more bloated ( imagine an app that has more than a dozen settings ) so with new customers I usually tell them my app does not have the feature and try to help them to achieve the same goal using existing features. For customers that have used the app for a few years I have thought of charging them for custom changes although I don't know if that's a good idea.<p>Only for small useful features that are a big win I have actually done the implementation.<p>How do you handle customers' feature requests?
I think I read this advice on Getting Real (<a href="http://gettingreal.37signals.com" rel="nofollow">http://gettingreal.37signals.com</a>) and it's been useful so far: listen to your customers and their requests but don't do anything about it. Important stuff will keep coming back frequently so by the time you get the 10th email asking for custom emails you can start considering to add it as a feature.<p>Caveat: This works as long as you many small customers. If you have a few large customers you can go for the customization route and just charge them a lot to make it worth the extra effort.
You can go with GetSatisfaction, Salesforce Ideas, or a similar app. The most important thing is to let your customers know that their opinion is heard, even if you don't implement what they want. If other customers want the same thing, it may be important enough for you to add it. If they don't, then you can justify that it is an isolated request.
Do as Dropbox does, build a feature request forum so that customers have visibility on what is important to others and what is being worked on. Transparency is powerful this way. When a feature is declined by your team, describe why in that forum.
> imagine an app that has more than a dozen settings<p>I'm surprised that there's that few. Even WordPress has tens of configuration options out of the box, and individual templates might have tens more.