Release Notes Template

Sprint release notes template to share product updates with customers

Unlike the old days where you usually just buy a software off the shelf and pay a one-off payment, many softwares now charges on a subscription basis. 

With the new subscription model, users expect regular updates and improvements. Otherwise, it’s easy for them to switch to other alternative products on the market. 

So to keep your customers engaged, it’s important to not only “ship” regular updates, but also to “communicate” these updates effectively with your customers. And here’s come the importance of sharing effective product release notes. 

What are product release notes? 

Release notes is a documentation that you share with your customers to inform them about the new features added, recent bug fixes, and improvements that you’ve made to the product. 

Product release notes is an important way of communication with your loyal customers and power users. When used effectively, they can help you keep your customer engaged and keep them excited about what’s coming next.

Why are product release notes so important?  

Improve user experience, make users feel valued

By communicating your recent updates, you give an impression to your users that you are always working hard to improve the product. Product release notes also let users know that their feedback are valued and are often used to make meaningful changes on the product. 

Help upselling 

Oftentimes, certain new features that you’ve launched recently might be available to users who are on a certain plan only. By communicating these new features along with their benefits in your product release notes, you can help your users explore new features that they might otherwise not be aware of and increases the chances that your users move to a higher-tier plan.  

Reduce churn

Sharing product release notes regularly also helps to reduce churn. Product release notes help to keep users informed and can help retain frustrated users who might otherwise be not aware of the bug fixes or new features that they have been waiting for. 

So other than simply communicating recent fixes and improvements, it’s also a good idea to include a section to communicate the coming-soon items (of course, you will have to then deliver what you promised). This way, you can avoid situations where some clients thought that something is missing in your product and churned, but in fact, you are going to launch the new feature / improvement very soon. 

What to include in your product release notes

What’s new 

In this section, share the important new features that you want to highlight. To catch your users’ attention and help them understand better how they can use and benefit from the new features, it’s useful to include screenshots or GIF about the new features and add a link to the related help desk article. 

Bug Fixes and Improvements 

Here, communicate the recent bug fixes and smaller improvements that you’ve made to the product that are not included in the What’s New section. Don’t underestimate the power of even small improvements to the product - they might be the ones that your customers have been waiting for. 

Coming Soon

Share what are the next-ups in your product roadmap so that your customers will know what are coming soon - a great way to keep them excited. 

Using Kipwise to collaborate on your product release notes

Looking for a tool to collaborate on writing your product release notes? Try out Kipwise! 

• Real-time collaborative online editor - Our online editor supports real-time collaborative editing so your teammates can work on the same document at the same time. With our inline comment function, it’s easy for your teammates to discuss issues and finetune the document together before sharing it with your customers. 
• Powerful search that lives where you work - For example, via our Slack integration or browser extensions, your sales and customer support reps can easily retrieve the latest release notes without needing to jump between tabs when answering customer enquiries. 
• Content approval process - you can set designated reviewers for your content so that the product release notes will need to get approved by specified teammates to ensure accuracy. 
  

How to use this Kipwise Release Notes Template

1. Simply create a Kipwise account via the Start with this Template button at the bottom of this Page

2. After creating your team on Kipwise, create a new Page and select create a new Page from your templates 

3. Search for “Release Notes Templates” and select Use this template