How Do I Get More Juice From My Customer Interviews? 5 Tips For Understanding Customer Need
Understanding our customers—or more specifically their urgent and expensive problems—is the key to developing a successful product. I’ve seen too many companies waste time developing a new product that no customer wants or needs. This often happens when a CEO develops a product because they have fallen in love with an idea or a technology or are trying to out-do a competitor and they don’t want to take the time to talk to any customers about what real-life problems they are solving.
To understand those real-life problems, we need to talk to our customers directly. Feedback from a sales force is not a replacement for our own customer conversations.
Interviews can be time-consuming and a bit of a headache, if we’re being completely honest. But there is no other approach that can yield rich data with the deepest insights. And if you do them well, you don’t need to do that many.
I’ve talked to a lot of customers over the years. Here are 5 useful tips I’ve learned for doing this well – with a minimal amount of pain for you and the customer.
1. Be Clear on What You Need to Learn
We need to be sure the conversation stays on task. We can easily let open-ended questions spiral out of control or run off in a million tangents.
Then build your interview guide around those hypotheses. Your goal will be to prove or disprove each hypothesis. Review after each interview to see what you have learned and what you have left to learn. This keeps conversations headed in the right direction, to get the answers we need, without being overly prescriptive about where the conversation goes.
2. Start with the Basics
Remember, the #1 goal is to understand your customers’ most urgent and expensive problems. Use two or three broad and open-ended questions in the beginning of every customer conversation about their experience. Not only does this warm-up the conversation, it gives you the opportunity to explore the big picture. You are looking to learn:
Really explore the most pressing problems customers are facing from their point of view. Broad and open-ended questions open the door for the customer to express themselves without biasing the results (a real risk to be aware of).
3. Talk to a Representative Sample
We don’t have time to talk to everyone. So, this is where our customer personas come in. Well-developed customer personas will help us make sure we talk to the right mix of sample customers to capture a diverse mix of voices.
Keep in mind the product you plan to create – is it intended to bring in new clients? Make sure you have prospects in the mix. Could the product be received differently by very mature vs less mature customers? Will there be differences between the end-user and actual buyers?
This may sound like a daunting number of interviews, but it is really about quality over quantity. If you plan ahead to have a good mix of participants, you should be able to get the data you need from 10-12 interviews.
4. Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
This should be your mantra in all thing’s product. Pull up your notes after every interview to highlight what you have learned. Return to those questions we discussed earlier. What is the most expensive, urgent problem people are facing? Can we solve that problem? Are we creating enough value for customers to jump on board? Have you proven or disproven your hypotheses? Do you need to re-work your assumptions?
Now, ask yourself, what do you need to change in the next conversation to continue learning? Should you tweak an opening question? Should you make changes to your product vision? Can you add more specificity to your sample packaging or pricing? Don’t go more than 2-3 interviews without adjusting your interview guide.
5. Be Customer-centric
Finally, it’s imperative that we remember that we are dealing with people. People with packed schedules, to-do lists a mile long, and, basically, a million other things they could be doing instead of answering our questions. Keep the entire process focused on the customer. Work around their schedules. Thank them for giving up their time and sharing their insights.
You’ll also need to make them comfortable sharing – even when they have something to say that we might not want to hear. Be prepared for your customer to crush your vision entirely.
“Disarm “politeness” training: people are trained not to call your baby ugly. You need to make them feel safe to do this. My approach was to explain that I needed their honesty, so I didn’t build something nobody wanted to use, which seemed to resonate with folks.” – Giff Constable Chief Product Officer at Meetup
Last but not least, we need to listen more than we talk. It’s human nature to fill the gaps that make us feel awkward. We can use prompting cues like “tell me more” or “interesting, can we expand on that?” The goal is to get the customer talking again.
As we have already noted, people are busy and sometimes hard to schedule but don’t let that stop you. With hundreds of interviews under my belt, I can honestly say that 99% of people really enjoy being part of the product development process and appreciate that we value their opinions and care about their problems.
Don’t forget our team at Vecteris has decades of experience working with companies as they quickly bring products to market. Our team is highly skilled at conducting the research companies' need and providing actionable recommendations to move quickly on product ideas. Don't hesitate to reach out to see how we can help.
To understand those real-life problems, we need to talk to our customers directly. Feedback from a sales force is not a replacement for our own customer conversations.
Interviews can be time-consuming and a bit of a headache, if we’re being completely honest. But there is no other approach that can yield rich data with the deepest insights. And if you do them well, you don’t need to do that many.
I’ve talked to a lot of customers over the years. Here are 5 useful tips I’ve learned for doing this well – with a minimal amount of pain for you and the customer.
1. Be Clear on What You Need to Learn
We need to be sure the conversation stays on task. We can easily let open-ended questions spiral out of control or run off in a million tangents.
- To make sure you stay on track start with a list of your hypotheses.
- What do you think may be true about the main problem?
- What is the root of that problem?
- How are your customers solving that problem today? Are they satisfied?
- How much value do your customers receive in solving that problem?
- Can your product idea solve that problem?
Then build your interview guide around those hypotheses. Your goal will be to prove or disprove each hypothesis. Review after each interview to see what you have learned and what you have left to learn. This keeps conversations headed in the right direction, to get the answers we need, without being overly prescriptive about where the conversation goes.
2. Start with the Basics
Remember, the #1 goal is to understand your customers’ most urgent and expensive problems. Use two or three broad and open-ended questions in the beginning of every customer conversation about their experience. Not only does this warm-up the conversation, it gives you the opportunity to explore the big picture. You are looking to learn:
- What pain does this customer have that you can solve?
- What problems are keeping them up at night?
- What essential tools or processes do they have that are costing more than they are benefiting from them?
Really explore the most pressing problems customers are facing from their point of view. Broad and open-ended questions open the door for the customer to express themselves without biasing the results (a real risk to be aware of).
3. Talk to a Representative Sample
We don’t have time to talk to everyone. So, this is where our customer personas come in. Well-developed customer personas will help us make sure we talk to the right mix of sample customers to capture a diverse mix of voices.
Keep in mind the product you plan to create – is it intended to bring in new clients? Make sure you have prospects in the mix. Could the product be received differently by very mature vs less mature customers? Will there be differences between the end-user and actual buyers?
This may sound like a daunting number of interviews, but it is really about quality over quantity. If you plan ahead to have a good mix of participants, you should be able to get the data you need from 10-12 interviews.
4. Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
This should be your mantra in all thing’s product. Pull up your notes after every interview to highlight what you have learned. Return to those questions we discussed earlier. What is the most expensive, urgent problem people are facing? Can we solve that problem? Are we creating enough value for customers to jump on board? Have you proven or disproven your hypotheses? Do you need to re-work your assumptions?
Now, ask yourself, what do you need to change in the next conversation to continue learning? Should you tweak an opening question? Should you make changes to your product vision? Can you add more specificity to your sample packaging or pricing? Don’t go more than 2-3 interviews without adjusting your interview guide.
5. Be Customer-centric
Finally, it’s imperative that we remember that we are dealing with people. People with packed schedules, to-do lists a mile long, and, basically, a million other things they could be doing instead of answering our questions. Keep the entire process focused on the customer. Work around their schedules. Thank them for giving up their time and sharing their insights.
You’ll also need to make them comfortable sharing – even when they have something to say that we might not want to hear. Be prepared for your customer to crush your vision entirely.
“Disarm “politeness” training: people are trained not to call your baby ugly. You need to make them feel safe to do this. My approach was to explain that I needed their honesty, so I didn’t build something nobody wanted to use, which seemed to resonate with folks.” – Giff Constable Chief Product Officer at Meetup
Last but not least, we need to listen more than we talk. It’s human nature to fill the gaps that make us feel awkward. We can use prompting cues like “tell me more” or “interesting, can we expand on that?” The goal is to get the customer talking again.
As we have already noted, people are busy and sometimes hard to schedule but don’t let that stop you. With hundreds of interviews under my belt, I can honestly say that 99% of people really enjoy being part of the product development process and appreciate that we value their opinions and care about their problems.
Don’t forget our team at Vecteris has decades of experience working with companies as they quickly bring products to market. Our team is highly skilled at conducting the research companies' need and providing actionable recommendations to move quickly on product ideas. Don't hesitate to reach out to see how we can help.