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You are currently viewing Top 5 Customer Interview Rules

Customer interviews are key to understanding our users and validating product ideas early. Here are 5 customer interview rules to follow when conducting problem interviews with customers in order to validate a particular hypothesis.

1. Do the interviews in person, 1 person at a time

Interviewing in person and focusing on an individual helps establish a connection and builds trust. It also enables you to go with the conversation based on facial expressions and other non-verbal cues and dig deeper into any issues that are raised. In addition, customers will likely be more open for follow-ups as well as recommend others to interview.

2. Ask open ended questions

Ask open-ended questions to validate or invalidate a hypothesis and avoi leading them in a particular direction. Try to uncover motivators by asking why again and again. Avoid “would you…” type questions that are about the future or are hypothetical and instead focus on the present or the past using “when was the last time you…” Try to get specific examples on actions taken in the past.

3. Listen

Let the customers do most of the talking. Seek to understand their story and learn about their perspective. Focus on their words, get the facts, and avoid providing your own opinions or interpretations.

This is not about seeking out encouragement, support, or validation. It is about seeking out honest and factual information. If an immediate response is lukewarm, don’t try to pitch harder to sell your idea. That response is the feedback and it is a red flag that the idea might not be as great as you thought.

4. Focus on the problem, not the solution

Have the customers tell their story. Find out what they are struggling with. What are their pain points? Talk about actions, not ideas. Try to understand the problem and do not offer any solutions. Find out about things they have done in the past or that they are currently doing. Find out what worked and what didn’t, like “What did you do the last time you had this problem?” Don’t try to sell them anything. After completing the problem interviews and validating that it’s a real problem, follow up later with separate solution interviews.

5. Be skeptical – Is it a real problem?

Find out how much pain, time, effort, or money customers spend to overcome the problem. It’s likely not a real problem unless they are willing to pay to solve it. Otherwise, they might be providing the answers they think you want to hear so as not to hurt your feelings.

In the book The Mom Test, Rob Fitzpatrick warns to watch out for compliments, fluff, and ideas.

Deflect compliments to ensure they are not blind compliments. Determine if there is genuine interest or if they are just trying to be polite.

Fluff can come in different forms like generic claims, future promises, or hypothetical maybes. Watch out for phrases like “I might…, I would…, I could…,I usually…, I will…” These statements need to be anchored in actions taken in the past.

Ideas should not be taken at face value. Instead, find out why this idea came up. You might end up finding a better approach to solving the problem than the suggested idea.

Finally, Rob also recommends learning from facts and confirming from commitments. If there is interest, then follow up with 1 of 3 ways to get commitments (from strongest to weakest):

  1. Money – So are you willing to sign a contract? Make a down payment? etc…
  2. Referral – Can you recommend someone else to talk to? Are you willing to be part of a case study?
  3. Time – Can I get time with you development team to understand better how they work?