It doesn’t matter if you’re a product person or an entrepreneur, it’s important to do customer research and assess the market opportunity. You don’t want to waste time perfecting a solution, only to find out that there’s no demand in the first place.
So before you build out that product roadmap, validate your customers’ needs by asking the eight questions below. Read on to read my tips and insights on each question:
8 Questions You Must Ask During Customer Development
- What does success look like for your role?
- What’s the hardest part about achieving that success?
- Tell me a time when you tried to do X.
- Why was that hard?
- How do you solve the problem now?
- What’s not ideal about your current solution?
- Where do you hang out online?
- Can you introduce us to a few other people like you?
Before Starting
In-Person or Video?
Given everyone’s busy schedules, it’s not necessary to do your customer interviews in-person. Your time is precious. Why spend half a day driving all over the city to conduct just one in-person interview?
Ideally, you’d do a video, not phone, interview. A phone call has a high chance of a low-quality conversation. Phone conversations have a higher probability of being done during a commute; those calls are fraught with poor reception and other distractions (🚗 driving ⚠️). Don’t let a dropped call or a car accident impair your research call.
So do customer interviews via phone if you must, but I’d try to avoid them as much as possible.
Warm Contacts Are Best, but Cold is Okay Too
Customer development interviews with strangers are difficult. They have their guard up and question your intentions. You’ll have a tougher time getting quality insights from someone who isn’t open or frank.
However, if you don’t have enough contacts then a research call with a stranger is better than nothing.
How to Find Contacts
If you’re looking for interview, survey, or research participants, try sourcing them on my User Super Lab Slack group.
Focus on Understanding the Problem, Not the Solution
Resist the temptation to pitch your solution. There are a few reasons why:
- Focuses attention on you, not your customer or their problems. The more time you spend talking means less time for the customer.
- Your recipients are unfamiliar with your solution. Sure, you could describe your solution. But regardless of how well you give your 5-minute pitch, by the end, they still won’t know your solution well. So given how uninformed they are, it’s hard to comment on your solution. They might find it safer to simply not comment at all.
- Desire to not offend or attack others personally. We, as humans, tend to not give others bad news. So even if you’re idea is problematic, the other party may choose to not share their concerns. This problem is magnified especially with strangers AND friends.
Research the Interviewee’s Background in Advance
If you need to save time, especially with impatient strangers, you can skip elementary questions like “Can you describe your role?” A quick glance at their LinkedIn or Twitter profile will tell you most of what you need to know.
What does success look like for your role?
This question starts with the end in mind. That is, what is the interviewee’s main goal?
The original phrasing for this question can come across as a little too broad or vague, so you may want to adapt it by simply asking “What does success look like when you’re doing X?”
What’s the hardest part about achieving that success?
After you’ve understood the goals, you want to learn more about the tasks or steps toward that goal. This question helps to draw out those specific tasks.
Tell me a time when you tried to do X.
You’re almost ready to talk about the specific pain points that relate to those tasks. However, you want to protect yourself from an interviewee who speaks in generalities. To get more value, it’s best to anchor your discussion with specific examples so they can name specific tools, projects, people, and metrics.
Do keep in mind that talking about specific examples can be hard for many interviewees for two reasons:
- Recall. We live in a go-go-go world. It may be difficult for the interviewee to recall a moment, even if it just happened yesterday. Relieve the tension and simply state: “Can you think of a moment when you tried to do X? Take your time. We’re not in a rush.”
- Sensitivity. They may have an example in mind, but they don’t want to reveal it. They might be concerned about privacy. The example they have in mind might be a sensitive issue. Try your best to make it safe for the interviewee to share including not judging, building trust, and offering to anonymize the example. For instance, you can volunteer that they call the company the “Acme” company and call the boss a generic name like “Jane Smith.”
Why was that hard?
This is the pain point question. Don’t settle for one-word answers or high-level generalizations like:
- It’s hard.
- It’s expensive.
- It’s time-consuming.
When you do get a one-word answer, use follow-up questions to elucidate more from your interviewee:
- “Tell me more.”
- “Can you provide more detail?”
- “What do you mean by that?”
- “Can you elaborate?
- “Why is that?”
How do you solve the problem now?
This is a great way to learn about the status quo solution.
It’s also an opportunity to re-check the magnitude of this pain. If there’s no solution, it could be that the problem is not important enough for the interviewee to deal with.
What’s not ideal about your current solution?
Earlier questions such as “Why was that hard?” is an opportunity to learn more about the problem. This question helps to understand problems with the status quo solution.
Where do you hang out online?
By the time you get to this question, you’re nearing the end. You’re no longer seeking information about the problem or how they’re dealing with it.
Now you’re starting to think ahead: are there more people that have the same problem? One way to assess that is to ask where people, like your interviewee, are hanging out online. You can then approach them and ask if they face similar problems.
Can you introduce us to a few other people like you?
You know how hard it is to find interviewees. So don’t hesitate to ask your contact, especially one that you’re on friendly terms with, for additional names. Remember, warm contacts make a difference!