The Observer Template

Master the art of customer interviews – effortlessly improve your skills.

The Observer Template

Master the art of customer interviews – effortlessly improve your skills.

Conducting Interviews Best Practices

Best practices for conducting customer interviews.

Conducting Interviews Best Practices

Following best practices in customer interviews is your safeguard against complacency and self-deception. It forces you to get honest, granular feedback—even if it stings a bit—so you can pivot, innovate, and improve effectively. If you do not implement these standards, you’re cheating your customers and putting your entire strategy at risk.

Don’ts

What to avoid at all costs

Do’s

What you should always do

Pitch your solution:
Avoid mentioning your product or solution during the interview. The goal is to learn about the customer, not to sell to them.
Example of what NOT to say: “Our product does X, which might solve your problem. Don’t you think?”

Focus on pains, gains, and jobs:
Adopt a beginner’s mindset and approach the conversation with genuine curiosity. Assume you know nothing about the participant’s needs, even if you think you do.
Example: “Why did you…?”

Talk more than you listen:
If you find yourself dominating the conversation, stop and redirect the focus back to the participant.

Listen more than you talk:
Aim to listen to at least 80% of the conversation. This ensures that participants feel heard and opens the door to richer insights.

Ask only closed-ended questions:
Avoid questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.”
Example: Don’t ask, “Do you like your current process?”

Ask open-ended questions:
Use “how,” “what,” and “why” questions to prompt more profound responses.
Example: “What is the hardest part of your current process?”

Ask for opinions:
Avoid questions about what participants think they would do.
Example: “How much would you pay for [our solution]?”

Focus on facts:
Encourage participants to share real-life examples rather than general thoughts or opinions.
Example: “When was the last time…? How often…?”

Think about your next question while they’re talking:
While mentally preparing your next question, you might miss essential nuances in their responses.

Actively listen:
This ensures that you pick up on nuances in their response.

Interrupt the participant.

Let them finish:
Sometimes, off-topic comments reveal unexpected insights.

Use leading questions that bias the participant or imply a desired answer:
Example of a leading question: “You find [specific issue] frustrating, right?”

Stick to neutral language and encourage storytelling:
Example: “What has your experience been with this [specific issue]?“

Schedule the interviews back-to-back:
Not wasting time between interviews sounds efficient to most teams. However, you might miss the opportunity to recalibrate, pause, or adapt your interviews or scripts. You could waste much more time rescheduling interviews or retesting the entire experiment.

Schedule 15-Minutes to debrief:
Plan 15 minutes after every interview to quickly debrief with your partner to recap anything that needs to be revised and what you learned.

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You can use The Observer Template for free. Instead, I would appreciate your feedback after at least 15 interviews to help me create useful innovation tools!