Customer Interviews focus on understanding your target customers’ needs, challenges, and priorities. By asking structured questions and diving deeper into their responses, you can validate hypotheses about customer jobs, pains, and gains while identifying potential improvements for your offering.
Cost
Typically involves the time cost of scheduling and conducting interviews and minimal expenses for potential incentives or tools.
Evidence
Insights come from direct conversations but reflect what customers say rather than do, which may differ from actual behaviors. Additional experiments are required to strengthen the evidence.
Metrics
- # of top-ranked customer jobs, pains, and gains.
- Unmet needs: Document insights not originally included in your Customer Profile.
- Referral count: Track how often interviewees recommend others, indicating engagement and market interest.
Success Criteria
- 80% of interviewees rank customer jobs, pains, and gains accurately based on your existing Customer Profile.
- New customer insights or unmet needs emerge during interviews.
- At least one referral from 50% of interviewees.
Setup Time
A script and target customer list must be created, and interviews scheduled. This process may take a few days to several weeks depending on customer availability.
Run Time
Each interview lasts 15–30 minutes, with an additional 15-minute buffer for debriefing and script adjustments.
Risk Categories
Ideal for testing the...
Primarily focused on desirability. This experiment is designed to test whether customers have the jobs, pains, and gains you expect.
Capabilities
- Research skills: Crafting effective scripts and analyzing qualitative data.
- Teamwork: Partner roles include interviewer and scribe for efficiency.
Setup
- Draft a script: Include questions on jobs, pains, gains, willingness to buy, and unmet needs.
- Select target customers: Narrow focus to avoid mixed feedback. Use screener surveys to qualify participants.
- Schedule interviews: Arrange logistics and obtain permissions for recording, if applicable
Run
- Conduct interviews: Follow the script and dig deeper as needed. The interviewer asks questions, while the scribe notes exact quotes and body language.
- Repeat: Complete 15–20 interviews for a robust sample size.
Analyze
- Debrief immediately: Spend 15 minutes discussing observations and revising scripts.
- Affinity sort notes: Group similar insights on sticky notes to identify themes.
- Ranking analysis: Evaluate consistency in responses to validate assumptions.
- Update canvases: Refine your Value Proposition and Customer Profiles based on findings.
Additional Information
- Ensure your sample aligns with your customer segment to avoid misleading insights.
- Use tools like surveys or social media ads to recruit participants.
Customer Interviews are foundational for early-stage testing and are highly flexible. They are most effective when complemented with other experiments, such as surveys or prototype testing, to validate qualitative insights with broader quantitative data.