IN SUPERCHARGE YOUR STARTUP
6 Techniques to Improve Your Startup’s Customer Discovery Interviews
Enhancing Engagement and Insight: Advanced Strategies for Effective Customer Discovery
Insights
Unlocking the insights crucial to your startup’s success begins with effective pre-MVP customer discovery interviews. As a certified Level 2 Lean Stack coach, I’ve seen the transformative power of well-conducted interviews and the pitfalls many teams face. Below, I share six proven techniques to elevate your interview process.
Technique #1 — Master Open Ended Questions
Ask questions that cannot be answered by a simple “yes” or “no”.
Asking open-ended questions seems straightforward, yet it’s a common stumbling block, especially for founders with deep domain expertise. These founders often mistakenly guide interviews towards confirming their own experiences and assumptions.
To avoid this, focus on open-ended questions rooted in past experiences, such as “Tell me about the first deal you managed.” Probe further based on their responses, always seeking to understand their perspective without leading them towards predetermined answers.
The most insightful questions typically start with ‘How’ or ‘Why.’ These open-ended inquiries pave the way to genuine understanding of your subject’s challenges. Identifying these struggles unveils opportunities for innovation, a task that yes/no questions simply cannot achieve.
Technique #2 — Steer Clear of “Or” Questions
Questions framed with “or” tend to push respondents into a binary choice, significantly narrowing the scope of insights you can obtain. These types of inquiries assume there are only two possible responses, thereby limiting the opportunity for respondents to provide nuanced or unforeseen insights.
To circumvent this, aim to cultivate conversations that invite participants to share their experiences in full. Encouraging such unrestricted sharing can enrich the narrative, offering deeper and more detailed insights. This approach is particularly effective in revealing the motivations behind their actions, preferences, and needs.
Incorporating “or” questions not only restricts the depth of responses but also risks overlooking alternative perspectives that hadn’t been considered initially. By embracing a more open-ended questioning style, you create a space where interviewees feel comfortable exploring and articulating their thoughts in greater depth.
Technique #3 — Embrace Active Listening
Active listening is crucial in effective interviews, emphasizing the importance of fully engaging with your interview subject rather than dominating the conversation. It involves showing genuine interest through attentive body language and verbal affirmations such as “I see,” “Go on,” or “Tell me more about that.” These cues, along with nodding and other non-verbal signals, make the speaker feel heard and encourage them to divulge more detailed insights.
To practice active listening, avoid rushing to judgment or interrupting. Instead, aim to understand the speaker’s perspective fully. This approach fosters an open-minded dialogue, ripe for discovering new insights or comprehending the issue at hand more deeply.
Echoing the speaker’s points through paraphrasing or summarizing not only confirms your understanding but also signals your engagement and interest in their experience. Prompting further with clarifying questions can unveil information that wasn’t initially disclosed.
Concluding with a response that acknowledges and validates the speaker’s experiences shows respect and appreciation for their input, reinforcing trust. This foundation is essential for gathering comprehensive data and ensuring the interviewee has the space to provide full answers, making active listening a cornerstone of successful customer discovery interviews.
Technique #4 — Harness the Power of the Five Whys Technique
The Five Whys Technique, devised by Sakichi Toyoda and a cornerstone of Lean Manufacturing, is a straightforward yet effective method for uncovering the root cause of a problem. By repeatedly asking “Why?” — typically five times — you can move beyond superficial symptoms to discover the underlying issue.
Consider this example:
First Why: Why is the company experiencing increased customer churn?
Answer: Customers find the software difficult to use.
Second Why: Why is the software difficult to use?
Answer: Users are struggling with the new features from the last update.
Third Why: Why are users struggling with these new features?
Answer: There was no adequate user guidance or support documentation provided.
Fourth Why: Why was there no adequate guidance or documentation?
Answer: The product team rushed the update to meet a deadline, skipping documentation and testing.
Fifth Why: Why did the team rush and skip these phases?
Answer: The company has set aggressive release deadlines to outpace competitors, often at the expense of thorough testing and documentation.
Root Cause: The root cause of the increased customer churn is the company’s culture of prioritizing speed over quality, leading to releases that are not fully supported or user-friendly.
The Five Whys Technique peels back the layers of a problem, revealing that what might seem like a usability issue is actually rooted in the company’s culture. This method provides clear insights into real challenges faced by customers, guiding startups toward developing more effective solutions.
Technique #5 — Segment Your Audience by Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD)
Understanding that not all customers are alike is key to gaining deeper insights. However, rather than segmenting your audience based on demographics or behaviors, use the Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) framework for more accurate insights. This approach segments customers by the specific tasks they are trying to complete, providing a clearer picture than traditional segmentation methods.
Start by identifying the various jobs customers hire a product or service to do. These can be functional tasks (e.g., cutting wood, managing finances), emotional needs (e.g., achieving a sense of security, gaining prestige), or social objectives (e.g., earning peer recognition). Use market research, customer feedback, and team brainstorming to build a comprehensive JTBD list.
Post-interview, organize the feedback based on the specific job each customer aimed to achieve with their existing solution. You’ll find that customers with similar desired outcomes often share comparable experiences. This pattern is a valuable insight — embrace it.
As you progress, you’ll find your interviews naturally grouping into three or four main JTBD categories. By analyzing these groups, you’ll uncover common challenges and needs related to the specific jobs customers are trying to complete. This understanding enables you to craft solutions that not only surpass current alternatives but are also custom-tailored to precisely address those jobs, giving your product a distinct advantage.
Technique #6 — Record and Analyze Every Interview
Stop taking notes during your interview. Instead, record every interview. Review and analyze the transcript after the interview, not during the interview. This practice ensures your undivided attention is on the interviewee, fostering a deeper level of active listening.
Should an interviewee provide a complex answer with several points warranting further inquiry, briefly note down keywords for future questions. Then, swiftly return your full attention to the conversation.
Recording captures the interview in its entirety — every insight, nuance, and subtle expression from the customer. The recording allows for a thorough review, enabling you to uncover and understand aspects of the conversation that might initially go unnoticed. This method guarantees a richer, more nuanced comprehension of your customer’s views and experiences.
Summary
In the quest to build a successful startup, mastering customer discovery interviews is essential. Through these conversations, founders can gain invaluable insights that shape the direction and development of their products. This guide has outlined six key techniques to enhance the quality of your customer discovery process:
- Master Open-Ended Questions: Cultivate a deeper understanding by asking questions that encourage detailed responses, avoiding assumptions about your interviewee’s experiences.
- Steer Clear of “Or” Questions: Opt for questions that open the floor for expansive dialogue rather than confining responses to binary choices.
- Embrace Active Listening: Fully engage with your interviewee, showing genuine interest and understanding, which encourages more thorough and honest responses.
- Harness the Power of the Five Whys Technique: Delve into the root causes of issues or behaviors to uncover fundamental insights that drive customer decisions and experiences.
- Segment Your Audience by Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD): Move beyond traditional demographic segmentation to understand the specific tasks or needs your product or service will fulfill for customers.
- Record and Analyze Every Interview: Capture the full breadth of the conversation for a comprehensive analysis, ensuring no nuance or insight is missed.
By implementing these techniques, startups can significantly improve their understanding of customer needs and challenges. This deeper insight enables the development of solutions that truly resonate with your target market, setting the foundation for a successful and customer-centric business.
