#8- How to conduct productive user interviews?
Engaging with customers is vital for every entrepreneur. Good practice should be to start interacting with customers from day 0 irrespective of whether your product is live or in beta or in idea stage
Engaging with customers takes practice. However, practice makes perfect. A simple trait we need to learn is to seek wisdom through questions.
It is not just as simple as making the customer/prospect talk, it is getting them to answer questions that open possibilities.
Here is a list of questions that you can ask your customers/ prospects while engaging with them-
a. What is your business? 🏫
This helps you understand which industry you cater to, and what kind of a business model you have. Different industries have different needs, and knowing the end-user will help you address their queries more proactively.
b. How big is your team? And what is your role?👫👫
It helps understand who you are speaking to. Are they the founder? Or a salesperson? Or a tech person? Knowing more about the team also helps you get an idea of how your product/service fits their organization.
c. How did you find out about us?🤔
This helps you develop the best-performing marketing funnel! If they googled you, it helps you work more on SEO. If they came across your blog, you need to invest in better quality content. If they came across a post on Facebook, you need to engage more online.
d. Why problem are you looking to solve? And why is that a problem for you?🧐
This is essential. Here, you are trying to get into the psyche of the person to understand the pain point or need of using your company. There is no correct answer, and sometimes there might be no specific answer. However, this helps you better place the value addition of your product/service.
e. What were you using before? Why are you replacing it? What better solution are you looking for? What is not working for you?😖
You need to understand what you are potentially replacing. Either they are thinking of replacing an existing system with your product, or they were doing it manually. In any case, helps you understand their thought process and helps you pitch your value proposition.
f. What value do you derive from your current solution? And how much do you spend on solving this problem?💵
This is key. This establishes that the customer is currently paying for something- the willingness and ability. You do not have to deal with ‘why would I pay you for this?’. The customer has thought about cost-benefit analysis, and has an idea of their budget before scouting. This helps in highlighting and reducing friction between why should I pay and how much should I pay?
g. What do you like about our product?🎯
This reinforces the value proposition of your product which the customer likes. The customer needs to say on their own, what do they like about you rather than you highlighting it.
h. Why would you want to switch to our product?⚓
Every customer knows there are switching costs associated with migrating. If they still want to switch, there has to be something really compelling for them to bear the costs. This is the point where you can offer a seamless transition that will not disrupt their operations.
i. What are your views on our pricing?🤝
Here, you are trying to understand will the customer swing? Besides, helps you understand their expectations, their willingness or ability to pay, and reservations they have. Continuous feedback loops will enable you to price more dynamically.
Founders need to start talking to customers very early in their business. Preferably from the ideation stage. Additionally, making a habit out of this will not only create a continuous feedback loop, but also get you large sets of data points to analyze and create better products!
Additional reads 📚
Value Proposition Design by Alexander Osterwalder
Conversational Marketing by David Cancel
Gap Selling by Keenan
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