Questions to get the most out of interviews
“Pain is uncomfortable. Sitting there watching them go through their pain is awkward and it hurts. Sit through it with them.” – Luke Ruffing, The Pro-Guide to Making Your SaaS Product More Than a Nice to Have
Go into each interview with 10-15 problem-focused, customer-centric questions. They should always be working down toward a personal experience, or strongly held opinion.
THE ALL-ROUNDER: OPEN-ENDED BUT HIGHLY SPECIFIC
Good for: Opening the conversation and finding other talking points to go into
Avoid: Asking questions with foregone conclusions like, “Don’t you like this?”
Examples:
How are you liking it?
Does that pose a problem for you?
What do you like best (or least) about this thing?
What kind of problems does that cause for you?
Pro Tip:
Tie it back to something specific to get additional information without much effort
THE NUDGE
Good for: Bringing the conversation back around to your point when it’s tangented too far to be valuable
Avoid: Leading the conversation directly, prolonging the tangent, or launching into anotherExamples:
For a story that’s gone off track:
So what happened with X in the end?How did Y turn out though?
To bring the conversation into “my solution might fall into this realm…” territory:
Have you ever tried a Z to deal with this?
Oh, have you had experience with Y?
THE “WHY, THOUGH?”
Good for: Getting to the root of a problem in record time, or figuring out what’s motivating a person — why they care about a problem
Avoid: Dropping your line of questioning too soon
Examples:
This is as literal as it gets. Just ask “Why?”
Pro Tip:
Drag it out for 5 rounds to get to maximum specificity levels
THE “TELL ME MORE” BACKGROUND-GATHERER
Good for: Getting to the root of a problem when asking “why” fails you
Examples:
Tell me more about what happened.
Can you walk me through that?
What did you mean by that?
Pro Tip:
If your interviewee doesn’t seem sure what you mean or what you want from them, it’s OK to hold their hand a bit. “Did you then do X, Y, or Z? Did that have any ramifications? So when you say X, is that meaning Y to you, or…?”
THE ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION FINDER
Good for: Pushing customer research toward market research
Avoid: Crossing completely into the solution space. This type of question naturally butts up against it
Examples:
What have you found for X?
What have you done about Y?
Pro tip:
If they’ve done nothing to tackle the problem, your problem might not be so valid after all. If they’ve tried multiple resolutions, what stopped those from being the right solution for them?
THE TIME-TABLER
Good for: Determining how pressing, common, or important a problem is to someone
Avoid: Accepting answers that are too general (“pretty often!”)
Examples:
When was the last time that problem came up?
How often have you had to deal with that?
When did you last do X?
THE CLOSER
“Would you pay to solve this problem?”
Good for: True validation in our capitalist society
Avoid: Avoiding this
*inspired by Rob Fitzpatrick’s The Mom Test
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