Techniques for Interviewing Customers

Many companies listen to their customers in what I call a "backwards" way. Internally, the company develops a hypothesis of what the customer needs based on the experiences of the individuals in the company, develops a product and throws it out into the market, and only afterwards gains insight into the customer's real needs.

For early-stage companies without an established product line and with the ability to iterate extremely quickly, this "backwards" way may be more efficient and productive than going through the process of gathering customer input up front. However, as the company matures, it becomes essential to ensure that the product really meets customer needs before you start building, by going through the following steps:

Formulate a Questionnaire: Develop a series of open-ended questions designed to elicit your customers' feedback. Some good questions are
- Can you tell me about how you use Product X in your daily routine?
- Can you tell me a success story you've had with Product X?
- What are the problems or disappointments you've faced with Product X?
- When you envision doing [whatever it is that Product X does], what images come to mind?
- Pretending you knew nothing about Product X, how would you solve [whatever the problem is that Product X solves]? Why would that solution be better than Product X?
Conduct the Interview Using the 2-on-1 Method: Two people from your company visit the customers' environment. One person asks questions, the other records what the customer says, as fast as possible, word for word. Structure the interview as a discussion using the questionnaire you developed. Audio/video-taping is not recommended, since customers can be self-editing if they think they're being recorded.

Once you've used this technique to gather input from customers, you can then translate the stated needs into the unstated requirements add these requirements to your Feature Sandbox.