Cautionary tales
I've lost count of the number of times a customer gave (luke)warm feedback only to never use the product. Most common mistakes:
Leading questions: "Sounds like X could be better, right?โ Pretty much anything could be better, but most improvements don't matter. More objective phrasing: "It sounds like you've been frustrated with X? [pause, let them respond] How important is solving this compared to all the other problems you have?"
Focusing illusion: "I wanted to chat about an express reorder flow". If you dive prematurely into a topic early in the customer interview process, you risk creating false positives. There's a saying: โnothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.โ Instead, save the focusing for a later interview or the back half of the interview after establishing context and relative importance
Making it about yourself: โCan I get your thoughts on an idea Iโm very excited about?โ Cut out the last part re: excitement. Most people don't want to diss a topic you care about, so they'll go along with what you say. Don't pitch and TELL customers what to think, SHOW them your ideas
Another common mistake is that we tend to overcomplicate our solutions for the customer problems we're solving:
This usually stems from a cloudy understanding of the problem, and a tendency to continue adding new features, instead of evaluating the efficacy of the whole. In the coming sections, we'll cover how to build a clearer understanding, and how to scope for focused impact.