The Why and How of conducting Customer Interviews

BPMA contribution

A Product Manager is often hailed as the ‘Voice of the Customer’ and an important aspect of the job involves integrating the needs and desires of customers while building a profitable product that aims to solve a critical and imminent problem. 

Products can’t be built in a vacuum and the process of product development must involve  customer feedback from ideation through product launch.

Some pertinent questions that come to mind are -

1. What is the right number of customers to interview? 

2. What questions should be asked?

3. What type of customers should be interviewed?

Find answers to these questions in the BPMA blog ‘Cracking the code on customer interviews’ written by Bob Levy, president emeritus of BPMA here : 

https://www.bostonproducts.org/blog/2015/10/19/how-many-customer-interviews

Another important question to consider is whether best practices for B2C customer interviews can be applied to B2B customers too. In both cases, the goal of the interview is to identify ways to enhance customer experience and build user friendly products. However, in B2B interviews there is a need to go beyond immediate users of your product. The B2B product manager must think from a larger organization perspective and needs to align strategic and operational goals. 

In all cases, the interview approach must be broken down into ‘What, Why and How’ and interviewees must be questioned in accordance with a well defined goal in order to optimize the process for everyone involved. For instance, the executive team of an organization should not be asked the procedural questions of ‘how’ a product is used at the operational level, but instead be engaged on the long term, strategic benefits of the solution being proposed. Read the blog by John Mansour to understand the strategic perspective of B2B interviews here: https://www.bostonproducts.org/blog/2015/02/05/cracking-the-code-on-customer-interviews

A successful product launch must involve the customers for whom the product or feature has been built. Don’t ignore customer interviews at this stage as the insights that customers provide can help you create a compelling message for positioning and marketing your product. Learn the tips for product launch and importance of engaging customers for launching your product in this blog by Maggie HibmaIt here: https://www.bostonproducts.org/blog/2015/01/08/5-tips-for-your-next-product-launch