Course 0.3: Customer Interviews | Why Interview Your Customers?

0.3. Why Interview Your Customers?

Now we know that talking to your customers isn’t going to solve everything. But it can still be very powerful when done correctly.

So let’s dig into that a little more. In this video, I’m going to talk about 3 principles for interviewing your customers.

First, you can't please everyone. No matter how broad the market is for your product, it can't include everyone.

A product for everyone is a product for no one. Sure, there are a few exceptions, like Facebook, but they are rare exceptions.

The second principle is that the company that’s closer to its customers wins. As we discussed previously, asking your customers about what to build is less effective than learning about the customers’ activities, processes, and pains.

The goal isn’t for them to design your product or your roadmap for you.

It’s to get close enough to them to understand the problems they experience -- and how your product can be designed or improved upon to solve those problems.

Being closer to your customer means receiving regular feedback, information, and data about what your customers do, including how they do it and why.

It also lets you deliver your product directly to your customers, avoiding intermediaries.

There is a great story about how ToysRus, early in the 2000s, signed a partnership deal with Amazon to deliver its products through Amazon’s fulfillment centers.

While the idea sounded great on paper, because ToysRus would just focus on toys and not on e-commerce or fulfillment operations, it was the beginning of the end for ToysRus.

Because Amazon had direct relationships with these online customers, it was able to learn more about their customers' preferences.

Amazon knew what people searched for, and they used this data to sell customers additional toys.

By the time ToysRus realized the importance of owning these customer relationships, it was too late. ToysRus filed for bankruptcy in 2018.

The third principle is that context is the key to understanding your customers. Understanding your customers goes beyond merely knowing their pain points and problems. Ask marketing or sales professionals to describe their customers and, more often than not, they’ll tell you all about their users’ pain points.

But knowing someone’s problems doesn’t give you the whole picture. If that’s all you know then you’re missing the context within which this pain occurs.

Here is why that matters.

Let's say you want to buy a couch, so you go to a furniture store. A salesperson approaches you and asks how she can help. You tell her that you need to buy a new couch.

This is your primary problem or “pain point.” She asks about your price range and the materials you prefer, and then she recommends a few options based on your budget and tastes.

However, in doing so, the salesperson never asked you about the size of your room, how bright it is, or even what other furniture is already there.

In this case, it’ll be easy for the customer to see why the options that the salesperson recommended won’t be a good fit for their room - even if the salesperson believes she’s given suggestions that will solve the customer’s pain points.

This isn’t a hypothetical example - it’s exactly what happened to me the last time I was shopping for a couch!

While the option the salesperson recommended fit my tastes and budget, I knew it would be too large for my place, and that it wouldn’t fit well with a coffee table I already have.

This was obvious to me, but not to a salesperson. She missed the opportunity to understand my needs better and overall context.

And this is also why you want to design your sales qualification calls in a way that helps you learn more about the customer and the context in which they make their buying decisions.

In summary, keep these principles in mind as we go through the rest of this course:

1. You can't please everyone. A product for everyone is a product for no one.

2. The company that’s closer than competitors to its customers will win.

3. Context is the key to understanding your customers.

Let's keep going

• Why should you interview customers?
• Principle 1: You can't please everyone. A product for everyone is a product for no one.
• Principle 2: The company that is closer than competitors to its customers will win.
• Principle 3: Context is key to understanding your customers.