The Customer Interview Process

When planning any type of “real-time” customer research, such as interviews, there are a few steps to the process  A key first step in planning real-time customer research is getting clear on who you want to engage with. You will need to ensure that you speak to enough customers to make the findings reliable and that you have sufficient diversity of customers to cover the full range of dimensions and characteristics you defined earlier. Once you know what types of customers you are seeking for the research, you need to get some of them “signed up” to participate.  If you aren’t experienced doing research, you may want to use a market research companies that handles the recruiting for you. Finally, the steps of developing a protocol and conducting the interview are intertwined. While getting your subjects signed up, you should be developing a “protocol” for the research activities—which is a cross between an agenda and a script. You will then use that protocol to conduct the sessions.

To learn more about organizing and conducting effective customer interviews, check out the new book Winning Digital Customers by Howard Tiersky. In addition to going in depth on how to conduct interviews, the book presents a full framework for not only conducting customer research but also using it to envision and build a new customer experience that customers will love. Check out WinningDigitalCustomers.com to buy the book today!