Customer research question ideas

Customers are unreliable about the future and reliable about the past. Ask about what happened, not about what they would like, and the answers stop being polite guesswork.

10 starter cards you can use today

Walk me through the last time you had this problem — what did you do?
What were you using before you tried us, and why did you stop?
What almost stopped you from signing up?
Who else was involved in the decision to use this?
What part of your week would look different if this worked perfectly?
What do you do immediately before and immediately after using us?
What have you built or hacked yourself to work around us?
If we shut down tomorrow, what would you switch to?
What did you expect this to do that it does not do?
How would you explain what we do to a colleague?

Collect the questions as a team

Put the draft questions on a board and let the whole team react. It surfaces the leading questions and the ones three people wrote in different words.

Ask about the last time, not the next time

'Would you use this?' gets a yes from almost everyone. 'What did you do the last time this came up?' gets the truth.

Debrief on a board too

After each interview, drop the quotes that surprised you onto a shared board. Patterns across interviews show up in the reactions long before anyone writes a report.

Frequently asked questions

How many customer interviews are enough?

You are usually close when new interviews stop surprising you — often after five to eight conversations with a similar type of customer. Collecting the takeaways on a shared board makes that point easy to see.

How do you avoid leading questions?

Have someone who is not running the interview review the question list first. Anything containing your solution, or answerable with yes, is usually leading.

All brainstorm topics