Conduct Game-Changing Customer Interviews in 2024: Tips, Benefits & Best Practices

According to a study by Gartner, companies that actively engage in customer experience management initiatives like interviews outperform their competition by over 80%. Yet many organizations still rely solely on the opinions of internal teams when making crucial business decisions.

If you want to gain an unfair advantage, it‘s time to start talking directly to your customers. This post will teach you everything you need to know to conduct effective customer interviews in 2024, including:

• What customer interviews are and why they matter
• 9 game-changing benefits of customer interviews
• A step-by-step process for conducting interviews
• Tactical tips and best practices to get the most value
• Real examples of how top brands use customer interviews

By the end, you‘ll be equipped with the knowledge and motivation to make customer interviews a key part of your business strategy. Let‘s dive in!

What Are Customer Interviews?

Customer interviews involve directly asking your customers questions to gain insights into their needs, challenges, experiences and opinions related to your company, products or industry. These conversations can take place in a variety of formats:

• In-person interviews
• Phone calls
• Video conferences
• Online chat
• Email exchanges

The goal is to collect qualitative feedback straight from the source that you can analyze to guide your decision-making. Customer interviews are used across industries and departments, from tech startups doing user research to CPG brands testing new product concepts.

9 Game-Changing Benefits of Customer Interviews

Why bother talking to customers when you have capable internal teams? Here are nine compelling reasons to make interviews a priority:

1. Validate Demand for New Products & Features

Before investing time and resources into development, customer interviews help you gauge interest and willingness to pay. Cloud-based design platform Figma interviews customers to determine which feature ideas to build out. "If we hear something come up with many people unprompted, that‘s a strong signal for us to look further into it," says Director of UXR [name].

2. Understand Customers‘ Pain Points

It‘s easy to make assumptions about customer challenges, but interviews give you specifics in their own words. project management software Basecamp analyzed interview insights to identify the biggest pain point of their users: receiving too many notifications. In response, they built more granular notification controls to help users customize their experience.

3. Gather Voice of Customer (VoC) Data

Interviews provide rich, qualitative VoC data to complement quantitative feedback from other sources. Language learning app Duolingo combines insights from interviews, in-app behavior, and surveys to deeply understand their learners. By analyzing the vocabulary customers use to describe their experience, the team gains ideas for A/B tests and product copy.

4. Spark Product & Feature Ideas

Speaking directly to users sparks fresh innovation ideas you may never think up internally. Social media scheduling tool Buffer asks customers questions like "How would [dream feature] look for you?" to inspire their product roadmap. "Our product team is in those calls listening and imagining how to bring those ideas to life," says Chief Customer Officer [name].

5. Build Customer Empathy

There‘s no substitute for hearing a frustrated customer recount a confusing user flow or rave about how your product helps them. Customer interviews build empathy by connecting teams directly to the real humans they‘re serving. HubSpot implemented an "Adopt a Customer" program where employees regularly interview customers and share learnings at company meetings.

6. Identify New Customer Segments

Interviews can reveal emerging use cases and markets you hadn‘t considered before. Furniture brand turned millennial lifestyle company Buro uncovered a new audience segment of business travelers through customer chats. They heard professionals wanted compact, stylish home office setups for frequent moves. Buro now targets this persona with dedicated products and messaging.

7. Improve Brand Messaging

Hear how customers describe your product, its benefits, and your industry to refine your positioning and copy. RV rental marketplace RVshare updated their tagline to "Dream Vacations Made Simple" after repeatedly hearing customers use those words unprompted in interviews.

8. Increase Customer Retention

Proactively listening to customers makes them feel valued and identifies risk factors for churn. Ecommerce helpdesk Gorgias has their customer success team conduct quarterly interviews with clients. "It‘s an open discussion to understand their experience and frustrations so we can get ahead of issues and optimize our platform to better fit their needs," says VP of Customer Success [name].

9. Inform Strategic Pivots

Customer feedback from interviews can highlight when it‘s time to change course. Meditation app Headspace sunset an entire product line called Headspace for Work after interviews indicated users preferred the core app experience. While a tough call, reallocating those resources to the main product paid off in the form of higher engagement and retention.

How to Conduct Customer Interviews in 5 Steps

Now that you‘re bought into the "why," let‘s talk about the "how." Follow these five steps to start gathering game-changing customer insights.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Get clear on what you want to learn from customer conversations. Common goals include:

• Validating a product idea
• Understanding pain points with the user experience
• Gathering feedback on a new feature or service
• Identifying content ideas
• Improving onboarding or support experiences

Involve stakeholders to align on objectives upfront. Be specific so you can ask purposeful questions. A strong goal might be: "Understand what motivates customers to upgrade from our free to paid plan."

Step 2: Choose Your Customers

With your goals in mind, thoughtfully select which customers to interview. Consider factors like:

• Stage in the customer journey (new vs. long-time customers)
• Product usage (power users vs. occasional users)
• Satisfaction level (promoters vs. detractors)
• Buyer persona (role, industry, company size, etc.)
• Use case (how they use your product/service)

Aim for a mix that matches your objectives. If you want to reduce churn, prioritize at-risk customers along with loyal ones. To improve a particular product, focus on customers that use it most.

Plan to speak with at least 8-10 customers per research goal. You may need to offer incentives like gift cards or account credits to boost participation.

Step 3: Prepare Your Questions

Develop a list of questions that will give you the insights you need. Open-ended questions like these work well:

• What problem were you trying to solve when you discovered [product]?
• Walk me through how you typically use [product] in your day-to-day.
• What‘s the biggest challenge you face with [process/task]?
• If you could wave a magic wand, how would you improve [product]?
• What other solutions did you consider before choosing us?
• What do you like most/least about our [product/service/support]?

Avoid leading questions that bias responses. Ask follow-ups to dig deeper into interesting points that come up. But respect customers‘ time by sticking to the most essential queries.

Step 4: Conduct the Interviews

Schedule interviews at a time that‘s convenient for the customer. 30-60 minutes is usually sufficient. Choose a communication channel that works for them, but opt for live conversations when possible to capture tone and body language.

Consider conducting interviews in pairs, with one person leading the discussion and the other taking notes. Record the session with the customer‘s consent so you can refer back to it later.

Put customers at ease with friendly small talk before diving into your questions. Listen more than you talk. Paraphrase responses back to confirm your understanding. Don‘t get defensive if you hear negative feedback – thank them for the candor.

Step 5: Analyze & Act on the Feedback

Comb through your notes and recordings to identify common themes, pain points, and opportunities. Capture interesting quotes and stories that bring the insights to life.

Share your learnings with all relevant teams, from product to sales to customer service. Discuss how to turn the insights into meaningful action, whether that‘s building a new feature, updating a help article, or tweaking a marketing message.

Don‘t let the insights languish in a report. Commit to making changes based on what customers shared. Close the loop by following up with interviewees on how you applied their feedback to show their voice matters.

Customer Interview Best Practices

Some final tips to maximize the impact of your interviews:

• Schedule interviews regularly to track evolving customer needs over time
• Involve a diverse group of team members to build empathy across the org
• Ask participants if you can follow up for clarification or more details
• Look for patterns, but don‘t ignore interesting outliers
• Combine interviews with quantitative surveys for a complete picture
• Record key insights in your CRM so other teams can access them
• Use a tool like Gong or Dovetail to transcribe and analyze interviews at scale

Become a Customer Interview Pro

In 2024 and beyond, winning companies will be those that put customers at the center of every decision. By making interviews a regular part of your process, you‘ll gain a deep understanding of your customers‘ world that sparks innovation and guides you forward.

To get started, set a goal to interview 10 customers in the next month. Involve your team in selecting interviewees, crafting questions, and conducting the conversations. Discuss what you learned and commit to one improvement based on the feedback.

With practice, customer interviews will become one of your most powerful tools for growth. Not only will you make better business decisions, you‘ll also build lasting customer relationships and stand out from competitors.

For more tips on making the most of customer feedback, check out our guides on customer surveys, user testing, and analyzing customer sentiment. Here‘s to bringing the customer voice into everything you do!