Customer interview
Also known as User interview, Discovery interview
A customer interview is a one-to-one conversation with a current or potential customer, used to understand their goals, problems and behaviour in their own words, usually by asking about specific things they have done.
What makes a good customer interview?
Asking about the past rather than the future. "Walk me through the last time this happened" gets a real story with detail; "would you use this?" gets a polite guess. Good interviews spend most of their time on one or two recent examples and very little on opinions about your product.
How long should a customer interview be?
Thirty minutes is enough for most discovery interviews: a short opening, a few minutes of context, then most of the time on a real recent example and what the customer tried.
How many customer interviews do you need?
A common rule of thumb is five to eight per group of customers, continuing until new interviews stop telling you anything new. Interviews spread across very different groups add up to less than the total suggests.
Customer interview, in brief
- What is a customer interview?
- A customer interview is a one-to-one conversation with a current or potential customer to understand their goals, problems and behaviour in their own words, usually by asking about specific things they have done.
- What questions should you avoid in a customer interview?
- Hypothetical questions like "would you use this?", leading questions, asking what they would pay for something they haven't seen, and pitching your idea before you've heard their story.
Put the theory to work.
Corha turns your calls, tickets and surveys into one evidence-backed picture of your customers, so these ideas become part of how your team works, not just definitions.
Try it with your own website, no account. We read the public page and keep nothing.