The Secret of Customer Interviews: Avoid Dirty Insights
Who we speak to is just as important as the questions we ask.
During a customer interview, our job is to absorb the customer’s worldview. We should aim to see the world as they do.
What excites them?
What makes them mad?
What do they worry about?
What change do they want in their life?
Interviewing people who haven’t experienced the problem can result in “dirty insights.” Dirty insights are realisations about someone’s situation that are totally valid but actually don’t relate to the problem we’re solving. A red herring.
For example, your company produces coffee machines. You speak to a barista at a museum cafe. She says her coffee machine takes up space that could be used for preparing cakes. Maybe. You speak to another barista who works in a food truck. He’s animated. He says he burned his hand last week because he had no where to put the frying pan. Extra worktop space would let him install a new shelf.
The dirty insight is that baristas want more surface space. Partially true but not a burning desire. The real insight is that food truck baristas need a place to put hot dishes. Once you reframe it like that, the question becomes: how to help food truck baristas store hot dishes?
You then draw up plans for a smaller footprint coffee machine with innovative sliding shelf for hot plates built especially for food trucks. It’s a no brainer.
When you interview people that actually suffer from the problem — it’s obvious. They’ll tell you a handful of ways they’ve already tried to solve it. At the very least, they’ve invested time and headspace trying to solve it. They’ve probably paid good money for a few solutions too.
When people can’t give you a solid example of a way they have tried to solve the problem, they likely don’t have the problem. Their personal stories lead to dirty insights. Tread carefully.
Avoiding this is paramount, but simple.
Speak to people who have paid cold hard cash to solve the problem.
They are top tier interviewees.
Your second tier folks have solid examples of solving the problem but haven’t paid for a solution… yet.
First and second tier folks will give you the most meaningful stories. Real stories, steeped in pain and frustration. You’ll learn the conditions that give rise to situation-changing behaviour and the considerations for choosing a solution (say an iPhone 15 Pro) and not choosing others (a Samsung Galaxy S).
Informed by these conditions and considerations, you can find more people like them and build market-leading products.
Finding people that have already paid to solve the problem
Your existing paying customers
Congratulations, you have customers!
Customers have paid for your product and therefore paid to solve the problem. They are your first port of call. They’ve clearly shown willingness to pay.
Reach out to these people and start building a relationship. They’re paying you to make their lives easier — remember that during your contact. Your requests should be invitations. Don’t take more time than needed. Share a joke, listen to their vulnerabilities and absorb their worldview. Your conversation should exude gratitude and curiosity.
New customers have the freshest memories of their relevant struggling moments. They’ll share the most meaningful stories.
The easiest way to reach these customers is to send a polite email to schedule an interview. You could even pick up the phone and call them like it’s 1986.
In-app chat services like Intercom or HubSpot are great for recruiting customers for interviews. In-app chat services allow you to message customers after they’ve completed certain actions. Send customers messages inviting them to book a time for an interview.
Insight Pipeline automates customer interview recruitment. Drop the code snippet into your SaaS and the service invites your customers to book a time to chat. Insight Pipeline builds you a pipeline of customer research calls without lifting a finger. (I’m the creator of Insight Pipeline).
Do you have non-paying users?
If you have a SaaS platform with a freemium model or social media site, you’ll still want to speak with these users. What would it take to get them to start paying?
Separate the insights from conversations with free users and the insights from conversations with paying customers. Mixing the insights from those groups will muddy the water. Free users have a lower willingness to pay. Be wary.
Customers of your obvious competition
If you’re solving a problem where people are willing to pay, you’ll likely have competition. Other companies will be selling solutions to the same problem.
That’s good news.
You’ll want to get in touch with their customers. Easier said than done. And remember, you aren’t selling to them. You’re talking to them about how they’ve tried to solve the problem.
So how do we get those conversations started?
Online communities are an excellent place to start.
You’ll have success by talking to people who are disgruntled by your competitor’s products and services. People love to rant online, especially on Reddit, Twitter or Facebook. Reach out to those people; they’ll love to be listened to and tell you their story.
Social media listening tools for tracking keywords can be useful here. Monitor relevant company names, product names, hashtags and keywords to pinpoint potential angry customers who are expressing their frustrations or challenges. Tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Meltwater will help you here.
Participant recruitment agencies can be a helpful place: they have large lists of people with data about the products they use.
Quirky competitor set
As you go through customer interviews you might find some surprising ways people have tried to solve the problem. Perhaps they’re using tools not intended to be used in this way.
For example, spreadsheets and no-code tools like Airtable are extremely versatile. People often “hack them” to do alternative tasks.
Using these surprising solutions to solve your problem may be more common than first seems.
Social media communities on Reddit, Discord, Facebook Groups and Slack Communities focused on the tools used as part of those surprising solutions may be home to others also using those tools to solve. Community directories like The Hive Index are great for discovering new online spaces that home the people you’re looking for.
Search these communities for keywords to find messages related to your problem. People struggling may have asked for help or advertised their own solution. Let them know that there are specific tools that solve their problem.
Reaching out to community members is a tricky. Many communities are strongly against any self-promotion. The key is to always give more than you take. And don’t take it too personally when an uptight community manager takes down your post and gives you a ban warning (Hey! It happens to the best of us).
Serve your customers better by listening to their stories
For the most productive customer insights, we want to speak with people who have demonstrated a commitment to solving their challenges.
By absorbing their worldviews, we make better product decisions to solve their problems.
Whether we’re interacting with our dedicated customers, exploring the user bases of our competitors, or discovering unconventional approaches to problem-solving, the key is to approach each conversation with a genuine sense of curiosity and gratitude.
Embracing these strategies empowers us to uncover authentic narratives, shed light on unmet needs, and pave the way for the creation of market-leading products that truly resonate with the customers we want to serve.
I help SaaS companies speak to more customers for deeper insight. We’re currently running a beta on our new app Insight Pipeline. Join the beta if your team believes in real customer conversations about real problems.
