Why interview at all?
Analytics tells you where people leave. Interviews tell you why people came, what they were comparing, and what nearly stopped them. They’re the best source of motivations, objections and the words customers use.
Interviews are weak at one thing: predicting future behaviour. People are bad at forecasting what they’ll do, so ask about what they did (Nielsen Norman Group).
Who to talk to
- Recent buyers (last 30 days): they remember the decision.
- People who almost bought: trial users who didn’t convert, leads who went quiet.
- Five to eight people per question is usually enough to hear patterns repeat.
Offer a small thank-you, keep it to 20 to 30 minutes, and ask permission to record.
A simple guide
- Context: “Tell me a bit about your role / what you were working on when you started looking.”
- Trigger: “What made you start looking for something like this? Why then?”
- Alternatives: “What else did you consider? What did you do before?”
- Decision: “Walk me through how you chose. What did you look at? Who else was involved?”
- Doubts: “Was there a moment you nearly didn’t go ahead? What happened?”
- Outcome: “What’s different now?”
Follow up with “Tell me more about that” and “What happened next?” more than any other questions.
Avoid these questions
- Leading: “Was the checkout confusing?” → “How did the checkout go?”
- Hypothetical: “Would you pay more for X?” → “What did you do the last time X happened?”
- Double: “Was it fast and easy?” → ask two questions.
- Selling: interviews are for listening, not pitching.
Capture what you hear
Right after each interview, write:
- Exact quotes about problems, alternatives and doubts
- The trigger that started the search
- The main objection and how it was resolved
- Surprises: anything that contradicts what the team believed
Group quotes across interviews into themes. Each theme with several supporting quotes is evidence for a hypothesis.
Recap
Recruit recent deciders, ask about real past events, avoid leading and hypothetical questions, and capture exact words. Next lesson: on-site surveys, to hear from many more people with less effort.
Practical exercise
Interview two recent customers for 20 minutes each using the guide in this lesson. Write down three exact phrases each one used about the problem they were solving.