How to Conduct Customer Interviews: Get Real Insights That Drive Growth

How do you create a product/service that people actually love? 

Easy, ask your customers!

We’ve been hearing this for ages, “customers are the king”. 

But to guess what they need? 

That's a risky move. 

But, asking straight from the source i.e. your customers can turn this risk into a well-planned strategy! 

Customer interviews enable you to get actual feedback from the source's mouth, their pain, problems, and needs. 

A good interview not only provides you with feedback but also enables you to make wiser decisions and create something that solves their problems.

Done right, customer interviews are a game-changer. 

Let's get going and understand how to conduct customer interviews, step by step!

How to conduct customer interviews: Step-by-step approach

In a 2020 interview, Canva's Global Head of Revenue, Dave Burson, explained how altering a small part of their marketing copy, after conducting customer interviews, resulted in a massive increase in Canva Pro sign-ups. 

Hearing from actual users, they understood that their message was failing to resonate with the reason why users were paying. All they needed was to alter the language slightly and that was enough to increase trial conversions exponentially. 

This is the magic of doing customer interviews, revealing real insight, and making decisions that fuel growth. So how do you get it right? Let's go through it, step by step.

1. Define your goal & hypothesis

Before you begin, know precisely what you'd like to learn. 

Are you looking to understand why customers upgrade or learn about their pain points? Develop a hypothesis at the beginning to direct your questions and focus your discussion in the right direction.

You can also do the mom test for conducting better customer interviews. 

2. Interview the right customers

This is a golden tip, choose participants who actually reflect your target audience. 

They might be your active users, new customer segments, or even churned customers. The right mix ensures you gather diverse and valuable insights.

3. Set your interview questions

Create open-ended questions that receive detailed answers. 

Ask "how" and "why" questions instead of "yes/no" questions. Ensure that your questions align with your research goal and are free of bias. 

Moreover, try to be flexible with your questions, and if needed, forget the script and tweak questions that can help you get maximum insights. 

You can check out the essential user interview question examples to get a good kickstart. 

4. Conduct the interview

Begin with a friendly welcome to put customers at ease. 

Stay with your questions but allow the discussion to flow as it will. Listen actively and encourage participants to expand their ideas further with more questions.

Pro tip: Try to add humor to the conversations to make customers feel comfortable and easy to open up. You can check out this guide on How to Conduct User Research Interviews That Get Results

5. Capture insights in real-time

If you’re trying to take notes during an interview, then there are high chances you’ll miss out on key details or skip questions that could actually drive insights. 

Instead, focus on the moment, ask meaningful questions, record your interviews, and then upload them on Looppanel. 

It transcribes everything for you and even highlights key moments, so you don’t have to sift through hours of recordings. With its 90%+ accuracy in transcription and command over 17+ languages, you can be rest assured that no important detail goes unnoticed. 

6. Analyze and extract meaningful insights

Collecting interview data is just the first step, what you do with it matters most. 

However, instead of manually going through pages of transcripts and losing your precious time, switch to Looppanel. 

It helps you quickly identify patterns, tag key themes, conduct thematic analysis, and extract actionable insights. Additionally, it helps you spot common pain points, preferences, and trends without the headache of sorting through endless notes, and proper citations to trace back to the sources.

The result? Faster, clearer decisions based on what your customers actually need. 

Psst: Don’t forget to check out how to analyze user interviews to make sure you drive meaningful insights. 

When should you conduct customer interviews?

If you think conducting customer interviews is only helpful at the initial phases of a product launch, then you’re missing out a lot. Here are a few common scenarios when you should conduct customer interviews to drive real change: 

• Before launching a product or feature validate ideas and ensure it solves real problems.
• After the launch gather feedback and modify based on real user experiences.
• When engagement drops, identify customer pain points and understand why users aren’t sticking around.
• During expansion into new markets, learn how different customer segments perceive your product.
• When optimizing messaging or positioning to ensure it resonates with customers.

Best practices for conducting successful customer interview

Customer interviews are less about asking questions and more about making room for customers to feel at ease enough to give raw, useful feedback. Here's how to do it right:

1. Establish a relaxed environment for raw feedback

Customers will feel at ease and be more forthcoming when they feel comfortable. Begin with small talk, tell them their feedback is important, and let them know there are no incorrect answers.

2. Structure questions that expose customer pain points

Avoid leading questions or yes/no answers. Pose open-ended questions such as, "Walk me through your daily use of [product]" to uncover actual pain points. You can also check out this guide to learn how to use ChatGPT for UX research questions, to take off your load a bit. 

3. Listen and respond actively

Follow the main points but remain flexible. When a customer opens up about an unexpected hurdle, dig deeper rather than adhering strictly to your script.

4. Use real-life examples and examples

Ask customers for specific incidents instead of general opinions. Asking, "Can you tell me a time when [problem] frustrated you?" allows you to collect richer, more actionable feedback.

Conclusion 

Customer interviews are perhaps the most effective means of understanding what matters most to your users. 

Well-executed customer interviews not only provide surface-level insights but dig deeper and reveal insights that could help you turn your product/service in a 360-degree manner, and in a good way, psst. The key is to ask the right questions, listen, and turn insights into action.

But manually sifting through hours of interviews? That's where Looppanel comes in. 

Rather than browsing through endless recordings, Looppanel transcribes, tags meaningful moments, and assists with transcription analysis, in real-time. You thus get to spend less time wrestling with notes and more time creating what your customers actually need.

Once done with conducting customer interviews, request a demo with Looppanel and see how it supercharges your UX research. 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How to do a good customer service interview?

Ask open-ended questions, listen actively, and create a comfortable space for honest feedback. Keep it natural and avoid leading questions.

What is the consumer interview method?

It’s a way to gather insights by talking directly to customers about their needs, behaviors, and pain points.

What are the different types of customer interviews?

Exploratory (broad needs), validation (testing ideas), and post-purchase (feedback after use). Each serves a different purpose.