In product management, understanding the customer is essential to creating a successful product. Conducting interviews is an excellent way to gain valuable insight into your customers’ needs, wants, and pain points. However, getting users to agree to an interview can be challenging. In this blog post, we will explore five steps you can take to make customer interviews happen.
Consumer vs. Business Products
In a business-to-consumer (B2C) business model, products are purchased and used directly by end-users. Examples include mobile apps, e-commerce websites, or video games. In the case of consumer products, user interviews tend to focus on understanding the user’s needs, wants, and pain points. The interviews are often designed to uncover how the user interacts with the product, what features they like or dislike, and what problems they encounter while using the product. In addition, product managers may also ask questions to gather feedback on potential new features or improvements that could be made to the product.
On the other hand, business-to-business (B2B) products are designed for use by companies rather than individual consumers. In this case, user interviews tend to focus more on understanding the business processes and workflows that the product is designed to support. The product manager may also seek to understand the decision-making process for purchasing products within the organization and the factors that influence that process. To achieve these goals, interviews may be conducted with individuals from different departments within the organization, such as finance, operations, or human resources, to understand their specific needs and pain points. For example: In B2B, the user and the buyer are usually different people, and product managers need to talk to both. They learn from users what makes a great product, and they learn from buyers what will sell in the marketplace.
But in addition to understanding their customers’ organizational structure, B2B product managers must also manage their internal stakeholders: Unlike in B2C companies, there is usually already someone in sales, consulting, or marketing whose job it is to talk to customers. This complicates things because they are an additional person that product managers need to bring on board. On the plus side, they usually have a good relationship with many potential interviewees, which makes it easier to get appointments.
So how do you navigate office politics, approach the customer, and make customer interviews happen?
Take advantage of internal knowledge first
When interviewing customers as a product manager, it’s important to remember that your own company likely has a wealth of internal knowledge that can inform your product decisions. Before looking to external sources, such as customers or industry experts, take advantage of the expertise within your own organization. This may include talking to other teams, such as customer support or sales, to learn about common pain points or frequently asked questions. Therefore, before interviewing customers, ask your customer-facing colleagues for their views on the market and the customer’s problem space. Not only do they work with real buyers every day, but they often have a great sense of the real problem you are solving. In many organizations, they are rarely asked for their input and get frustrated when the product does not reflect what they think the customer needs. So, you may lose their support by simply asking them for meetings with their accounts; ask them for their perspective first.
Make Sales, Consulting, and Marketing your allies.
Once you have a sense of your consultants’ and salespeople’s understanding of the market, customer, and product, explain the rationale behind customer interviews. Improve their understanding of the importance of product management in general and customer research in particular. Build confidence in your methodology. Make it clear that you want to help them sell more by giving them a better product. This alignment will increase their willingness to help you and will go a long way toward their later adoption of the resulting product strategy.
Handle resistance by taking small steps.
Despite your best efforts, you may encounter a team that is very protective of their customers and will not allow you to talk to them. As Teresa Torres writes, the key here is to take small steps to gradually reduce their fear of the unknown. For example: Ask if you can sit in on a sales meeting without saying anything, just observing. Then, at the next meeting, ask if you can ask a single question at the very end. And then iterate from there. Secondly, always look for ways to remove the risk from the situation. Who is the customer your sales rep would feel most comfortable reaching out to? Thirdly, help the salesperson adopt an experimental or prototyping mindset by framing the interview as an experiment rather than a long-term change. By working together, sales and product teams can create better products and improve customer satisfaction and by recognizing the importance of sales in customer relationships and collaborating effectively, product managers can help drive the success of their company’s products. https://www.producttalk.org/2022/05/sales-owns-customer-relationships/
Get an introduction to your interviewee.
The goal of our activities so far has been to get introduced to potential interviewees. We know from sales that such “warm outreach” is much more effective than getting in touch without a prior relationship (e.g., cold calling). A quick phone call from your sales rep may be enough to get you a meeting. So, whenever you have the opportunity, leverage the relationships your sales reps have built to get your interviews. This approach has the added benefit of aligning you with your sales team, which is essential in product management.
In a B2B context, building relationships and establishing trust is a critical aspect of securing interviews with potential customers or clients. This is because B2B transactions often involve larger sums of money and longer sales cycles than B2C transaction, which means that buyers are typically more cautious and risk averse.
When leveraging relationships with your sales team to secure interviews, it is important to ensure that your sales team has a strong understanding of your product or service and the value it provides to customers. This will help them to identify potential interviewees who are likely to be interested in speaking with you and who can provide valuable insights into the needs and preferences of your target market. When reaching out to potential interviewees directly, it’s important to take a personalized approach and tailor your outreach to their specific needs and interests.
However, if you fail and cannot get a meeting through sales, you will have to contact the customer yourself.
The cold case
In most companies, you have at least some customers who have had no contact with your company for a long time. These customers have never complained about anything and have never had the desire to get something new. However, these customers have a valid opinion about your product and you should really consider contacting them to get the full picture of your user and buyer group.
A common way to get in touch with these neglected buyers is by email. Email is a convenient way to reach out to potential buyers and schedule interviews. Emails are more likely to get a response than cold calls or unsolicited messages on social media. By crafting a thoughtful email that clearly explains why you are reaching out and how the buyer can benefit from participating in a interview, you can increase the likelihood of a positive response. If you send an interview request to somebody who did not expect it, you might not get an answer very often. Here is some advice on how to write the email so that you get as many responses as possible.
Be short: Your cold email is very likely not the only email your interviewee will receive that day. By writing a short email, you show that you respect their time and prioritize their attention. Also, a short email is much more likely to get attention, and this will more often lead to a possible response, as people are more likely to respond to emails that are easy to read and respond to. If your email is long and verbose, the user may not bother to respond. Your rule should be to write between 5–7 sentences only. More and the recipient will likely not even read your message to the end.
Furthermore, a short email forces you to make your message clear and understandable. This is especially important in a cold email, where the user may not be familiar with you.
Personalize your message: Address the customer by name and tailor your message to their specific needs or pain points. Try to communicate why you are reaching out to this recipient. Leverage their previous interactions with your company. If your respondent has the slightest feeling that they are being contacted by a bulk email or even a bot, the chances of you getting a response are close to zero.
Address your customers vanity: If you can really make the recipient feel special, they will most likely help you get the interview you want. Try to address their vanity by telling them why you need them. Be eager to tell them that they may be the experts on the product you want to improve. Tell them that their opinions and expertise are valuable to you.
Do not try to sell anything: The last time someone contacted your potential interviewee, it was to sell something. If your email recipient gets the feeling that you contacted them just to make money, they may not send you a response, or worse, they may not answer honestly, making your whole interview useless. Tell them that your intention is to improve the product and that you are not interested in selling them anything.
Include a clear call-to-action: Tell the customer exactly what you want them to do next, whether it’s scheduling a call with you, signing up for a free trial, or responding to your email with feedback. Make it easy for the customer to act by including links or buttons to relevant pages on your website.
In conclusion, conducting interviews in a B2B setting is an essential step in improving your product strategy and building stronger relationships with your buyers. Whether you’re reaching out to people in close contact or conducting cold email interviews, there are several key steps you can take to secure valuable feedback and make the most of the interview process.
First, take all internal resources into account to get a good understanding of who your customers are and what their intent is in purchasing your product. Your internal stakeholders, as well as your customer, need to understand why you’re reaching out to the buyers and how they can benefit from participating in the interview. This can help establish trust and increase the likelihood of a positive response.
When cold emailing, it’s important to keep your message concise and to the point. Respect the buyer’s time and deliver your message clearly and concisely. This can help increase the likelihood of a response and encourage thoughtful engagement.
Overall, conducting customer interviews in a B2B environment requires careful planning, preparation, and execution. By following these essential steps, you can secure valuable feedback, build stronger relationships with your buyers, and improve your product strategy for long-term success.