One of the keys to building a good product is customer validation. Before you can get to that point, you need to listen to your customers and understand their pains & gains. You can do that through customer interviews. Every successful product should start with this foundation, here’s why.
Customer Validation & Discovery
Customer discovery is the process through which you identify a customer for your product and a product they’ll love. You can do this by asking:
- Who would use the product?
- Why would they use it and what problem do they have?
- What’s the best solution for that problem?
Customer discovery starts with some basic questions and naturally leads to customer validation. Customer validation is the process of getting feedback from your customers about your product. This starts with customer interviews.
One mistake that product teams make is overlooking what their customers want. This is because many organizations don’t consider how easy and effective it can be to talk to customers directly. Worth noting however, we cannot always expect customers to know what they want or articulate it matter-of-factly. This is why it’s important to get to know your customers through listening and learning.
Customer Interviews—The Foundation for Superior Product Development
What better way is there to find out what customers want than by interviewing them? Ultimately, the best customer interviews happen through an organic unfolding of their answers.
A good foundation for product development begins with a customer interview where assumptions are left at the door. Avoid asking about problems you think your customer has. Instead, ask them point blank what the top 3 problems are in their industry. This direct strategy reveals a common pattern in their pains & gains.
Not only will information from customers help you tailor your product’s features and value proposition, it can also help with future growth strategy. While your competition is focusing on well-known industry challenges, you can get a head start on lesser known issues that will become a bigger issue in the future. The only way to gather such key information is from customer interviews.
What Customer Interviews Reveal
Customer interviews get to the heart of your customer’s problems, motivations, and day-to-day life. Additionally, as you develop your product, customer interview responses can be used to structure the positioning of your brand because they reveal the language your customer speaks. Well-thought-out questions create the perfect foundation for your next product. It’s time to start using them.