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The common advice "talk to customers more" is like the advice "work out more". It's easy to go through the motions but very hard to get good results.
Why?
Confirmation bias! We implicitly hear what we want to hear.
Some tips to reduce confirmation bias in your convos:
Why?
Confirmation bias! We implicitly hear what we want to hear.Some tips to reduce confirmation bias in your convos:
1/5: Use open-ended questions.
Avoid yes/no or "rate 1-10" questions. You want to maximize the chance you strike gold in the customer's brain, which means maximizing the degrees of freedom in their answers.
Ask questions like a detective, not a statistician.
Avoid yes/no or "rate 1-10" questions. You want to maximize the chance you strike gold in the customer's brain, which means maximizing the degrees of freedom in their answers.
Ask questions like a detective, not a statistician.
2/5: Avoid leading questions.
It's surprisingly easy to ask leading q's. A common example: "what problems do you face using [insert-tool-here]?"
This pre-supposes they have problems in the first place! You may extract some problems, but not necessarily ones that *matter*.
It's surprisingly easy to ask leading q's. A common example: "what problems do you face using [insert-tool-here]?"
This pre-supposes they have problems in the first place! You may extract some problems, but not necessarily ones that *matter*.
3/5: Embrace uncomfortable silence.
TALK LESS. It's human to want a convo to flow and feel natural. But for whatever reason, the juiciest a-ha's come deep within one's stream-of-consciousness. So let them talk it out.
Your cue to ask the next q: is there an awkward silence now?
TALK LESS. It's human to want a convo to flow and feel natural. But for whatever reason, the juiciest a-ha's come deep within one's stream-of-consciousness. So let them talk it out.
Your cue to ask the next q: is there an awkward silence now?
4/5: Ask for skin-in-the-game.
To understand *how much* a customer cares, ask them for some commitment.
Ideally that's
. But when that's impractical, ask for:
* More time
* Intros to teammates
* Intros to manager
And gauge reactions. This forces hard truths earlier.
To understand *how much* a customer cares, ask them for some commitment.
Ideally that's
. But when that's impractical, ask for:* More time
* Intros to teammates
* Intros to manager
And gauge reactions. This forces hard truths earlier.
5/5: Talk to customers as a team.
Why?
* Keep each other in check on truth-seeking hygiene.
* Raw feedback has a wide range of interpretations. Co-interpretation is how you align as a team.
* Though irrational, direct exposure elicits a more visceral reaction than a report-out.
Why?
* Keep each other in check on truth-seeking hygiene.
* Raw feedback has a wide range of interpretations. Co-interpretation is how you align as a team.
* Though irrational, direct exposure elicits a more visceral reaction than a report-out.
6/5: PLOT TWIST: I find these truth-seeking muscles to be helpful in non-product contexts as well: sales, recruiting, management.
Basically, any context where it's tricky to truly understand what matters (and how much it matters).
Basically, any context where it's tricky to truly understand what matters (and how much it matters).
