Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Stacey Messier

3. Design Thinking: How do I talk to customers?

While your empathy interview recruitment is underway, now is a great time to tackle the writing of your script of questions known as a Moderator Guide. In this article you’ll learn…

How to workshop the customer interview questions that go into a moderator guide
How to write open-ended questions
16 most commonly asked questions during customer interviews
The Official and Unofficial Top 5 Tips for interviewing customers

Writing your first Moderator Guide: Tips & Tricks

Make a list of all the different stages that describe the customers’ journey moving from left to right (this may be an existing journey or what you might assume to be a new product’s journey). Leave plenty of room to write below.

If you’re not familiar with a customer journey, take this example for a spin in your mind. The customer journey for getting a soda from a vending machine might be: Look for beverage, Read price, Read location indicator, Insert money, Type in location indicator, Receive change, Retrieve beverage from bottom of machine, Drink beverage.

2. With your team, write down all the things you know to be true about each stage of the customer journey and the problem you’re trying to solve

3. Write down all the things you don’t know about each journey stage

4. Finally, write down all the things you assume to be true about what customers experience at each journey stage

5. Take this list and merge the individual ideas into common themes and statements. Then write out any overarching hypotheses you might like to test with this group of customers. For example: “We believe CompanyXYZ customers find our ProductABC process to be complex and need help navigating expectations.”

6. Then do your best to turn the nitty gritty lists of knowns, unknowns, and assumptions into open-ended questions (more on that below).
Note: It’s always best to start with everything you can think of and then trim down as you review.

Writing Open-ended Questions

What is an open-ended question and why is it important?

When interviewing customers, it is absolutely imperative to let them do the talking. Your job is to listen and gather insights, but we can’t do that if we do all the talking! That said, your questions shouldn’t take up a ton of time, instead they should allow the customer to answer in more of a storytelling way rather than in a yes or no sort of way. For example:

Yes/No Question: When your Netflix subscription was cancelled, was that frustrating?

Open-ended Question: At what point did you learn your Netflix subscription was cancelled? How did that make you feel? What did that mean for you and your family?

While Yes/No questions can make it easier to tabulate your findings, they don’t tell the entire story. Even if the customer answers, “Yes, I was frustrated,” understand and ask what frustrated them, why and how they would have liked that part of the experience to work instead.

That said, it may take a few open-ended questions to gain insights around a certain stage in a customer journey. That’s okay! The name of the game is to learn the “whys” and feelings behind the events in a given customer experience. The more we can understand about how something affects someone positively or negatively, the better an experience we can design in the future.

What if I can’t find a way around asking a yes or no question?

Sometimes there isn’t a clear path to asking about a specific experience in an open-ended way. This usually happens when asking if the customer is interested in a solution concept, if they’d pay for said solution, or even something as simple as if they contacted someone for help. In these instances, the rule of thumb is to always follow up a yes or no question with a “why?”

Moderator: Would you be interested in paying for a service like this?Customer: No.
Moderator: Why do you say that?
Customer: Because I don’t feel like it’s valuable to me. My plumber is a close friend and I can reach him whenever I need something, why would I need something like that?

Moderator: Did you reach out to anyone for assistance in submitting your application?
Customer: Yes, the HR person assigned to me.
Moderator: Why did you choose to reach out to your HR person?
Customer: Because she’s helped me so much over the past few weeks and she’s very responsive.

Are there questions you always ask during most customer interviews?

Yes! There are a handful of “regulars” that show up in our moderator guide. Take these for a spin in your next Empathy Interview:

Pain Points

Was there any part of this experience that frustrated you? Why?
How did you get through these moments of frustration?
Did you share these moments of frustration with anyone? Why? What was said?
What did your [problem] mean for you?

Gain Points

Was there any part of this experience that made you relieved, happy or grateful? Why?
Did you share these moments of positivity with anyone? Why? What was said?

Expectations

How did you find the speed at which this part of the process moved along?
Did you experience anything that felt unexpected? (good or bad)
Did you find moments where this part of the process met your expectations? When and why?
Are there any improvements you would suggest for this part of the process?

Customer Emotions & Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Would this [solution] increase or decrease your confidence in CompanyXYZ? Why?
Would this [solution] increase or decrease your likelihood to stay with CompanyXYZ? Why?
On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend CompanyXYZ to your friends and family, if we offer this [solution]?

Creative Comparison

What’s missing from your [product] experience today? Why?
What other company do you wish [product] companies would model themselves after? Why?
Imagine your best friend had to go through the same experience you went through. How would you design that experience so it was the best possible outcome for your best friend?

We’ve got the first draft of our moderator guide, now what?

Test, iterate, test, execute.

Take your moderator guide for a test drive: Grab a colleague and even if they’re not the target customer, have them play pretend and act as your target customer.
Did it take as long as you thought it would?
Was there a question or two that could use some rephrasing or placed in a different spot to help with flow?
Take your learnings back and edit the guide.
Test your new iteration with a colleague again to see how your edits feel.
After your first real customer interview, be open to iterating quickly as well. Sometimes the best edits come after the first couple of interviews!

Don’t forget: Schedule yourselves as well as your customers

As your recruitment starts to firm up, you’ll have a clear sense of what days and time slots are required. Remember to schedule a moderator and a note-taker for each session. It’s helpful to have a few team members to switch roles with as well. Talking to strangers is hard work, but it helps to tag in and out throughout the day.

RECAP

Write and test your Moderator Guide. Iterate with your team.
Schedule a room, your moderators, and note-takers for the days you’ll be interviewing.
Be positive, patient, and welcoming when interviewing customers.
Be open, practice active listening, and leave your expectations at the door.

Looking for more? Head over to the Top 5 Tips for Talking to Customers next!

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Design Thinking: How do I talk to customers? was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Design Thinking: How do I talk to customers?

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