Customer Interviewing
Customer interviewing is the practice of having regular conversations with customers to discover opportunities—their unmet needs, pain points, and desires.
How often should product teams interview customers?
Product teams should interview customers at least weekly to build a sustainable habit that gives them a persistent feedback loop for daily product decisions.
Customer interviews are distinct from:
- Usability tests
- Prototype tests
- Sales conversations
- Support conversations
What is the story-based approach to customer interviewing?
The key to effective customer interviewing is keeping conversations grounded in specific instances of past behavior. This approach is called story-based interviewing.
Instead of asking speculative questions ("What do you think about...?"), ask about specific stories:
- ❌ "Tell me about your experience with Netflix"
- ✓ "Tell me about the last time you watched Netflix"
When you ask for specific stories about real experiences, you get reports of actual behavior and context. General or future-focused questions trigger cognitive biases and produce unreliable answers.
What do you learn from customer interviewing?
Customer interviewing helps you understand missing context that's absent from feature requests, support tickets, and stakeholder feedback:
- What needs customers have
- When those needs arise
- Where those needs arise
- What customers are willing to do to meet those needs
This context helps teams make better daily decisions about what to build.
Learn more:
- Customer Interviews: How to Recruit, What to Ask, and How to Synthesize What You Learn
Related terms:
- Continuous Discovery
- Assessing Opportunities
- Story-Based Interviewing
- Interview Snapshot
Last Updated: October 25, 2025