Customer Stories
Customer stories are specific accounts of past behavior that customers share during interviews.
How are customer stories used in product discovery?
By asking customers to tell a story about a specific instance—like "the last time you watched Netflix"—teams collect actual behavior rather than aspirational or generalized accounts. These stories reveal opportunities (unmet needs, pain points, and desires) and provide the context that makes interviews actionable.
When teams ask for specific stories about memorable past behavior, they get reports of what people actually do. When they ask about general or typical behavior, cognitive biases interfere and people overestimate or report aspirational behavior instead.
The goal when collecting customer stories is not just to find patterns but to understand the variation in customer behavior—both the variation from instance to instance for a single customer and the variation from customer to customer.
Customer stories include both typical and atypical accounts. Atypical stories are valuable because they:
- Uncover important use cases
- Help teams design richer products that work for more people
- Often turn out to be more typical than initially thought
Teams use customer stories to discover opportunities rather than validate ideas. Instead of asking "Did we get it right?" teams ask about specific instances to discover what needs to be built.
Learn more:
- Customer Interviews: How to Recruit, What to Ask, and How to Synthesize What You Learn
- Story-Based Customer Interviews Uncover Much-Needed Context
Related terms:
- Customer Interview
- Assessing Opportunities
- Story-Based Interviewing
Last Updated: October 25, 2025