AIM Archives - Tag: interview

Never sell or solve during customer interviews.

528-Sell-and-Solve-Later

Send commercial-technical teams on interviews… but don’t let them sell or solve. If you sell during voice-of-customer sessions, customers know you’re not really interested in them. If you solve, you’re jeopardizing your intellectual property. In either case, you’re wasting precious time better used to understand customer needs.

More in e-book, Reinventing VOC for B2B (page 24)

Skip quantitative interviews if you’ve got extra R&D resources to squander.

527-Wasted-Resources

After qualitative interviews, seek customer ratings on key outcomes: “How important is abrasion resistance on a 1-10 scale? And how satisfied are you today with abrasion resistance on a 1-10 scale?” This lets you converge with confidence on only those outcomes customers care about… those with Market Satisfaction Gaps over 30% (important and unsatisfied).

More in white paper, Market Satisfaction Gaps

Got a new product hypothesis? Give it the “silent treatment” during customer interviews.

526-Silent-Treatment

I love it when our clients have cool technology and clever ideas. But don’t mention these to customers during VOC interviews. From the customer’s perspective, the interview should look exactly the same whether or not you’ve got a great hypothesis. Give your hypothesis the silent treatment for now. Simply listen to the customer.

More in 2-minute growth video #21, Give your hypotheses the silent treatment

If you’re eradicating surprises in quality & productivity, it’s hard to embrace them in innovation.

514-Predictability

Innovation is fueled by the unexpected. But many suppliers are surprise-averse. They start with their own ideas, filter them through internal processes, and avoid customer-led interviews. In an odd twist, surprise-averse suppliers are the most likely to be surprised… by mistaken market assumptions and blockbusters introduced by surprise-seeking competitors.

More in 2-minute growth video #25, Let your customers surprise you

The best value propositions aren’t created by suppliers… they’re discovered.

Surprised Boy Makes Money with Idea Helmet

Ever watch stage-gate reviews or entire workshops wrestling with The Value Proposition? It’s not pretty. In my experience, good B2B customer interviews yield potential value propositions like so many ripe apples falling from a tree. You just need to pick which to pursue. If you need to dream up value propositions, you’re climbing the wrong tree.

More in white paper, Guessing at Customer Needs

Don’t rely on a small staff of voice-of-customer experts to do your company’s interviewing.

495-Customer-Interactions

Large businesses chalk up thousands of face-to-face customer meetings each year… as sales and technical service reps go about their normal duties. Why not train these people to become VOC experts? They’ve already gained customers’ trust, they know the customer’s language, they’ll get key information first-hand, and there’s no extra travel cost.

More in white paper, Everyday VOC

Good probing questions make for good customer interviews.

Business colleagues having a conversation.

Good questions demonstrate you’re more interested in the other person than yourself. What do you call someone who listens to you and seems fascinated by your responses? You call them a brilliant conversationalist. Think of it this way: Your customers have a hard time getting their boss to listen to them. They go home and their kids don’t listen to them. Now a supplier (you) is leaning forward and asking, “Really? Could you tell me more about that?” If you were the customer, wouldn’t you like to talk to such a person?

More in white paper, Everyday VOC at www.EVOCpaper.com

Want to optimize Design Thinking for your B2B business?

376-Design-Thinking-Steps

Design thinking is a powerful methodology for solving “wicked problems.” Unlike the well-stated problems we were given to solve in engineering school, these require figuring out what to work on, not just how to solve the problem. This perfectly describes real-world new product innovation, where we need to first understand customer needs.

As this diagram shows, the first two steps are “empathize” and “define.” Here’s the good news for B2B producers: You can do this much more effectively that B2C counterparts by using Discovery interviews (for “empathize”) and Preference interviews (for “define”). Check out this white paper to see why… and how: Design Thinking for B2B