9 Ways to Conduct Better Customer Conversations

9 Ways to Conduct Better Customer Conversations

Generally telling someone to "talk to your customers" is about as good as telling your kid to setup your retirement account. I guess there’s a chance they’ll get it right, but there’s a better chance you end up with 8,000,000 Robux.

Yet, "talk to your customers" is the advice repeated to entrepreneurs and product leaders ad nauseam. With little-to-no context into what "talking to customers" actually means.

It’s dangerous.

Don’t get me wrong, this advice is correct. But it’s dangerously non-specific. It can lead you down a very long, expensive, wrong path.

Should I just have a conversation? What should I ask them? If they like our idea?  What problems they have? If they would use our new feature? If they would buy it?

You might have nodded your head at a few of these questions... but they are all bad. These questions will lead you astray.

These questions don't give you any facts about your customers. They don't uncover any unpleasant truths.

Talking to customers is what good product teams call product discovery. Or more specifically, problem discovery. Problem discovery is how product teams uncover facts about their customer's lives so that they can build solutions to help improve them.

The best resource I’ve found on problem discovery is The Mom Test, by John Mullins.

The Mom Test is a clever title that doesn’t exactly involve calling your mom (although you should do that) but it does involve using a practical line of questions to uncover the truth about customers. Questions that are so effective they can make your mom, the person who loves everything you do, a valuable resource in product discovery.

Customer conversations aren’t about validating ideas, they’re about finding the truth. 

The measure of a useful early customer conversation is whether it gives us facts about our customers lives and world views - John Mullins, The Mom Test

The trouble is, finding the truth is an art form. It’s hard to do for three reasons:

  1. People are nice
  2. People are bad at identifying and communicating their problems
  3. Your customers have bad ideas

Let's dive into each of these truths and introduce a few ways to tackle them.

People are nice

If you take anything away from this post, let it be this: never ask someone “so what do you think of this idea?” if you’re looking for a useful response.

Everyone knows you should not ask your mom if your idea is a good one. But the truth is, you shouldn’t ask anyone if your idea is a good one. 

Your mom will lie to you and tell you it’s a good idea because she loves you. Everyone else will lie to you and tell you it’s a good idea because they are nice.

Side note: Problem discovery is fundamentally different from sales. In sales, you’re making a pitch. You want feedback on that pitch. Do they like it? Will they pay for it? This is not that. This is an opportunity to understand what it is this person needs so you can go build it. 

Here’s the kicker though: if you really nail this problem discovery part, you won’t have to wonder if the customer likes the pitch... because they wrote it for you.

If you ask someone about your idea it gives them the opportunity to lie to you. It’s not beneficial for them to cut you down. In fact, it’s beneficial for them to lie to you. It avoids awkwardness. The conversation is more fun if you’re happy with what they said and they can get on with your life.

So if you come away from a customer conversation and all you have is, “They love the idea!” you have lost. 

The way to avoid having someone lie to you about your idea is to avoid putting them in that situation all together.

So, remember this: if you avoid talking about your idea you’ll automatically start asking better questions.

Here are three helpful rules for more productive conversations that don’t involve your idea:

  1. Talk about your life instead of your idea
  2. Ask them about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions of the future
  3. Talk less, listen more

People are bad at identifying and communicating their problems

Entrepreneurs identify problems everywhere. They get energy from finding little ways to improve people's lives, and building businesses from those solutions.

Most people are not like that. And that’s okay! Most people don’t find enjoyment in identifying little problems to be solved everywhere they turn. They just have a job to be done and they use what they have to do that job well.

For this reason, most people have a hard time identifying what their problem is in the first place. If they were good at that, they probably would have solved it themselves. Or maybe they don’t have the time to invest in searching for a better way.

Your job as an entrepreneur or product leader is to help them uncover their problem during the course of your conversation. And ideally, uncover the implication of letting that problem go unsolved.

That is hard to do. It’s something that takes practice.

Here are three ways to uncover a customer's problem:

  1. Ask them how they currently accomplish X task. Can they show you?
  2. Ask them what tools they use to solve X thing? Have they tried other tools in the past?
  3. Ask them why they bother? What’s the implication of getting this done or making this easier for you? Why put effort into it?

Your customers have bad ideas

Your customers have bad ideas for the same reason your executives have bad ideas: they’re not aware of all the possible solutions to a problem. Again, it's not their job.

This is why customer feature requests are also dangerous. Feature requests are a great signal, because they mean people care enough to share ideas with you, but they’re just signal - they’re not truth.

It’s your job to get to the truth. Instead of jamming with someone on ideas, use their ideas to understand the root of the problem.

Here are three rules to understanding the root of the problem and avoiding jamming on potentially bad ideas:

  1. Ask why a person wants a certain feature. This starts to frame the problem they’re trying to solve.
  2. Ask what that feature might help them do. This helps you understand the breadth of the problem. Maybe their idea doesn’t really solve for the whole enchilada, maybe there’s more.
  3. Ask what other things they have tried in lieu of this idea. If they haven’t tried anything, it’s likely not important enough for them to use whatever solution you come up with.

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TLDR: 9 Ways to Conduct Better Customer Conversations

  1. Talk about your life instead of your idea
  2. Ask them about specifics in the past instead of generics or opinions of the future
  3. Talk less, listen more
  4. Ask them how they currently accomplish X task. Can they show you?
  5. Ask them what tools they use to solve X thing? Have they tried other tools in the past?
  6. Ask them why they bother? What’s the implication of getting this done or making this easier for you? Why put effort into it?
  7. Ask why a person wants a certain feature. This starts to frame the problem they’re trying to solve.
  8. Ask what that feature might help them do. This helps you understand the breadth of the problem. Maybe their idea doesn’t really solve for the whole enchilada, maybe there’s more.
  9. Ask what other things they have tried in lieu of this idea. If they haven’t tried anything, it’s likely not important enough for them to use whatever solution you come up with.

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This post is one of a series of posts from a playbook on product strategy I’ve compiled over the past 7 years.

Now that we know what to avoid and what to ask in a customer conversation, my next post will be on how to actually land one.

If you enjoyed this and want to read more, hit that follow button so you don’t miss the next post.

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