📂 Ask these questions to learn why customers chose you

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The following is a document we use internally at Conversion Factory when conducting customer research interviews.

These questions align with the jobs-to-be-done "switch interview" style of interview where the goal is to learn why customers chose your product over alternatives.

You can't ask this question directly, because most customers haven't thought thoroughly enough about it to give you a cohesive and truthful answer.

Instead, you have to piece it together through a series of questions that reverse-engineers the decision.

Setting the context

• How would you describe your role, what are your responsibilities?
• Who’s in your team, who do you work with?
• What do you hope to achieve in the next six months?
• What are your biggest challenges at your work today? Can you rank these problems?

Finding the first thought

• You spoke of a problem. Can you describe it in detail?
• When did you first realize you [needed something to solve your problem]?
• When did it become a priority to solve? Why did it become a priority?
• What else were you working on when you started working on solving this problem?

Building the consideration set

• Tell me about how you looked for a product to solve your problem.
• What kind of solutions did you try? Or not try? Why or why not?
• What types of workarounds did you try?
• Where did these solutions fall short? What’s frustrated you?
• What appealed to you about other solutions?

Be curious about buying dynamics

• Did you ask anyone else about what they thought about the purchase you were about to make?
• What was the conversation like when you talked about purchasing the product with your coworker or boss?
• Before you purchased did you imagine what using the product would be like? What did you imagine?
• Did you have any anxiety about the purchase? Did you hear something about the product that made you nervous? What was it? Why did it make you nervous?

Analysis after the decision

• What made you decide on the final solution?
• How was the onboarding process? How did it feel?
• What’s it been like using the product?
• Did you get what you wanted to get out of the product?

—Corey

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