Article · 12 min read

Ask Teresa: What Are the Best Customer Interview Questions?

Teresa Torres · Product Talk Free Beginner

A direct answer to the question every founder types into search: what should I actually ask. Torres argues for throwing away the long script and driving the interview from one story based question, then following the thread. Handy when you are staring at a blank interview guide the night before a call.

  • One good story question beats a long list of survey questions
  • Anchor on a specific past instance, then follow up on details
  • Avoid questions that ask people to predict their own future

The question it answers

  1. How do I run a customer interview without leading them to the answer I want?

Read with it

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  2. A short, practical field guide to customer discovery: who to talk to, how to find them, and how many. Pairs perfectly with The... talkingtohumans.com Book · ~80 pages (free PDF available) Talking to Humans Giff Constable
  3. 200+ candid conversations with Indian founders and investors on how they actually found their idea, spotted a trend, and... Apple Podcasts Podcast · podcast series (45-90 min episodes) The Neon Show (formerly 100x Entrepreneur) Siddhartha Ahluwalia
  4. The standard modern playbook for keeping discovery continuous so roadmap decisions stay grounded in real customer input, not... Product Talk Book · ~240 pages Continuous Discovery Habits Teresa Torres
  5. Video · ~25 min How to Talk to Users Eric Migicovsky
  6. Judging whether people will actually change their behavior comes down to how well you can hear intensity in what they say, and... deployempathy.com Book · Full book, roughly 250 pages Deploy Empathy: A Practical Guide to Interviewing Customers Michele Hansen
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