The problem interview is one of the tools of the client-centered approach to business. Problem interviews are most often talked about as part of the Customer Development methodology, but it should be understood that problem interviews are a tool of castdev, not the entire castdev.
This confusion may have arisen because people are used to living among a planned economy, directive management, and the familiar from childhood “Mom knows best. But it turned out that this kind of thinking does not work well in modern business: people do not want to buy what is foisted on them.
So technologies began to emerge that help build the business from the client, finding out what their needs are and building the product based on that. For example, the problem interview, which had such a wow effect that the rest of the Customer Development methodology began to be forgotten. Over time, it began to seem like the problem interview was the castaway, but it wasn’t.
In this article we will talk about the problem interview as one of the tools that work.
So, the problem interview is one of the tools of the product approach, Customer Development, or any customer-centric approach. In fact, the problem interview is not really an interview, but rather a regulated way to find out if a person has a problem that the business can make money by solving. Problem Interviews are conducted according to certain rules, which many people don’t understand well, so they say it doesn’t work.
Before you can even come up with a product and communicate with customers, you need to understand the overall context. That means researching the market and competitors, seeing if other entrepreneurs have done something similar with your idea and why it didn’t work out for them. Without context, it’s hard to formulate an idea, which is then tested with problem interviews.
It is also important that the problem interview can be used not only at the stage of creating a product, but also in an existing company that wants to develop a new direction, create another product, attract new clients or increase the average bill. For example, the average bill is 500 roubles, but you want 2,000 roubles. You can’t just raise the price by that much, so first you have to find additional value for clients – something for which they would be prepared to pay 2,000 roubles instead of 500.
It turns out that our task is to understand what the company can give the client so he agreed to pay.
If you just go to the client and ask him what he needs, you won’t find out the truth. People themselves do not understand what they need, and they are more likely to give a socially approved answer in order to look better in the eyes of others. Such a person will say that he needs a health food cafe, but in reality will never go there, because in fact every day he dines on pizza from delivery.
We’ve already said that it’s important to understand the context, but no one will tell you how to understand it quickly. If a person has worked in catering for ten years, he understands the context, but if he hasn’t worked a day, he is unlikely to be able to open a restaurant from scratch.
It is in this context that we begin to formulate a hypothesis-a suggestion of what the client values. The hypothesis should sound as specific as possible. Suppose we have an online store with food delivery, but there are few sales. We want to figure out why in order to sell more, and we assume:
“People who work with pets prefer to order food delivery from the Internet to save time.”
For a hypothesis to become a hypothesis, we need to add criteria by which we can test the hypothesis.
Need to decide:
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how much to survey people so that we can confirm that shipping from the online store is in demand;
- Is it exactly necessary to talk to people or can you identify ready-made criteria for other online stores.
If it turns out that a similar business exists, it is better to invite to the problem interview those who already use such services, and to test hypotheses that will distinguish the company from competitors.
So, to test our hypothesis, we need working people with pets – we call to chat with acquaintances, friends, and customers. We are interested in those who have already solved the question of how to provide food for a dog or fish, and those who have solved problems with the help of a similar store with delivery.
The meeting itself – this will be our interview – lasts an hour and a half and is more like a friendly conversation than a survey. There is no need to think up a lot of questions: it is believed that they should follow from the answers. However, three basic questions should be prepared, and there is an important rule: the questions should relate only to the person’s past experience .
No need to discuss with him the product, the idea, his vision of your product – it will not give any useful information.
The goal at this stage is to find out if there is a problem that the company is solving.
So, in the case of a pet food store, the questions might be:
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What kind of animal do you have?
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When was the last time you bought food for your pet?
- Where did you buy it?
Questions that are not related to experience are definitely not appropriate. For example, you don’t need to ask a person if they would order food online, because they will say what you want to hear: “Yes, why not.” And he won’t order it.
Ideally, for a mass product, you need to talk to 250 customers. But that’s a lot, so you can be guided by the answers: as soon as you start predicting answers because you were able to identify recurring patterns, that’s when you reach your goal.
Let’s go back to our example with the online pet food store. Let’s say we talked to 50 people and found out that owners of rare breeds buy their pet food at specialty stores, while everyone else buys it at regular grocery stores. That’s how we knew we were interested in owners of rare breeds who require specialty foods.
Next, we found out that this focus on food is due to the fact that purebred dogs are very sensitive to the ingredients of food. That is, even if the owner decided to pamper his dog, he still has to choose the manufacturer carefully and check the ingredients. So we can assume that our online store may specialize in food for rare breeds.
Then we can focus on the problems that owners of such breeds face: logistics, choice of feed, the ability to consult with a specialist. We can look at what other stores already have and develop our product so that we can get into the customer’s pain and focus on the advantages that the customer needs and that competitors don’t have for some reason.
What the product should be and what it could look like – the client will never tell you this at the problem interview, but you can understand their pain and create a sought-after product based on this.
In general, working with clients allows you not to miss the nuances, to come up with and build a sought-after product, so problematic interviews are one of the most working tools for business.
Source: vc.ru