If getting great insights from customers was easy, then the world would have a lot more really great products that solve all our problems.  But we don’t, because it’s not easy to tease all of those pain points out of our customers.  There’s an art to it, and some thoughtful preparation is needed to have those deep conversations.

Recently, in my “Insights for Innovation” course from Ideo, we focused on how to ask good questions. Here are some of the top tips that I learned:

1. Ask How They Are Doing

Your first questions should build rapport and a set a positive tone. The more your customer trusts you, the deeper their feedback.  Start your questions easy and broad, about the customer as a person, and then later you can plunge down into your topic’s technical details.

Also, establishing trust is not just about what you say, it’s also about what you do.  Watch your body language. Are you physically showing that you are deeply interested in them?  Are you smiling?

One aspect of creating a safe environment for an open conversation is the atmosphere itself.  Is the customer’s boss, staff, or family sitting near by?  Would they be more comfortable walking and talking?

2. Ask Open-Ended Questions

Don’t ask “do you like this proposal?” The answer to that is a closed “yes” or “no,” and doesn’t lead to any broad insights into the customer’s needs.

Instead ask “5W1H” questions: Who, What, Why, When, Where, How.  “Why do you like this?” “What is good or bad about it?” “How do you think you will use it?”  These questions will help you elicit much more, and much more meaningful, feedback.

Keep in mind that the interview is an engaged conversation, not a “rate it 1 – 10” survey style inquisition or a checklist death march! You want color and details.

3. Ask For Stories

Nothing happens in a vacuum.  There is always context. Asking a narrow, targeted questions will get you narrow, targeted answers. Ask questions that can lead to stories and all of their richness. Great prompts are:

• • “Can you show me an example of..?”
  • “Tell me about…”
  • “Can you step me through..?”

Another benefit of asking for experiential stories is that it will focus their answers on them personally instead of generalizations and hypothesizing.

4. Ask About Discrepancies

When people tell you about what they do, and then demonstrate what they do, you may notice a gap between the two.  That discrepancy is important.  Why do they think one thing and do another?  That information is product-planning gold!

5. Ask What They Really Think

Sometimes people will tell you what they think is the “right answer” instead of their true experience or opinion.  You can tease this out by asking the simple follow-up question of “why?”  “Why do you think that?”

6. Ask About Their Feelings

There is a great tendency for interviewers to focus on the numbers and data, the tech specs.  But where do customers really light up and smile?  Where do they get angry and frustrated?  To find the customer’s true pain points the questions should not be just “how many times did you use the tool?” but also, “how did you feel when you used the tool?”

7. Ask About Their Past And Present

The future is very hard for people to predict accurately. We have much more certainty about what we did in the past and are doing now.  You can ask about the future, but weight your questions toward “now” as people’s behavior is unlikely to radically change in the future.

8. Ask About Things That Are Not On Your Question List

Remember, this is a conversation and you don’t know where it will go. Be flexible and break free of your interview guide’s structure.  Keeping an open mind and following the conversation’s flow may take you to some delightful and insightful destinations.

9. Ask About What You Didn’t Ask About

The reality is that you don’t know everything about the topic; that’s why you’re asking the customer questions in the first place.  You need to discover these known unknowns.  So always end your conversation by asking “What didn’t I ask you? What else should I know about this?”

10. Don’t Ask Lousy Questions

OK, I’ll admit that no one sets out to ask bad questions, but there are some questions that will kill the value of the interview. For example, don’t ask questions which are:

• • Leading – an answer or solution should not be embedded in your question,
  • Biased – don’t point people at the preferred answer,
  • Closed – you don’t want a yes / no response, you want color and details, or
  • Pitching – you are soliciting feedback about your product, not selling it, that’s a different conversation!

 In Conclusion…

So, you are now equipped with 10 tips here for asking great questions.  Here comes the hard part: listening. Watch your customer’s body language. Hear their words. Engage actively. Keep your posture open.  Do all this, and you have a great chance to truly understand your customer’s pain points, and solve them!

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