What should we learn from our customer interviews?

Customer interviews should establish how customers experience your business and the value it offers, rather than confirm how the business describes itself. Start with genuine questions about customers' circumstances, fears, ambitions and demands. Knowing your own business is not a substitute for understanding how customers experience it, and direct conversations can surface things a dashboard will not.

A 2025 study by TrustRadius found that 54% of technology buyers speak with a product user before purchasing, while technology vendors estimate that 38% do so; participants came from its global network and had been involved in an organisational software or hardware purchase during the previous year. Ask and listen rather than treating internal assumptions about customer behaviour as established facts. Keep listening beyond a single interview project wherever possible.

Customer interviews should leave room for concerns and hopes that fall outside the original brief. Speaking directly to the people a brand serves can reveal insights about their world and their future, not just answers to the questions a business initially wanted to ask. Unexpected findings can offer opportunities for ideas that a narrowly framed enquiry would miss.

Question the questions as well as listening to the answers. When customers raise environmental, social or cultural concerns, treat those views as an opportunity to understand their values and consider the business's role as a corporate citizen. The useful output is not limited to information that supports existing business goals. It can also include surprising insights worth bringing into boardroom conversations and using to guide how the brand tells its story.