Who to interview

Customer research works because it gives you insight from people at different stages of the buying journey. A prospect who almost bought from you sees your business differently than a customer who has been with you for two years. A customer who left sees it differently again.

When you interview people across this spectrum, you understand the full picture. What attracts people. What convinces them to buy. What makes them stay. What makes them leave. Each group reveals something the others cannot.

In this chapter, you will learn which three groups to include in your research, how to find them in your CRM or through your network, and why interviewing your competitors' customers might be the most valuable thing you can do.

By the end, you will have a list of eight to twelve people who can tell you exactly what is working, what is broken, and how you compare to alternatives.

Start with the people who did not buy from you. They went through your sales process, evaluated you against alternatives, and chose someone else. They can tell you exactly what tipped the decision.

When I lose a deal, I always try to have a conversation afterwards. Not to sell, but to genuinely ask: what three things did you like about their process, their proposal, or anything they said that made you choose them?

The answers are often surprising. A marketing agency I worked with for restaurants and hotels learned this the hard way. Their junior marketer thought a five thousand euro monthly retainer was expensive. As a recent graduate, it sounded like a lot of money. She was pushing to lower the price.

We called a random hotel that worked with a competitor and asked what they liked about the relationship. The marketing manager did not even know what they paid. The invoice was set up before she started, and she never looked at it. What she loved? The agency brought cake when they visited the office.

Completely different priorities than the junior marketer assumed. Price was irrelevant. The personal touch mattered.

Work with your sales team to identify deals that made it to proposal stage but chose a competitor in the last six months. Reach out and ask for fifteen minutes. Position it as learning, not selling. Most people will say yes.

If you do not have lost deals to draw from, you can interview your competitors' customers directly. Find them on LinkedIn or through industry communities. Explain that you are doing research and would love to understand what they value in their current provider. You are not pitching. You are learning.

Your best customers tell you what is working. These are the accounts that renewed without hesitation, expanded their usage, referred others, or simply never complain. They chose you for a reason. Understanding that reason shapes how you attract more people like them.

Start in your CRM. Pull a list of customers who match your ideal profile and have been with you at least six months. Look for signals of success: high usage, multiple renewals, expansion purchases, referrals given.

For a wealth management company I worked with, we analysed their best customers and found a pattern: many were dentists who had recently retired and sold their practice. Selling a dental practice generates a significant lump sum that needs managing. These people were actively looking for wealth management at a very specific moment in their lives.

That insight became a content marketing strategy. We created guides on how to sell a dental practice, knowing that once they completed that transaction, they would need wealth management services. The customers we already had became case studies and interview subjects for new content.

The pattern is often hiding in your data. Customer interviews help you understand why the pattern exists.

Churned customers tell you what is broken. They left recently enough to remember why. The pain that made them leave is still fresh. This feedback is hard to hear, but it is the most actionable insight you will get.

Pull accounts that cancelled in the last three to six months. Too recent and emotions run high. Too far back and they will not remember details. Exclude anyone who left for reasons outside your control, like their company shutting down.

For one client, we interviewed customers who had churned from an upsell product. They had received a free year of an online service bundled with their main purchase, then got charged when the year ended. Every single person we spoke to was angry. They had low Net Promoter Scores and felt tricked.

But when I explained what the service actually did, they were surprised. They thought it sounded valuable. The problem was not the product. They did not know they had it. Nobody had activated them. Nobody had shown them the value during that free year.

That insight shaped the entire nurture flow for new customers. We built a sequence to ensure people knew about the service, used it, and understood the value before the renewal charge hit their card. Churn dropped significantly.

You cannot fix what you do not understand. Churned customer interviews tell you exactly where the experience broke down.

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You do not need your own customers to do valuable research. You can learn just as much by interviewing people who use competing products.

The dieting app example I mentioned earlier is the clearest case. Three WhatsApp groups, three competitor apps, three months of feedback. The insight that recipes did not matter came from people who had never heard of my colleague's company. They were using competitor products and sharing honest feedback because they had nothing to protect.

This approach works in B2B too. Find people on LinkedIn who work at companies you know use a competitor. Send a message explaining that you are doing market research and would love to understand what they value in their current solution. You are not selling. You are learning.

People say yes more often than you would expect. Being asked for your opinion feels good. And because you have no existing relationship, they are often more candid than your own customers would be.

The three groups map to the customer journey. Prospects who chose a competitor show you how you compare before the sale. Current customers show you what keeps people engaged. Churned customers show you where the experience fails.

Together, they give you the complete picture. What attracts people. What converts them. What retains them. What loses them.

Build your list before you start recruiting. Know exactly who you want to talk to and why. You are looking for four to twelve people total, spread across these three groups. That is enough to see patterns without drowning in data.