Like most people, sometimes I take for granted the experience and expertise that I bring to my work – specifically when conducting win/loss research interviews. I thought it would be helpful to deconstruct the elements of a great research interview for anyone who may be thinking of doing client interviews to update their understanding of their clients or target market.
The ingredients of a great research interview include:
- Being very clear about the objective of the interview, your role, and what happens with the information being gathered
- Scheduling the interview (vs. making it a cold call)
- Having a clear script to follow (which is focused on the key objectives) but being well-versed enough in the script to go with the flow when the interviewee jumps ahead to a different topic
- Ability to be conversational vs. conducting the interview like a verbal survey…people don’t want to feel interrogated!
- Having a deep enough orientation to the company/products/topic to be able to drill down for additional insights upon hearing key words or even just discerning a ‘tone’ that implies there is more information to be had
- Having the ability to adjust to the tone of your interviewee: if a person is more formal, you will converse differently than if they seem to be more familiar/informal
- Being able to focus on the most important questions if the interviewee is short on time
- Being able to create a short summary of the most important insights from each interview (for the person who doesn’t have the patience to read the entire transcript)
By making sure that you have the right people doing research interviews who can integrate the items above into their conversations with prospects and customers, you will get the maximum insights and participation.