In a recent webinar, we explored why many teams struggle to capture meaningful insights from their customer interviews and how to overcome it. The data was eye-opening: When asked about their teams' interview capabilities, most participants rated their expertise between 2-3 out of 10. This matches what we see across organizations — while everyone agrees customer input is crucial, few feel equipped to gather it effectively.

The three key challenges in customer research

1. Getting out of the building: Whether due to limited resources, unclear responsibilities, or simple reluctance, many teams struggle to initiate customer conversations. While some gatekeeping around customer access makes sense (especially in sales contexts), innovation teams need direct customer contact to succeed.
2. Unstructured interviews: Without a clear framework, interviews often become scattered conversations that yield few actionable insights. Teams need a structured approach to gather enough data to detect patterns and make informed decisions.‍
3. Extracting insights: Perhaps the most challenging aspect is turning customer conversations into clear, actionable insights that can drive decision-making. This becomes especially crucial when teams need to communicate findings to stakeholders.

A structured approach to customer understanding

One effective solution is to use the designed Customer Profile to conduct interviews. This method provides a clear framework for understanding customer jobs, pains, and gains while ensuring consistency across multiple interviews.

A Canadian consumer packaged goods company recently put this into practice. Their team, with no prior interview experience, conducted 20 customer profile interviews over several weeks. The results were striking: 91% of their initial assumptions about customer jobs needed revision, and 55% of their assumed customer pains were incorrect.

What made this approach effective was its structured nature. Rather than open-ended conversations, the team used a clear framework to:

• Map their initial understanding of customer needs
• Test these assumptions through structured interviews
• Track patterns and insights systematically
• Make evidence-based decisions about their innovation direction

Beyond basic interviews

While customer profile interviews provide an excellent foundation, they're not the only tool available. Other effective techniques include:

• Speedboat analysis: A visual technique where customers identify factors helping or hindering their progress toward goals
• Value scene mapping: Using visual scenarios to explore how solutions create value in specific contexts
• Card sorting: For prioritizing features or needs based on customer input

The key is matching the right technique to your specific learning objectives and stage of development.

Moving forward

For teams starting their customer discovery journey, here are three practical steps:

1. Start with a structured approach like Customer Profile interviews to build confidence and consistency
2. Analyze findings weekly rather than waiting for all interviews to be complete
3. Use visual techniques to deepen understanding of customer priorities and pain points

Remember, the goal isn't just to talk to customers — it's to gather actionable insights that can drive better innovation decisions.

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Cheating on customer discovery interviews is like cheating in your parachute packing class.”

Steve Blank

Entrepreneur & author

Ready to strengthen your team's customer discovery capabilities? Learn more about how our Innovation Management Platform can help structure and streamline your customer research process while ensuring you gather actionable insights that drive results.

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