Interview Customers About the Solution

You’ve already identified your customers’ problems and understand their importance. The next critical step is to design a solution that truly meets those needs. Customer interviews focused on your proposed solution help you refine the product and avoid building something that doesn’t meet expectations.

 

Why Solution Interviews Matter

Understanding the problem is not enough to guarantee success. You also need to find out how customers perceive your solution and whether they’d be willing to pay for it. Solution interviews can help answer questions like:

• How do you identify an early adopter?
• What are the minimum requirements for the launch version of the product?
• Are customers willing to pay for this solution?
• How much would they be willing to pay?

 

How to Conduct Solution Interviews

• Build a prototype or demo
• Give customers something tangible to react to. This doesn’t have to be a finished product — a simple prototype, mockup, or process diagram is enough to illustrate your concept.

• Find the right interviewees
• Talk to customers who match your target audience and who previously acknowledged the problem in earlier interviews. This ensures their feedback is relevant. Seek out both existing and new contacts.

• Prepare effectively
• Running Lean provides a script for solution interviews. Focus on questions that will help you improve your solution, such as:
• What do you think about this solution
• Which features are not essential?
• What features would you add?

• Take thorough notes
• Record not only what customers say but also their tone, body language, and reactions. Do they seem excited, skeptical, or indifferent? Running Lean even offers a note-taking template for consistency.

 

Does This Sound Time-Consuming?

Building a demo or prototype doesn’t need to take weeks. Jake Knapp’s Sprint methodology shows you can design, build, and test a prototype with customers in just five days. Unlike Sprint, however, Running Lean recommends interviewing at least 10 customers for a deeper analysis.