Ask better questions in your first customer conversations

An encouraging conversation is not the same as evidence that somebody needs your service. Early customer discussions are more useful when you understand an actual situation before presenting your solution. Prepare a few questions that leave room for answers you did not expect.

Choose one uncertainty

Write down what you need to learn next. For a service helping small teams prepare project documents, the uncertainty might be where information becomes difficult to collect. That is more useful than asking whether people like a general idea about saving time.

Explain who you are, why you are asking and how you intend to use the answers. Let the other person decline questions and agree before recording anything. You can take brief notes without collecting personal information that has no purpose in the research.

Follow a recent example

Ask the person to describe the last relevant task they completed. Find out what started it, who participated and how they knew it was finished. The Government Digital Service recommends neutral questions and real examples in user interviews; apply that principle without treating the discussion as a sales script.

For the illustrative document service, you could ask which information arrived last, what happened next and how the team dealt with the missing part. Avoid proposing the answer inside the question. A request to describe an experience gives more room than asking whether a particular feature would be helpful.

Explore the decision around the work

A frustrating task does not automatically create a purchase. Ask how the person currently handles it, when they seek outside help and who participates in choosing a provider. Keep stated preferences separate from commitments somebody has actually made.

If you show a concept, label it clearly as a concept. Ask what the person thinks it would do before explaining every detail. Confusion about the offer is itself useful information, not a mistake to talk them out of immediately.

Review without counting compliments

Afterwards, separate observed examples, interpretations and open questions. Note both similarities and differences between conversations. Do not turn a small, self-selected group into a claim about the whole market.

Finish your review with a decision: change one part of the offer, investigate a different situation or test a narrower idea. A useful conversation should improve the next question, even when the answer is that your current proposal does not fit.

Sources: Government Digital Service: Using in-depth interviews.