Customer Insight Gathering

One of the best conversion wins? Actually listening to your customers. It’s easy to get caught up in optimising buttons, headlines, and landing pages. But often, the real answers are already out there — if you know where to look. Last month, a founder I work with was stuck at a 2% conversion rate. Instead of diving straight into CRO tools, we did something simple: 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 15 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭. What we learned: 💡 Their biggest buying fear wasn’t addressed anywhere 💡 The pricing page created confusion rather than clarity 💡 The language on the site didn’t match how customers talked But we didn’t stop there. We also layered in 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 — pulling insights from reviews, competitor reviews, social posts, and forums — to add a broader view on top of the direct conversations. The result? Depth from interviews. Scale from social data. A full picture of what customers really needed. And after updating the messaging, 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 2% 𝐭𝐨 7.8%. No ad spend. No new tools. Just better understanding. Real growth starts when you stop guessing and start listening — properly. When’s the last time you checked not just what your customers say to you… but what they’re saying when they think you’re not listening? #CustomerInsights #GrowthStrategy #ConversionRateOptimisation

While it can be easily believed that customers are the ultimate experts about their own needs, there are ways to gain insights and knowledge that customers may not be aware of or able to articulate directly. While customers are the ultimate source of truth about their needs, product managers can complement this knowledge by employing a combination of research, data analysis, and empathetic understanding to gain a more comprehensive understanding of customer needs and expectations. The goal is not to know more than customers but to use various tools and methods to gain insights that can lead to building better products and delivering exceptional user experiences. ➡️ User Research: Conducting thorough user research, such as interviews, surveys, and observational studies, can reveal underlying needs and pain points that customers may not have fully recognized or articulated. By learning from many users, we gain holistic insights and deeper insights into their motivations and behaviors. ➡️ Data Analysis: Analyzing user data, including behavioral data and usage patterns, can provide valuable insights into customer preferences and pain points. By identifying trends and patterns in the data, product managers can make informed decisions about what features or improvements are most likely to address customer needs effectively. ➡️ Contextual Inquiry: Observing customers in their real-life environment while using the product can uncover valuable insights into their needs and challenges. Contextual inquiry helps product managers understand the context in which customers use the product and how it fits into their daily lives. ➡️ Competitor Analysis: By studying competitors and their products, product managers can identify gaps in the market and potential unmet needs that customers may not even be aware of. Understanding what competitors offer can inspire product improvements and innovation. ➡️ Surfacing Implicit Needs: Sometimes, customers may not be able to express their needs explicitly, but through careful analysis and empathetic understanding, product managers can infer these implicit needs. This requires the ability to interpret feedback, observe behaviors, and understand the context in which customers use the product. ➡️ Iterative Prototyping and Testing: Continuously iterating and testing product prototypes with users allows product managers to gather feedback and refine the product based on real-world usage. Through this iterative process, product managers can uncover deeper customer needs and iteratively improve the product to meet those needs effectively. ➡️ Expertise in the Domain: Product managers, industry thought leaders, academic researchers, and others with deep domain knowledge and expertise can anticipate customer needs based on industry trends, best practices, and a comprehensive understanding of the market. #productinnovation #discovery #productmanagement #productleadership

Stop sending surveys. Seriously. They're a bad habit that gives you polite, sanitized data, not real insights. I found a way to get a 78% response rate and honest feedback by doing the exact opposite of what every marketing book recommends. Here are 5 customer research methods that beat surveys every single time: 1) WhatsApp Voice Notes > Written Surveys: ↳ People speak faster than they type ↳ Emotion comes through in voice tone ↳ No survey fatigue Method: Send a voice note asking ONE specific question "Hey [Name], quick question - what made you choose us over [competitor]?" 2) Watch Usage > Ask About Usage: ↳ What people do ≠ what they say they do ↳ Behavior reveals truth, words reveal intentions Method: Screen recordings + heatmaps show reality Ask: "How often do you use feature X?" → They say "daily" Data shows: Last used 3 weeks ago 3) Churned Customer Calls > Happy Customer Testimonials: ↳ Satisfaction bias makes happy customers less honest ↳ Churned customers have nothing to lose Method: Call customers who cancelled in the last 30 days "What could we have done differently to keep you?" Most brutal, most valuable insights you'll get. 4) Social Media Stalking > Focus Groups: ↳ Real conversations happen on Twitter/LinkedIn ↳ Unfiltered opinions in natural settings Method: Search "[your brand] OR [competitor] OR [problem you solve]" People complaining/praising without knowing you're watching. 5) Customer Success Team Coffee Chats > Executive Surveys: ↳ Front-line teams hear the real feedback daily ↳ Filter gets removed when it's informal Method: Weekly coffee with CS/Sales teams "What are customers actually saying?" Not the sanitized feedback that reaches leadership. The Pattern I've Noticed: The closer you get to natural conversation, the better the insights. → Formal surveys = What customers think you want to hear → Informal chats = What customers actually think My personal favourite: Join Customer WhatsApp Groups/Communities- I have joined discord & reddit communities Don't moderate. Don't participate initially. Just observe. How they talk about problems. What words they use. Their real frustrations. Pure gold for messaging and positioning. The Reality:Most "customer insights" are actually "customer politeness." People won't tell you your product sucks on a formal survey. They will tell their friend on a WhatsApp call. Your job? Be the friend, not the survey. Which method are you going to try first?

Every PMM knows customer interviews matter. But most ask the wrong questions. Here’s the exact set I use to get buyer insights, not just user feedback: 👇 ✅ Background --> Tell me a bit about yourself and what you do. --> What is the goal of your [job, role, business]?  --> What does your day-to-day look like?  --> How do you keep up with industry trends in your field? --> What content do you consume, and what channel do you mostly use? ✅ Jobs-To-Be-Done --> What are some key challenges you have encountered in your job? --> What have you tried first to overcome the challenges?  --> What was the first time you thought: I need a new solution? --> What made you think that? [Probe here] --> What were you hoping to solve? What was the end game? ✅ Purchase decision --> How did you find out about our solution?  --> How long did it take for you to make a decision? At what point did you decide to purchase our solution? [try to understand the trigger event]  --> What were you looking to accomplish with the product? --> What pain were you looking to solve? --> What was the impression you had about the solution when you came across it?  --> Did you evaluate any other product or solution? --> Why did you choose our solution? --> Who is involved in the buying process? Who would you say is the final decision maker?  --> What were the most important factors you considered when purchasing a solution? ✅ Brand Perception --> Please describe the brand in 3 words - whatever comes to mind! --> If you were in charge of our company, what is one thing you'd change about the brand? --> Have you recommended our solution to anyone? If so, how and what did you say about us? ✅ Product --> Describe our solution in your own words - what is it? --> How would you feel if our solution went away tomorrow? --> What would you do if our solution went away tomorrow? --> Paint me a picture: how are you using our solution? Think of a recent specific time or two: what were you doing?   --> What specific functionalities do you find the most valuable/use the most often? --> What do you love about our solution?  --> What impact has our solution had on your work? --> Who would you say uses our solution the most in your team? How often do you use it?  --> What functionalities are not working well for you?  --> What is missing from our solution if anything? --> What other tools or platforms do you use alongside our solution to run or otherwise support you and your business? --> Under what circumstances, if any, would you switch to a different solution? ---- In summary, Great customer interviews start with open-ended questions, follow up on what’s interesting, and save talking about your product for last. That’s how you get the insights that help you refine your personas, shape messaging, and potentially help guide product direction. ❓ I am curious, what's your go-to question? #productmarketing #customer #interviews #coaching

Drawing from years of my experience designing surveys for my academic projects, clients, along with teaching research methods and Human-Computer Interaction, I've consolidated these insights into this comprehensive guideline. Introducing the Layered Survey Framework, designed to unlock richer, more actionable insights by respecting the nuances of human cognition. This framework (https://lnkd.in/enQCXXnb) re-imagines survey design as a therapeutic session: you don't start with profound truths, but gently guide the respondent through layers of their experience. This isn't just an analogy; it's a functional design model where each phase maps to a known stage of emotional readiness, mirroring how people naturally recall and articulate complex experiences. The journey begins by establishing context, grounding users in their specific experience with simple, memory-activating questions, recognizing that asking "why were you frustrated?" prematurely, without cognitive preparation, yields only vague or speculative responses. Next, the framework moves to surfacing emotions, gently probing feelings tied to those activated memories, tapping into emotional salience. Following that, it focuses on uncovering mental models, guiding users to interpret "what happened and why" and revealing their underlying assumptions. Only after this structured progression does it proceed to capturing actionable insights, where satisfaction ratings and prioritization tasks, asked at the right cognitive moment, yield data that's far more specific, grounded, and truly valuable. This holistic approach ensures you ask the right questions at the right cognitive moment, fundamentally transforming your ability to understand customer minds. Remember, even the most advanced analytics tools can't compensate for fundamentally misaligned questions. Ready to transform your survey design and unlock deeper customer understanding? Read the full guide here: https://lnkd.in/enQCXXnb #UXResearch #SurveyDesign #CognitivePsychology #CustomerInsights #UserExperience #DataQuality

A Whirlpool researcher walked into a customer’s home and found her dryer raised up on cinderblocks.   She had done it to stop bending and stooping every time she reached in. A crude, resourceful fix for a real, daily strain — and one she likely never would not have mentioned in a survey, because she had already solved the problem herself and stopped thinking of it as a problem at all.   That stack of cinderblocks became the Duet pedestal. The customer had designed it, in concrete, without knowing she had. Someone just had to be standing in her laundry room to see it.   My latest article is about why that matters — and why the most valuable insight in innovation is so often the one a customer never says out loud.   Ask a customer a question and you get the story they tell about themselves: filtered through memory, self-image, and a real wish to be helpful. Watch a customer and you get the behavior itself. The gap between the two is where a surprising number of good ideas fall apart.   I look at two companies that learned this the hard way and the useful way:   — Febreze, a product that worked and still nearly failed, until someone stopped asking and started watching. Proof that it is never too late to observe.   — Whirlpool, where a workaround on cinderblocks became a product line. Proof that it is never too early.   Both are enormous companies with research budgets most of us can only envy. Their best insights still came from the same place: a person physically present, watching someone do something they never described. The breakthrough did not come from the budget. It came from the decision to leave the building.   Observation reveals what conversation conceals. It is more revealing than conversation because it uncovers the key unarticulated, often inarticulable insight that drives successful innovation.   The encouraging part: that intelligence is not bought with money. It is bought with attention — a few hours, a real setting, and the willingness to watch instead of ask.   So, before your next launch, one question is worth sitting with: you have almost certainly asked your customers what they want. But have you watched them — and what might they be showing you, in cinderblocks and cleaning rituals, that they will never think to say?   I would like to hear the workarounds you have seen a customer build that turned out to be the product.   #ContextualIntelligence #Innovation #CustomerInsight #ProductDevelopment #VoiceOfCustomer

Sales BANNED product managers from talking to customers. Sounds insane, right? But it happens all the time. I once worked with a product manager who never talked to customers. Not because they didn’t want to—because they weren’t allowed to. ❌ "We already know what customers want." ❌ "You’ll slow down the deal." ❌ "Just read our notes." So they built features based on secondhand feedback. Guess what happened? Most of them flopped. PMs don’t fail because they’re bad at their job. They fail because they’re set up to fail. How do you fix this? Here’s what actually works: 🚀 1. Reframe the conversation—Make it THEIR win, not yours. -> Sales and CS think PMs will waste their time. -> Instead of asking for access, show how you make their job easier. -> Example: “I want to refine our onboarding flow so Sales closes faster. Can I sit in on a few calls to hear what’s blocking conversions?” 💡 Make them see customer conversations as an advantage, not a burden. 🎯 2. Find your "backdoor" to customers. If direct calls are off-limits, use other channels to gather raw insights: -> Customer Support tickets – Look for recurring frustrations. -> Win/loss interviews – If Sales does these, join them. -> Onboarding sessions – Where do customers struggle early? -> LinkedIn & social media – Customers vent online. Engage. -> Exit surveys – Why do churned users leave? 💡 The best PMs don’t wait for permission—they find ways to listen. 🔥 3. Start with high-impact, low-friction wins. Big requests (e.g., “Let me interview 20 customers”) get rejected. Instead, start small: -> “Can I shadow 1-2 calls this week?” -> “Can I review support chats and flag insights for you?” -> “Can I debrief with you after big calls?” 💡 Small wins build trust. Trust builds access. 📊 4. Prove impact—Show how PM insights drive results. -> Track how customer conversations lead to better product decisions. -> Example: “After shadowing calls, we fixed [X issue], which increased conversions by 15%.” vThe more success stories you share, the more buy-in you get. 💡 If they see a direct business impact, they’ll want you talking to customers MORE. Final thought The best teams don’t block customer access—They make it a priority. 🚨 Save this for the next time someone says “just read the notes.” — 👋 I'm Ron Yang, a product leader and advisor. Follow me for insights on product strategy + leadership.

So far this week, I’ve already talked to 15 customers. Not QBRs. Not escalations. Not renewal negotiations. Just conversations. And honestly, it’s one of the highest ROI activities on my calendar. As Customer Success leaders, we spend a lot of time looking at dashboards, health scores, NPS, product analytics, churn reports, and executive updates. Those are all valuable, but none of them replace hearing directly from the people using your product every day. The best customer insights rarely come from a spreadsheet. They come from curiosity. When I meet with customers, I try to keep the conversation simple. I ask questions. Then I listen. Then I ask deeper questions. Why is that important? What’s causing that challenge? How are you solving it today? What would success actually look like? What happens if you don’t solve it? Eventually the conversation shifts. You’re no longer talking about features. You’re talking about their business. Their priorities. Their pressure. Their goals. That’s where the real learning begins. Some of the biggest opportunities I’ve uncovered didn’t come from someone asking for a feature. They came from understanding the problem they were actually trying to solve. Those conversations have influenced product direction, improved onboarding, changed the way we measure success, created new services, uncovered expansion opportunities, and even shaped our messaging. Every customer conversation is market research. Every question is an opportunity to learn something your competitors probably don’t know. But here’s the important part. Don’t go into these conversations looking to validate what you already believe. Go in hoping to be proven wrong. The leaders who learn the fastest are the ones who stay curious the longest. If you’re leading a Customer Success organization, block time on your calendar every single week to simply talk to customers. Sometimes the fastest way to move your company forward isn’t another strategy meeting. It’s one more conversation with a customer. The other bonus is when you have awesome customers like Brian Murphy who make AI images for you at the start of the call :)

I had a call with a YC founder building a billion-dollar company in an AI-native way, and he phrased the new world pretty well. The simplest path to building a $1B+ company? It's not fundraising. It's not team building. It's not even product. It's collecting insights before you need capital. Here's what most founders miss: 1/ The biggest mistake founders make: Raising millions before understanding their market. A YC founder who's building a unicorn told me: "The only thing lacking from building a large company isn't money - it's insights." Here's why this matters: 2/ The landscape has changed dramatically: • AWS made infrastructure cheap • No-code tools reduced dev costs • AI accelerated development • Remote work lowered overhead Result? You need 90% less capital than 10 years ago to start. 3/ But here's what hasn't changed: You still need deep market insights to win. Look at the most successful founders: • Brian Chesky (Airbnb) - Lived the problem • Patrick Collison (Stripe) - Felt the pain firsthand • Tobi Lütke (Shopify) - Built for his own needs 4/ The modern playbook is backwards: ❌ Raise millions ❌ Hire a team ❌ Then figure it out ✅ Gather insights ✅ Test assumptions ✅ Build minimal solution ✅ Let customers pull you forward 5/ How to become an insight-gathering machine: • Talk to 100 potential customers • Join industry Discord servers • Attend niche conferences • Follow practitioners, not influencers • Build side projects in your space 6/ The math of insights: • Every conversation = 1 new insight • Every insight = 10% better product • Every improvement = 2x easier sale • Every sale = 3 more conversations It compounds rapidly. 7/ Signs you have enough insights: • You can predict customer objections • You know the market size firsthand • You understand why others failed • You have customers asking to pay 8/ The secret most founders miss: Money amplifies execution. But insights determine direction. Without insights, more money just helps you go in the wrong direction faster. 9/ Your first job as a founder: Become the most knowledgeable person in your space. Not through: • Reading blogs • Watching videos • Following trends But through: • Direct conversations • Real experiments • Hands-on experience The answer to the "What's your insight" question is worth millions.

As an analyst, I was intrigued to read an article about Instacart's innovative "Ask Instacart" feature integrating chatbots and chatgpt, allowing customers to create and refine shopping lists by asking questions like, 'What is a healthy lunch option for my kids?' Ask Instacart then provides potential options based on user's past buying habits and provides recipes and a shopping list once users have selected the option they want to try! This tool not only provides a personalized shopping experience but also offers a gold mine of customer insights that can inform various aspects of a business strategy. Here's what I inferred as an analyst : 1️⃣ Customer Preferences Uncovered: By analyzing the questions and options selected, we can understand what products, recipes, and meal ideas resonate with different customer segments, enabling better product assortment and personalized marketing. 2️⃣ Personalization Opportunities: The tool leverages past buying habits to make recommendations, presenting opportunities to tailor the shopping experience based on individual preferences. 3️⃣ Trend Identification: Tracking the types of questions and preferences expressed through the tool can help identify emerging trends in areas like healthy eating, dietary restrictions, or cuisine preferences, allowing businesses to stay ahead of the curve. 4️⃣ Shopping List Insights: Analyzing the generated shopping lists can reveal common item combinations, complementary products, and opportunities for bundle deals or cross-selling recommendations. 5️⃣ Recipe and Meal Planning: The tool's integration with recipes and meal planning provides valuable insights into customers' cooking habits, preferred ingredients, and meal types, informing content creation and potential partnerships. The "Ask Instacart" tool is a prime example of how innovative technologies can not only enhance the customer experience but also generate valuable data-driven insights that can drive strategic business decisions. A great way to extract meaningful insights from such data sources and translate them into actionable strategies that create value for customers and businesses alike. Article to refer : https://lnkd.in/gAW4A2db #DataAnalytics #CustomerInsights #Innovation #ECommerce #GroceryRetail