User interviews – how to get users to speak to you
Building the user interview pipeline with zero budget
"You have to speak to your customers," common wisdom says. Unfortunately, it's often easier said than done.
When we started emery.to, we repeated the usual path of many founders by interviewing friends and former colleagues first. This approach brought us some initial insights, but our circle was too homogenous – constituted of people with similar interests occupying similar roles in more or less similar companies. We wanted to learn about diverse opinions and various use cases, so we had to find people we didn't know who matched our ideal user profile. What was more challenging was persuading them to speak to us.
Though we didn't know how to do that, I knew people who did this for a living. I went to my former colleagues, UX researchers, and said, "Hey, I already know how to conduct my interviews; I just need to get people to speak to me." I still remember their laughter. Apparently, it wasn't "just" at all.
I learnt that companies often hire some agencies and pay about $100–$150 for an interview. Alternatively, you can offer some bonuses to your existing users. A $50 Amazon gift card seems to be the standard in B2C, but it may vary from industry to industry. Even with this offering, you usually get a 1–3% conversion rate. While these interview channels work for big companies, for a new company that can't afford an agency and has a small user base, it couldn't work.
We tried the gift card offering anyway and got 0 conversions from 50 emails.
The problem looked unsolvable until we realised we had to turn the tables. We shouldn't be the ones who "kindly ask" people to participate in user research for a reward. Rather, it should be the other way around, and our users should want to participate in our interviews for free (or even pay for them). There should be something in it for them (not a $50 bribe). The interview itself should be valuable.
This perspective helped us to find a solution. Instead of asking people to participate in user interviews, we offered "free sessions with a productivity coach". We integrated Calendly into our onboarding flow, and new users started scheduling these sessions right in the app.
Of course, we had to change the interview script and conduct coaching sessions instead. (I read a book on coaching right before the first sessions.) However, it made our interviews more personal and emotional. People told us about their personal situations (e.g., so many projects to juggle, negative feedback from the last performance review, lack of focus). We learnt how they felt, what was important to them, what motivated them, and what obstacles they faced in their personal effectiveness, as well as what they had tried already and what didn't stick.
Let's see how the same strategy can be applied to other products:
A dating app can offer a session to help users create their ideal profile under your guidance. You'll learn a lot about how people think of themselves, their dating image and how they understand your product.
A B2B global mobility company can offer a free call with their immigration lawyer to go through a compliance checklist and learn how the company currently manages working visas.
These are just a few examples demonstrating the application of the same principle in other domains. Building your interview pipeline around this idea can give you a steady stream of customer interviews with no efforts or dubious offerings.
I want to add a small caveat. This method works well for learning purposes but not for selling. Conversations about your customers and their situations will give you a lot of perspective on your product, but if you switch into a sales mode and start pitching, people will feel that you tricked them into a sales meeting. It'll kill any trust right away.