Welcome to empathy deployed the podcast where you can experience an example customer interview. Every week. You'll discover new perspectives on different software products and improve your customer interview technique. As I attempt to do the same. I'm Jonathan Markwell and this episode is a little different. Morgan Williams approached me to ask if he could interview me about my experience. At customer interviews. I responded that I'd be happy to.
But it might be fun if we recorded it for this podcast. Morgan agreed. So here's the interview
good. See Jonathan, how you doing?
Good. Hi, Morgan.
I want you to jump straight in and really just get a little bit of background about yourself, kind of what you're up to. So if you're able to share that, that'd be a fantastic way to sort of kick things
off. Okay. Um, uh, I guess I do, um, Ferris different things. Um, I'm best known for running a coworking space, uh, in Brighton, which is 13 years old. Um, and, um, has a little over a hundred members. Um, these days. And there's a sort of very much sort of member run focused on, on individuals.
Uh, but, um, sort of before that and alongside that, um, I've been very into, um, developing web software, um, built some own, uh, software and service businesses and, um, worked on a, on a bunch of other people's. Over the years. Uh, and, um, and I understand you're, you're interested in talking to me, um, for my interest in customer interviews and experience in doing that.
And, uh, so I've realized over the years, customer interviews, um, have been particularly important to a lot of the more successful, um, businesses I've worked on. And I realized that, um, recently I want to get better at that. Hence starting.
And at the moment you're saying, is you just doing the podcast at the moment alongside the sort of coworking space?
Uh, yeah, I mean, the coworking spaces are very part-time as a bit of a labor of love to be honest, um, uh, venture. Um, and my, my main gig is, uh, is consulting for different, um, relatively small SAS businesses. So I mostly work with B2B software service businesses that are under 1 million. Um, Okay. Okay.
Fair. Um, at the moment, what were the sort of the three things you've got going on at the moment? Um, do you conduct, or, so you do collect any feedback from your customers at the moment or users or from, uh, the people that you
do consulting work for? Yeah. So, um, it's fairly informal with members of the skiff coworking space. Um, I tried to talk to a couple of members every week. Um, I kind of felt I should probably do that. Um, a bit more formally to, um, the, uh, with my consulting clients. Um, I've increasingly be doing, um, customer interviews with their customers. Um, uh, so I usually conduct the interview. Often with them on the call as well.
Um, and, um, so sort of help them get into the practice, uh, uh, turn around six of those, uh, I think this year, um, need to do more. Um, and, um, and I've done about six of my own for a few different things earlier in the year. Um, for. Exploring some stuff around potential software products. Um, oh, and actually there, I've done another five with another client, um, as well this year.
So I'm trying to get into the habit of doing it quite a lot with clients, um, and some of their customers more into it than.
And besides user interviews, do you do any other forms of sort of feedback collection, whether it could be surveys, uh, NPS, um, anything like that or some sort of user
Intercom widget? Yeah, I've done a lot of surveys in a cost, um, in particular, uh, MPS, um, based ones. I've had a lot of good experience with I've tried. Do that less. So more recently. Um, uh, so yeah, I've, there's, there's various first kinds of, I think I've sent out this year. I think surveys that I've probably reached about three or 4,000. People over about three different or four different surveys. And I've got a couple more that I'm hoping to get out before the end of the year. Okay.
And is there any reason why you do those? I actually, why you're signed to do them as often.
Yeah. So, um, I'm trying to understand, um, what, what customers want and, and that's some, um, I have a few different kinds of surveys that I do. Uh, so, um, Often I'll start with, um, an NPS style survey and it's not, I don't use the MPS question so much, um, now, but I lost a question that's easy to answer. Um, it could be a yes, no, maybe question or it could be on some kind of scale and then followed that with a followup question.
Um, primarily to get the follow-up, uh, um, And, uh, and so I can get a, get a bit of qualitative data on what's on their mind. Um, what's um, about in the context of the product, um, or business, um, that we're talking about, uh, and see if there are any things, um, that come out. But, uh, and then, um, I'll either take that and use that as a reason to talk to them more in a customer interview.
Um, okay. Uh, and I, I that's my preferred approach now is to sort of, especially when there's a lot of customers use a very short survey as a way to sort of start a conversation with someone. And then, um, see if a reply to that. I can turn into a, uh, a customer interviewer and I can get a lot of a richer set of information, um, from him or from them. Um, and then the third approach is to do, uh, which I've jumped to before.
Um, trying to, um, hold off on the longer survey, not, not super long, but maybe sort of eight to 10 questions. Um, Trying to add a sort of quality quantitative dimension to what I've learned from customer survey.
Um, what was the reason for stopping the sort of long form
surveys? Um, it's not, it's not that I've stopped them. It's just that I felt I should always do at least, um, uh, you know, reasonable number of customer interviews, burst, um, before jumping into. Um, into, into surveys because people don't like doing surveys, don't get many responses from them. And so the more the survey is built to what, you know, to some things that we've heard directly from customers. Um, the better.
So for example, uh, I quite like having questions, um, asking things like what's most important, um, T um, either in terms of your business goal with this product or in terms of the next, um, Product, uh, the next feature that we should work on. Um, and ideally I'd like a list of things that I've already heard in using words that customers have used in each of those lists. And then people choose the most important and least important from that list. And that gives us the, um, quantitative.
I mentioned. Okay, fine.
So, correct me if I'm wrong. It's mainly using kind of the surveys has that, um, initial, let's almost validate, who's willing to at least respond to a survey and then using them as almost like a funnel to funnel down to people where we can then say, Hey, look, these people responded, let's try and get them onto a, more of a customer user interviews to get some deeper insights from them, kind of that roughly.
Yeah. Well, if the two surveys tie this very short form survey definitely has that approach and sort of a way, an easy way to open a conversation, um, with, with, with people. Um, and in some cases, filter, um, to people that are happy or not happy, um, maybe say in the past one of use NPS, um, we might specifically, uh, try and.
Um, a number of people that gave us a 10 and maybe also we decide we don't always talk to the, the less happy people because, um, like I've often found it better to focus on the people that are happy and sort of build on that. Um, and also they're more willing to, to talk. Um, that's when. Things are going relatively well for those products, by the way.
So if, if there is some growth or if most people are coming back as, as positive, not focusing too much on the, on the people that run are unhappy. So yeah, I guess
it's always harder to reach out to people that don't seem very positive about the product experience or whatnot and asking them for more time.
Um,
really why do you do customer interviews then? Um, or at least prioritize those above all the other different feedback then.
Uh, just that the amount I learned from a customer interview is so much more, um, I can, uh, you know, I, uh, I guess the, uh, go the, the name of the, of the, of the podcast, um, kinds of says in empathy deployed, um, I'm trying to empathize with people and really make sure that. Um, where we're creating something that fits their, um, uh, their needs. And we've been in with their worldview and their perspective on things, making sure it's, um, the product for them.
If, if they're the right customer, For us. Um, so I guess, yeah, sometimes you might, there are customer interviews where your, um, and it's only through the customer interview that you realize maybe this person isn't the right person to be a customer as well. Um, which doesn't always come through in a customer survey. Um, uh, and so if you've got that richer, um, view of them, you can then, uh, decide how much weight to give, um, The their responses, um, in, in that interview as well.
Okay. Found what's your process by the way, for actually conducting user interviews. And that can be sort of from know early stage, how do we identify who to interview through to actually conducting it and then all the way out to the other side of analyzing, how does that entire process
look for you? Uh, it's a, it's evolving a lot. Um, in this year I've been actually taking time to learn. More about it. Um, uh, and, um, I'm, I'm really treating, um, Michelle Hanson's book, uh, deploy empathy as a guide to me. Um, and I'm trying to sort of get good at the preface, a little, the practices that are in there, but obviously merging it with some of the things, um, that, that I also do. Um, so my.
Process is, um, uh, my, I guess let's just take my most recent, um, uh, larger scale, um, process of a client. As an example, we did, um, a survey asking, um, one multiple choice, um, question, um, And, uh, in that case, this was for a developer tool. And so we asked, um, which stack they're using. So something really easy that they can answer. So using Ruby PIF and JavaScript, um, cause it's very difficult for us to see from, from our EDS. And it impacts a lot on what work that we do.
So just getting that as a, um, one data point before it would definitely be useful. And then follow it up, um, with, um, question. I can't remember exactly what that question was. Um, But it was something, um, uh, like what maybe what do you value most about the product? Um, and we would then, and, and, and, and a final question as well. Is there anything else that you'd like to say?
And so that just gives us a bit of, um, Uh, view on customers and then we could use that to follow up and say, well, we want to make sure we get a good range of people using different, um, platforms, uh, for the, uh, for, for some customer interviews. Um, and because we had a little bit of information from the survey, we can make each email to them personal. So then it would be a personal email to each one. Um, rather than any boat kind of email to invite them to, uh, an, uh, an interview.
Um, and we also added an incentive preemptively, um, just because we felt. From previous knowledge of how that audience, um, works with that particular product. Um, we thought it'd be quite difficult to get that time. Um, and developers, uh, um, you know, I don't love getting on phone calls as well. Um, and also develop as a relative relative well-paid.
So we didn't think we could give them a direct financial, uh, incentive since these are all customers, by the way that we're focusing on, rather than people that have been in trouble. Whatever. And so we, um, we offered, uh, to make a donation to a charity or cause if they, if they choice, um, uh, and, um, yeah, they, they, they appreciate that.
Not sure how much it helped, but it felt good to everybody, I guess, and, and, uh, got to support quite a wide range of, um, different causes on the way. Um, Uh, but yes, it will be, get them, get them to call. And, um, I used a script, very similar to the, um, script and, um, deploy, uh, empathy, um, for, uh, for, uh, for a customer, an existing customer. Oh,
by the way, the, uh, the sort of incentive, the charity theme. That's brilliant. I really liked that. Um, I might even try and test that well, what's the results like of that compared to maybe a different incentive you used before,
or just no incentive? Uh, I don't have data really to compare. Um, I know that, you know, it felt, it felt better, everyone. Um, you know, we got some really good feedback on doing it. Um, and the people that we. Uh, some of the charities that people picked it, you know, they just had a donation form, but some of them, we had to approach to be able to make the donation and they loved it as well.
So, um, uh, yeah, so it was, it just felt much more, um, uh, much nicer, I think, all around compared to, to an Amazon voucher. Um, and a couple of people we spoke to were saying, like, usually with these things, they get offered in an Amazon voucher and it's like, I don't need an Amazon voucher. I just charged. Books that I buy to my company or, you know, yeah. No, that's
pretty. Yeah. As soon as you said that, I thought I caught us. That's that's a real nice and creative way of approaching it. Um, just getting back to the process you spoke all the way out to, or kind of getting on the call. What about afterwards in terms of what do you do when you, or what's your process when you've got the, you conducted the interview? What did you do with that information afterwards?
Uh, so. Never able to take notes during an interview. So I always ask permission to record. Unfortunately, every one of them has, um, uh, been, been happy with me to, to record, uh, and ask permission to share that internally, as I say, with some recent customer interviews, the, um, my client's been on the call at the same time, but he wasn't able to make all of them. And so, um, I would share it with them. Um, I think the, I was mostly doing those interviews via zoom.
Um, and so hitting the record button in zoom, once they're happy for me to hit record, and then I share the recordings via Google drive. Um, and the, so my process, um, then is that I I'll always, I'm not going to jump to any conclusions just from that first, um, run through. I'll always go. Uh, and, um, and rewatch them, uh, and I've used, um, descript, uh, to help turn the interviews into textual, um, documents. Uh, and, um, yeah, now. Right.
Write some notes, um, to, to, to pull out some of the key things from, from those we realized, um, uh, with those customer interviews that we did, we're really lucky. We had some. Well, you could say lucky, maybe not lucky, but everyone was really happy customers. Um, there wasn't that feedback loop didn't really exist that much for that company.
So it was wonderful to hear all the, all the good things, but it also provided an opportunity to, um, uh, to, to use some of that material potentially to create testimonials, um, so that we could get some of their voice onto the, onto the website as well. Um, my mate actually, uh, uh, An error, um, with one of the early interviews, um, in that I went back to the interviewee with my notes and I'd written the notes.
Uh, Pure's something that was quite sort of case study or testimonial and my probably more, more marketing orientate it than, than really, um, Uh, it w it was capturing the situation, but, um, I think it felt a bit much for the, for the person that they didn't want that to be something that was in public, the way that they had described that some of the problems that they, they had experienced. Uh, and so I D I didn't really.
Handle that so well, whereas the others I've kind of asked at the end, if they'd be happy to it, especially if it's been a very positive interview, if they'd be happy to, um, to have a testimonial, especially when some of them are sort of gushing in the interview and really wants to say how happy they were. Anyway, they kind of, it was very easy for the, you know, it was obviously they won, they would be happy to do that.
And, and, uh, and they wanted to, and so, um, we were able to turn a lot of those into, um, testimonials as well as giving us, um, good insight into things that they'd like us to focus on, um, working on.
I found it was quite nice. Yeah. I guess that's the upside of having positive, positive customers. You can spin each one into a testimonial, I guess that's the sort of inner entrepreneur and you're trying to look for there and opportunities to find
some social proof. Yeah. The kits, I think, is a mistake for me to focus too much on it. Especially with that early one in that, um, it kind of bias. Perspective. Like if I, if that's what I'm trying to get, I might not hear the things that I need to hear. Um, some I'm sort of, I'm conscious of that.
And especially as it could, um, You know, have a, have a negative impact on particularly worried about that, that customer, um, that, that was put out by what we came back with because it sort of negates any benefit of listening to them. Um, and obviously the, the main thing that, um, you know, the most important thing about customer interviews is just listening to people, not trying to, you know, get some benefit, like a testimonial.
Out of it is trying to understand what their perspective really is. Um, and, uh, yeah. And then being able to feed that back into making the product better for them, rather than making your business more money by using them. Um, it's not, you know, everyone wants to be doing,
yeah. I guess that comes back down to the sort of empathy thing. Doesn't it. As opposed to thinking about what can I get out of the interview? Yeah, I'm just pulling up on the process then. Uh, and you touched a little bit on the, kind of, one of the pains there, but how did you actually, how'd you find you the entire process for conducting use of interviews? You know, any pains problems or, um, you know, on the other side, is there anything you particularly enjoy?
Uh, I, I guess I struggle with lots of it, which is why I've started this podcast to try and get myself into more of a habit of doing it. Um, it's, you know, my, uh, my default preference isn't to talk to people, um, to go out of my way to talk to people, uh, a lot. Um, I, uh, Prefer a day spent with my heading code or that's what I would choose, um, beforehand. So I, you know, I had some anxiety in the run-up to, uh, to interviews.
Um, I, you know, I, I prefer an interview where I can the, the time between, um, planning it and then, uh, it happening is very short, which actually this kind of was today, um, in terms of finding this specific time, and I'm not sort of.
Um, so much, uh, then when it comes into the practicalities of it, something I've struggled with, which is maybe, well, actually it's been a situation with, with within two years that I've been doing, not for podcasts, but having audio trouble, especially because I'm not replying, not relying on notes. I am relying on the quality of the audio and I've had some customers where there's been some background noise has been so bad that it's been difficult for me even to listen to it. Oh, really?
Uh, and so yeah, getting, getting the audio quality. Um, good. Um, uh, and then just getting, I think practice, it's just getting past the awkwardness of, uh, starting the, um, The conversation, but I tell you what, after I always, even though it's, it's quite painful for me to start and to, to get into it. Um, afterwards I always feel very good about it.
I mean, especially when it's talking to someone, that's very happy about the tool that they're using have not had many, um, interviews with people that are. Um, unhappy or angry, um, about, about something. Um, so, uh, you know, here, it would be useful for me to have that experience at some point, but on the whole, I, um, come away quite energized from having the conversation hearing from, um, uh, hearing from people and hearing new.
Yeah, I guess when speaking to a sort of happy customers, always quite, quite, quite pumping or rewarding, at least coming away from, uh, from speaking to them, I just wanted to jump into soapstone about a little bit more on the specifics of the different parts of the process.
You spoke about kind of using that survey initially to, um, sort of almost like a feeler to see if there's anyone out there that's kind of wanting to answer a little survey and using them sort of filter down and, and approach them with the user interview. Um, how'd you find the process of actually finding those specific people, um, to reach out to in terms of the survey. Um, kind of email that she
sent out. Yeah. And the surveys, um, I've done, uh, I've initially focused on customer paying customers. Um, and in the case of a client, which hadn't thousands of customers, uh, I think we chose a fairly random sample of a couple of hundred to do, uh, an initial, um, send to before going to the whole, um, audience of customers again, um, rather than the young customers, just so that we could make sure there wasn't anything really stupid, that was wrong with the survey that we hadn't spotted.
Um, Uh, but we, um, really this, the surveys then what would use to segment further, even in either in terms of the fact that they replied a tool or, um, uh, or in terms of what they, what they responded with. Um, but I don't, um, I haven't done anything specific, uh, to. Target people for customer interviews beyond that, um, have thought about it. Uh, um, but often I, yeah, I mean, there's two challenges with targeting it.
More one is I can bias it towards, you know, the, the well-known companies, um, that, uh, It would be really great to get a testimonial from, and that it's, uh, you know, then it's biasing the interview somewhat from there because I'm focused too much on, on that. Um, uh, um, I've forgotten what the other I'm aware I was going to do. I mean, it could be based on how long they've been customers or, or how much, um, how much they spent, uh, consider doing that.
But the main issue is that, uh, the response rate isn't always that high, um, unless their customers, because they, these are, I should also say, um, At difference. If I did this with this gift going. The coworking space. Um, I run, it would be different, but with the B2B SAS that I work on, which have mostly very low touch customers, um, uh, the response rate is quite low.
Um, anyway, uh, and so you can't be that picky, um, when you've only got a couple of hundred customers, uh, and you're, and you're trying to get another customer and three, I find it quite hard to, um, To convince them, um, although to be fair, we've not actually gone wide with that, um, incentives that we tried with the. With the smaller group. Um, right. So still landing on that. And
I presume that's kind of this survey sent out via email or was it in,
in software? Oh, that's email, email. Yeah.
And really. How much time I'm going to guess. It might be quite difficult for you, especially from the consulting side of things, because I guess you have consulting for a company. Um, but you might know, I mean, how much time and sort of money maybe on a weekly or monthly basis, are you or the companies themselves putting into getting feedback from customers? Um, you know, that could be all feedback methods. Um, user interviews, NPS surveys.
Um, some of the smaller customers I work with, although we try to get into a habit of doing it, it's, it's probably a quarterly, um, exercise on the best case, um, rather than an ongoing, um, Process.
There is no exception to that, which I'm mentioning a minute, but with the people that, um, where we're looking at doing this quarterly, um, just because we've got where we're sort of being generous and doing lots of different things, um, So we might send out a survey and then have a try and have a week or two of, uh, interviews.
Um, I guess the cost there is to combination of the incentives and, um, my time and that, um, eclipses any other costs, like having software and things that we're using that might be 50 or a hundred dollars. Um, Uh, that we pay for. Um, but, um, uh, we probably spent over a thousand dollars on incentives last time and, uh, a multiple of my time, um, on that, especially when, uh, uh, you know, it's probably about 50% of my attention when we're doing it.
Um, Uh, 50% of my attention with that client. So it might be up to a week of my time solidly,
sorry, for both of your time and for the sort of thousand pounds worth of incentives per quarter,
you'd say, uh, yeah, I mean, we, we could probably, it depends how we adjust the incentives. We went quite high. This was $100. Or a hundred pounds incentive. I think we went probably pounds for people in the UK, um, mix of us, UK and Europe. Um, and, uh, yeah, but the, the incentive was probably, um, you know, 20% of the costs. Um,
and then the time you said that's a sort of a week's worth of your time per quarter for that one specific customer. Is that, is that correct?
Yeah, I reckon that's probably about right solid week. Obviously it would be spread. Yeah.
Perfect. Um, and really just wanted to actually take it back a little bit. Um, sort of go a bit more fundamental. We've done. We dived a lot into sort of a user interview specifically. Um, but it'd be great to understand that. Kind of what your biggest problems at the moment with actually providing that consultancy service to those companies, anything that jumps to mind about kind of the process that you carry out with them, or just the general work that you do with them?
Um, they're all different. Um, uh, I guess one challenge is some of those companies have. Send regular emails or they'll have phases where they're doing an email campaign over a few weeks. And when that's the case, it's a challenge to. Uh, do a survey and do a series of customer interviews, um, in that same window of time, um, because they don't want to overwhelm customers with, um, with emails.
And I don't want to send different emails with different messages from the same, same company at the same, same time as well. So, uh, that can be. I checked that can just then put things back by a month. And so we don't get around to doing it when we initially wanted to do it. Um, I can be a challenge. Okay. Uh, and I guess, um, Yeah, it would be, it would be neat to have it all a bit more, um, on autopilot.
Like, I, I like the idea of there always being customer interview scheduled every week and they just happen and it's as a, as an ongoing process rather than being, um, something that ends up getting bunched up into a quarterly thing. Um, Yeah. And, um, you know, we started to look at some ideas for, for getting that into place, but it's just. Changing habits really, to, to make that happen. Um, and what,
what did you look into after
curiosity? Um, uh, I guess when I say look into, I mean, more think about and talk and say, should we do it this way? Um, Uh, and, um, yeah, again, it's different, whether there's a discipline of sending regular emails, um, to customers anyway, or, or asking them, um, uh, questions, um, if there's no habit of that, that, that already exists or no process for doing that, then, um, yeah, it's working out how that fits in.
That you know, is, uh, as a, as a sort of project, but, um, there've always been more urgent and important things. I think that we've ended up working on instead. Um,
uh, and the sort of, I mean, you've pretty much just said it, that what's the reason as to why you're not doing it on a consistent basis and are doing it on a quarterly basis.
Um, Uh, I guess actually the prudent way to think about it is it, like we know that doing customer interviews and serving customers is good for the company in the long-term. And we learned from, from a little bit from each one, um, but it doesn't solve an immediate pain. Um, and so, uh, Yeah. So it's, uh, it's difficult to, to justify doing it every week. And it's why I've not got into the habit of doing it myself.
It's like something I know I should be doing is like a vitamin, I guess, but it doesn't solve an immediate pain for me now, but it might solve a pain for me in six months if I've been doing it for the last six months. Um, so, um, so it's probably that we think about it like that. Uh,
how about in terms of sort of time and energy and resources, does that play a factor in it at all?
Yeah, I think, um, it's, uh, it's a project, not a task. Um, uh, and, and so there's because there's lots of different things, uh, to do. Um, and, uh, there are always many things to do. It's just, it's just difficult to, um, to prioritize it. Uh, uh, because it's not, it doesn't feel like it's a simple thing.
Um, I guess actually, probably going back to one of your earlier questions, um, a challenge in figuring out what the simplest next task is is, is just, you know, maybe if it was, if there was a list of people and I knew the next person that I was just going to send an email to another task, and there was a good reason for it being that person that might take, um, Make it make it easier, um, in some way, because there isn't, you know, oh, we've got to send
an email to everybody and make sure that fits within any other communications, which is, which are going out. Um, and, uh, yeah, whereas if it's just a single email to one person, it doesn't maybe feel like it's bigger, a bigger job to do. Okay.
Awesome. Yeah. That's everything for me that was really, really useful insight.
No problem. Happy to help.
Did you have any questions yourself by the way, just out of any of those, if you wanted to share,
uh, I'm curious about where, how you've come around to exploring this, um, Area. Um, I have you, have you conducted many customer interviews in the past? Have you worked in this field? Um,
yeah, I mean, I have to share sort of how almost the, how I got here, um, which I guess is, uh, somewhat of a story. Um, actually myself and my co-founder at the moment who is also my co-founder and our previous business. Um, we may be waiting. Way too long to conduct user interviews, maybe at least six months into the business. Right. And we felt like the problem was already validated. We'd already our paying customers consistently getting revenue. So although there wasn't really a problem.
Um, we still didn't conduct user interviews probably because we found a bit daunting. We don't want to, um, uh, you know, reach out to customers, annoyed them, whatever, when we're trying to build good relationships with them. Um, and then as soon as we did them, we got so much value from them. Whether we were like, oh my God, we should have done these sooner. But the only problem was when we, when we did go to them and they were incredibly sort of. The process was still daunting.
Um, but it was still an incredibly time intensive energy intensive, uh, complex of a process. Um, uh, you know, you can, for the amount of time you put in, especially as a founder, like when, like you said, you know, There's only a few of you, you're trying to do dev marketing design, uh, all these other things. Um, it seems as though customer interviews just, aren't one of those top tier priorities. Right. Um, and so you're trying to do everything.
And so it really just is one of those things you just put on the back burner for a long time. Um, and we sort of just did the classic, you know, right. Let's just walk up some sort of feedback board and people can drop their feedback in, and we're getting loads of feature requests, but we knew what we needed to build. Um, cause we were sort of our own customers. Um, we didn't and we were getting loads of feature requests. We, we kind of knew.
Okay, well, we didn't know why we didn't know the why behind. We didn't under fully understand, um, our problem, our customers, or their processes, what they did each day, why they did it, why they did the things they did. Um, we were just getting sort of very high level feature requests. And I think six months in, after using the feedback where we kind of realize like, yeah, we're now we do need to do these customer interviews.
Um, and we found them incredibly valuable, but they were very time consuming. And so sort of fast forward to today. Um, we sell a business maybe, uh, back in late, late July. And so we're sort of had a little break, which is nice. And then we're kind of coming back. Okay. Let's start off with a, sort of a new business idea together.
And then we kind of went back through our experience of our previous business and that's when we kind of uncovered, Hey, that we felt like this, this process could be improved the whole. Uh, customer user into process could be, is there a, could we, could you add a spit on it that makes it maybe less time consuming, a little bit easier? Uh, I think the, the, the trend that we found at the moment and actually it's really, it was really interesting.
You said the same word, which is also part of it. So I think that's kind of where we're, we're exploring at the moment or the researchers sort of pointing us in the direction. User interviews on autopilot potentially. Um, so yeah, at the moment it's, it's looking, we're looking towards, um, sort of, is there a way to create a solution where you can get the same quality feedback that you can get on use renters?
Like you mentioned, you know, you get some real good insights, um, nothing quite can compare to it. Um, but in terms of the actual input, the amount of effort you have to put in, is there a way you can make that easier? Um, without sacrificing on the output, the quality of the insights she gets. So, yeah, that's pretty.
Absolutely. I think, yeah, you reminded me of, um, like an experience of, uh, a past client that I went and then, uh, and then worked or work with for awhile. Um, most successful SAS business. I worked. Um, we had some paying customers, um, for the first product that we built. Um, and this is why I know the value of customer interviews, uh, so much it wasn't until we went, uh, we were finding it, frustrating that people weren't using it even after we were selling it.
Uh, and it was difficult to sell and it was difficult as onboarding was difficult, what was difficult about it? And it was, um, going and talking to the actual end users rather than the people that we were selling. It. And understanding their process is the key to realizing that actually it was one feature that they really loved, but it was the end of the process that we'd created for them to, um, to complete because it's like a CRM tool.
So they had to be using it as a CRM to get this report out. But all they wanted was the report. Um, other, the, the report was the thing that was most painful for them to create, and they didn't want to change their process to use some CRM. Creates it. And so I'm pulling that one feature out, turned into the, um, the highly profitable, um, easy to, to, to, to sell as a self service SAS that we were hoping to create all along.
Um, but yeah, it was a series of, um, Yeah, they were relatively informal discussions and I think we might have learned faster, um, and understood things better if we'd had a process of, um, more formal customer interviews, um, earlier on.
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting how Lisa had kind of one interview with the right person can make a whole of a difference as opposed to, like I said, I imagine you're probably, they're probably selling the contract is probably with some accounts billing person when actually your IBM user has a completely different perspective on it, but it's just, it's hard. It's hard to know that that's the end user when you're just talking through maybe email or like surveys, for example.
So yeah, I was definitely on the winner, so, yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Cool. Really appreciate this.
Thank you, Morgan. Um, for, uh, yeah, especially for agreeing to, um, to interview me, um, for my podcast and, um, and give us another, another take on customer interviews about customer interviews. Um, so hopefully that's been really useful for, for everyone. Is there any way, um, people listening can find out more about you, um, or what. Um, yeah, I
mean, I mean, I would say some form of social media, but I'm never on it and I don't, I don't know why, so yeah. I mean, to be honest, that probably isn't the best place you could search me up on LinkedIn. That's probably, that's probably the best way. All other social media forms. Um, I'm pretty useless. And I guess the business is in such early phase that we don't really have a, uh, a full-fledged solution with the thing we're currently working on is I guess, called use. The IO.
So if you want it to visit the website, to check out this sort of a landing page of what the solution could potentially be like, uh, yeah. That's probably where you'll find us in our contact details, but, uh, yeah, we're still validating it so early days that might not be the, the end product on a minor even exist.
We'll see. All right. Um, okay. So used haste, uh, use haste.io, um, and, um, Morgan Williams, uh, on LinkedIn. Um, Have you find your mouth, I'll get those linked in the show notes for this episode, a question I ask actually on I'm dropping this on you as a surprise, but hopefully you've got some off the top of your head at the end of each podcast.
I'd be interested to hear from you is three tools, um, software tools that, um, you find yourself using, um, or, uh, and, um, and maybe we would recommend some of the, uh, the anything you're paying for at the moment. Um, the very early stages either.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's think, um, I guess the number one for me, both paths on business and notion, I don't know what to ask about it. It's just, yeah, it's hard to explain. It's just got a bit of everything. Um, yeah. Super easy to use. Super collaborative. Um, I guess. I'm massively into design as well. Sometimes a downside when we're spending weeks on design, when we should just be whipping up a quick landing page, but a tool we use for that is Figma. Yeah. Real big fan of that.
Uh, yeah, it changes the game in terms of. Comparing it to like Photoshop. Yeah. It just changes the game. Um, and actually one thing I use recently is Calendly, uh, actually for these user interviews. Amazing. So simple. Um, yeah. And it just seems like one of those problems that has probably existed for maybe 20 years. And I feel like Canada is a fairly newish kind of tool, um, which is just nuts.
So whether technology has changed and allowed them to build that easily or just no one, no one built something that seems so. So simple. Uh, but yeah, that's, uh, there probably three tools I use the most or in cannabis cases,
a new one that I'm enjoying. Yep. Excellent. Thank you. So that's a notion Figma and candidly. That's the one. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Morgan. It's been really good.
Yeah, no worries. Thank you very much.
That was hopefully a useful example of a customer interview. You can find notes from this episode, including links to all the products mentioned at empathy, deployed.com. If you know anyone who might benefit from hearing this perspective, please share the episode. And word of caution. This interview is a snapshot of just one person's perspective in an artificial situation.
You should be very careful about drawing any conclusions about the guest people like them or the product from this single data point. Customer interviews are most valuable when you see parallels across, many of them will be in a specific context. I'd suggest a minimum of five and ideally 12 to 15. I recommend the book, deploy empathy by Michelle Hanson for a practical guide on how to do it. Well, if you'd like to join me as a guest on a future episode, please send me a note.
I'm jumped on Twitter. That's J O T. My DMS are open. You can also use the form at empathy, deployed.com or email. Hello at empathy deployed. Please include the names and addresses of free software products you use regularly and or pay for.