Discovery Week

Customer Discovery Interview

Posted onAuthorbusiness901

Overview

Anyone can come up with a great marketing strategy and in the same vein anyone can come up with a marketing idea. As long as you build plans, websites and develop strategies in isolation of customers your chance of success is minimized. My implementation successes with customers are almost always determined by the Discover stage. During that stage, I ask to interview at least 5 to 10 of their best customers. In the interviews, we ask about their best experiences they have had with us. A moment that stands out as significant, meaningful, or particularly effective in terms of results achieved.

Focusing on moments of excellence allows us to value the best of “what is”. When you analyze your wins instead of your losses it makes you 10X more likely to understand the events that trigger decision-makers to become motivated about buying your product or service. The Customer Discovery Interview is how we enable this process to take place.

Most companies look at focusing their marketing on their “solutions” to customer problems or a delightful user experience. The fact is so does everyone does. What few do is look at their products/services as valued investments in who customers really want to become. That is what the interviews focus on, not the regular case study type thinking.

By utilizing the SOAR Framework we identify customer Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and their inspiration to achieve the desired Results. This enables us to look for trends and embrace the future through the intelligence we gather. Who our customers become will be who we become.

Customer Discovery Interview Process

Week 1: Frame the Project with a High-Level Five D interview of the stakeholders. This will create an internal perspective that will either be validated or challenged at the end of the project.

    • Define – What is the focus of our engagement?. What defines the purpose, content, and what needs to be achieved?
    • Discover – Appreciating the best of ‘what is’ What are we presently doing and how does our customer feel about it? What makes up our strengths and periods of excellence?
    • Dream – Imagining ‘what could be’ Using past achievements and successes identify new possibilities and envision a preferred future.
    • Design – Determining ‘what should be’ – Bring together the stories from discovery with the imagination and creativity from dream.
    • Deliver – Creating ‘what will be’ Identify how the design is delivered, and how it’s embedded into groups, communities, and organizations.

Week 2 & 3: SOAR Interviews with 5 to 10 Customers.

    • Initiate the project based on our focus of inquiry from Week 1
      • How is our customer using our product or service?
    • Inquiring into our Customer Strengths
      • What are we enabling?
      • What can they build on?
    • Imagining the Opportunities
      • What are their customers asking for?
      • Who else needs to be included?
    • Innovating to reach Aspirations
      • What do they care deeply about?
      • Who do they want to become?
    • Inspiring to implement to achieve Results
      • How do we know we are succeeding?
      • What resources are needed to support their aspirations?

SOAR Framework

The work is primarily based on the book The Thin Book of SOAR: Creating Strategy That Inspires Innovation and Engagement by Jacqueline M. Stavros and Gina Hinrichs. Considerate it a mandatory requirement for this engagement. ( Amazon link: https://amzn.to/2N18ZkP )

Week 4: A complete report to include an opportunity map and recommended action steps.

    • SOAR Framework on each customer interviewed.
    • Collective SOAR Framework
    • Collaboration on a new 5D outline
    • Root Cause of Success Diagram
    • Opportunity Map

This is a collaborative project that is managed on a Trello board with the stakeholders. You will see the interviews and process unfolding. Even though I will conduct the interviews, customer follow-up is recommended outside the interviews and encouraged for clarification.

Cost

An upfront payment of $500/month or 2 installments of $300 for a 5 Customer interview package. For each additional interview,  above 5, it will be billed in the rears at $50 payable at the beginning of week 4. No refunds are given for initial payment if customers are not available. Reasonable extensions to complete the process are permitted but must be agreed upon by both parties.

If interested, please email jtdager@business901.com with contact details, payment preference (Paypal preferred) and the approximate week to get started. I will confirm and send an invoice.

Discovery Week