Research method
Sales / Customer Service Interviews
Sales / Customer Support interviews involve running 30 minute to 1 hour sessions with members of the sales team and/or the customer service team, either in person or remotely on Zoom, Teams, etc. Team members are recruited via email, either directly or through a client point of contact. These interviews draw on the internal teams who interact with customers every day, uncovering customer motivations, FUDs and frictions. This tribal knowledge from sales and customer service can then be applied to improve the website.
When to reach for it
Sales / Customer Support interviews are an effective method when running exploratory research.
Sales interviews can be particularly useful when looking to develop or enhance ideal customer profiles, or personas. Speaking to sales teams can help you understand customers (and potential customers) key triggers and motivations for seeking out your product or service. You can also use sales interviews to uncover the primary barriers to conversion; the reasons why potential customers don't convert.
Customer support/service interviews are effective when looking to understand customer's key issues or frustrations. This type of data can be useful when focusing on retention for subscription products/services. This activity can also identify key questions that users have that could be answered on the website.
Strengths and limits
Pros
Interviews allow you to dig deeper than surveys by asking follow-up questions based on answers. This makes them more appropriate for more complex use cases or when you have a more specific area of focus.
Running interviews with Sales / Customer Support teams provides you with a snapshot of the top customer problems from an internal perspective.
Cons
There could be some bias in this data, given that it is internal data (and could be a negative reflection on internal teams).
This data about what is important to customers, or customer pain points is being filtered, e.g. it is not coming directly from the customer.
Running interviews can be time-consuming, which means they are not effective for gathering large samples of data (unless you have a large budget / a lot of time resources). To help mitigate this, interviews can be used alongside a survey to gather both in-depth, high quality insights at a large scale.
An insightful interview is determined by the questions you ask. Much like running moderated usability studies, there is skill involved in
running an effective interview. You need to avoid leading questions, and also ensure questions are not multifaceted as this can cause difficulty in analysis.
Practical considerations
Logistics
If you're planning and running the sessions yourself, there are a few logistics to keep in mind;
- Booking a timeslot; before you send the initial email asking for people to take part, consider how you'll organise the sessions. You could share a Calendly link or something similar to allow participant's to book directly you. Whatever you use, you want to avoid having to manually agree on a date / time by going back and forth via email.
- Tool; you can use any video conferencing tool (Zoom, Teams, Hangouts, etc). Don't forget to record the sessions (but ask permission first) to ensure you don't have to write everything down when you're running the interview.
- No shows; when interviews internal participants, the chance of a no-show is relatively low. However, consider how to mitigate this, for example, sending out a series of reminders in the days / hours running up to the session, as well as over recruiting (e.g. running 1-2 more sessions than you need). Mention in your comms that you will wait for 10 minutes before assuming a no-show, so you don't have to sit and wait for the full amount of time until they turn up.
Sample Size
The goal of this activity is to gather qualitative insights, therefore the sample size doesn't need to be high. Use a similar theory to with usability studies; Nielsen Norman says "The answer is 5, except when it's not" regarding usability study sample size. We use this as a guide; but one that should be considered rather than followed blindly. You also need to consider the size of the organisation and if this is a representative sample.
Common tools
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Recipes that use this method
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