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A Quick Note on Empathy Interviews

The term "Empathy Interview" might sound a bit formal, but it doesn't need to be. Think of it more as a friendly conversation aimed at truly understanding your customer. While it's essential to prepare and act professionally, this type of interview can be enjoyable for you and even therapeutic for your customer. It’s a chance to build a deeper relationship between your customer and your company, which can lead to insights that make a real difference.

In this quick start guide, I’ll go through:

• Preparation tips including example questions and a suggested interview flow.

• Next steps to turn your insights into action.

Here is a quick reference guide + interview worksheet to accelerate your path to interviewing your customers.

Disclaimer: My experience is mostly in B2B environments, so you’ll notice that slant in my guidance. But don’t worry—most of these principles apply just as well in B2C. Feel free to adapt the advice to your specific context.

Be Prepared

Do Your Research

Before the interview, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the customer’s background. Try to avoid jumping to conclusions. For example, understanding whether your customer works in a fast-moving startup or a more conservative company can help you guide the conversation. Remember, the goal is to let the customer’s unique perspective come through during the interview.

Crafting Questions: The Martini Glass Approach

Imagine your interview structure like a martini glass—start with broad, open-ended questions, narrow down to specifics, and finish by confirming key takeaways.

Start Broad: Kick things off with open-ended questions that give your customer the space to talk about what’s most important to them.

Example Questions:

• "How would you describe a typical workday?"

• "What are the most challenging parts of your responsibilities?"

• "What would an ideal work environment look like?"

Dig into Specifics: As the conversation unfolds, introduce more detailed questions to explore specific areas. This helps keep the discussion focused without cutting off the natural flow.

Example Questions:

• "How do the challenges you face affect your relationship with your boss, your personal life, or your career goals?"

• "Who are the stakeholders to whom you are accountable? How do you seek to best serve them?"

Confirm Key Takeaways: Toward the end of the interview, ask more direct questions to make sure you’ve captured the key insights.

Example Questions:

• "I heard X, Y, and Z. Is that accurate? How might you phrase it?"

• "This sounded [enjoyable, frustrating, difficult]. Is that a fair assessment? Could you elaborate?"

• "Is there anything we haven’t covered that you think is important?"

Prepare to Listen

Listening is your superpower in these interviews. Your job is to understand, not just hear. Be ready to ask follow-up questions that dig deeper into the customer’s responses.

Use Non-Verbal Cues: Pay attention to body language, tone, and pauses—they often say more than words alone.

Build Rapport: Start with lighter questions to create a comfortable environment, then gradually move into more personal or challenging topics.

The Interview

Setting the Context

Start by briefly introducing yourself and the purpose of the interview. Keep this short—your focus should be on the customer. The more you talk, the more you risk influencing their responses.

Burner Pilot Approach: Think of the first few minutes as lighting a pilot light. You want to create just enough warmth and comfort to encourage the customer to open up.

Navigating the Conversation

Stay Flexible: While it’s good to have a plan, be ready to adapt based on the customer’s responses. If they reveal something unexpected, follow that thread—it could lead to valuable insights.

Avoid Leading Questions: Keep your questions neutral so you don’t steer the customer toward a particular answer. For example, instead of asking, "Do you find our product difficult to use?" try, "How do you find using our product?"

Capturing Insights

If possible, bring along a scribe—someone who can take notes while you focus on the conversation. If you’re flying solo, jot down key points but prioritize maintaining eye contact and rapport over detailed note-taking.

Done with the interview? Here's what's Next.

Now that you've completed your empathy interviews, it's time to put those insights into action. Here are options of how to leverage what you’ve learned:

Personas

Use the insights you’ve gathered to create or validate personas. These are semi-fictional profiles that represent key customer segments, helping your team stay customer-focused throughout your projects.

Example Persona Elements:

  - Goals and Motivations

  - Pain Points

  - Preferred Communication Channels

  - Phrases they might say

Double Diamond

The Double Diamond is a simple framework that helps you move from discovery to delivery. It’s about exploring the problem fully before jumping to solutions.

What is the Double Diamond? It’s a design process framework with two main stages:

• Discovery & Definition (first diamond): Start by understanding the problem space broadly (discovery), then narrow it down to a clearly defined problem (definition).

•  Development & Delivery (second diamond): Explore possible solutions (development), then refine and implement the best ones (delivery).

How Might We?

Transform the insights from your empathy interviews into "How Might We" questions. These questions help reframe challenges as opportunities for innovation.

Example: If your interview reveals that customers are struggling with time management due to inefficient software, a "How Might We" question could be: "How might we streamline our software to save our customers time?"

Often, you can leverage the “How Might We” framework as a part of the double diamond, especially in discovery and definition.

Validating Customer Journey Maps

Empathy interviews are also an invaluable tool for validating and refining your customer journey maps. Here’s how to use the insights you’ve gathered to ensure your journey maps truly reflect the customer experience.

• Overlay Insights: Take the key insights from your empathy interviews and overlay them onto your existing customer journey maps. Look for alignment or discrepancies between what your journey map shows and what customers actually experience.

• Identify Gaps: Use the interview insights to identify any gaps or missing steps in your journey maps. For example, if an interview reveals a crucial touchpoint that wasn’t previously mapped, update your journey map to include it.

• Refine Pain Points: Validate the pain points identified in your journey map with direct quotes and examples from your interviews. If your map shows that customers experience frustration during a certain stage, confirm this with the emotional responses captured during your interviews.

• Adjust Touch points: Based on the feedback from your interviews, refine the touch points on your journey map to better reflect the actual customer experience. This could involve adding, removing, or reconfiguring touch points to align more closely with the customer’s reality.

Wrap Up

Empathy interviews are a powerful way to understand your customers on a deeper level. By preparing thoughtfully, listening actively, and translating your findings into actionable steps—such as refining personas, validating journey maps, and generating "How Might We" questions—you can help steer your organization toward more customer-centric solutions. Remember, every step you take toward understanding your customers better is a step toward creating solutions that truly delight them.