Talking to customers is one of the most powerful ways to develop empathy and quickly align with users’ issues, concerns, and delights. However, interviewing is a unique skill set, one typically reserved for researchers trained to listen and synthesize qualitative data. Our UX Research Team embraced the philosophy that “research is a team sport” and developed a Customer Interview Training Program for our cross functional colleagues. We believe that when whole teams engage in research, each person is better informed and can make product decisions more quickly.
We designed our Customer Interview Training Program as a hands-on workshop to educate product managers about best practices for running and analyzing interviews. In it, we facilitate interactive activities around active listening, asking good questions, mitigating bias, and making sense of data. In this talk, we outline the workshop’s curriculum, supporting materials, scaling across the organization, and impact so far. Audience members will walk away with tips on how to adapt our program to their organization.
