How can you use customer interviews to innovate products?

By interviewing existing customers, you gain insights on how they use your product, what they like, gaps that exist in addressing their jobs to be done, and what they would like to have next. This helps generate options for innovative enhancements. From my experience, it's also insightful to interview others who use similar / alternative products. This helps to better understand your competitive positioning and where there are opportunities to innovate in a meaningful and differentiated way. Additionally, you can gain insights from those who don't use your product or an alternative. Is there a broader blocker you should be considering? Understand this demographic can lead to expanding market share with an innovative solution.

The ‘ART OF ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS’ is a hidden super power. In my role as innovation facilitator of 100+ innovation projects, I USE THE TEDI MODEL. The right flow of questions can reveal a lot of information. But how do you ask the right questions? Somewhere I read about TEDI. -Tell me about… -Explain… -Describe for me… -If you were x, then what would be your thoughts on y? I like to expand it to TEDI+, as it’s even more powerful when you dare to ask the ‘Why…? Why …? Why …?’ question frequently to dig deeper. Spend 95% of your time exploring the right problem, EINSTEIN advised us ???.

1?? I would call it "Conversations" more than an interview. A conversation can contain a story as it's more effective to connect to the core problem that our customer is facing. 2?? I listen more than I talk because that's why I am here to understand and see the problem from their perspective. A simple tip: When you are in a conversation to really understand what other person is going through, and when they start talking and pause, you don't jump to add your side, instead, just wait for a sec and give some non-verbal signal as you are listening - that's where magic happens!

As facilitator of 100+ innovation projects all over the world, I love to share a CHECKLIST: 15 TIPS for THE PERFECT BRAINSTORM: 1. Define a relevant challenge 2. Create with the sponsor an assignment 3. Create momentum 4. Invite people for whom it is relevant. 5. Invite people for content as well as decision-making 6. Include outsiders 7. Invite the senior problem-owner 8. A special venue 9. An psychological safe environment 10. Never at the office 11. Spend twice as much time on the convergence - as on the divergence process. 12. Apply various idea-generating techniques 13. Keep up the pace 14. Appoint an expert facilitator 15. Make the output concrete Extra Tip: Check the FORTH innovation method for a structured approach.