Customer interviews: 7 questions that change strategy

Your 5 best customers contain 80% of your company's strategic information. Without interviewing them, you decide marketing and product blind. A well-done 30-minute customer interview is worth 10 hours of internal brainstorming. Here are the 7 key questions.

The 7 questions (in order, don't skip)

1. "What were you doing before choosing us?" — discovers real pain that brought you as choice
2. "What alternatives did you consider and why did you discard them?" — maps real competitors and their perceived weak points
3. "What made you specifically pick us?" — your real differentiation (not what you think)
4. "What almost made you NOT choose us?" — sales friction points to remove
5. "When was the moment of highest value with us?" — identifies the "wow moment" to replicate
6. "What would you pay double for to have improved?" — signals premium features/packages
7. "When recommending us to colleagues, what do you say exactly?" — your real elevator pitch, in their words

Practical interview format

• Duration: 30 minutes, never longer
• Mode: video call (Google Meet, Zoom)
• Recording: with explicit consent (Otter.ai auto-transcribes)
• Approach: active listening, never defend the product. You're there to learn
• Frequency: 5 interviews every 6 months is the sweet spot

What to do with answers

• Full transcript (free Otter.ai)
• Extract 3-5 textual quotes per interview
• Pattern recognition across 5 interviews (what repeats?)
• Action plan: 3 concrete changes based on patterns

The phrases you hear will become your landing page copy. Recurrent objections will become your FAQ. All free if you have the courage to ask. See our free audit which always starts with a mini-interview.

Want to apply this to your SME?

If you'd like a concrete analysis of your situation, request the free audit from Gamerbit. In 48 hours we tell you exactly where you're losing leads, time or budget — no sales pitch.

For a complete system, the 2026 no-brainer offers are the most direct starting point.