# Bad questions vs good questions > A workshop on your own list of customer interview questions: replacing opinion, hypothetical, price and leading questions with ones about current behaviour, spend and past attempts. - Course: [Customer Development: Talking to Customers](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews.md) - Module: Why customers lie - Lesson 3/15, ~39 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/bad-vs-good-questions ## Opinion questions **Alex Tutor:** Your interviews about CatChow's food subscription are nearly booked, and the product team is waiting on what you learn. **Sofia:** I have ten calls next week. Here's my question list. Tear it apart. **Alex Tutor:** Gladly. Number one: “Do you think a food subscription is a good idea?” **Sofia:** I know, I know. It's an opinion. **Alex Tutor:** An **opinion question**, and about your own idea, the worst kind. Only the market can say if an idea is good. What can a customer tell you instead? **Sofia:** How she handles it now? What annoys her about it? **Alex Tutor:** Yes. How she does it today, what's annoying, what she's tried, whether she's looking for something better. All facts, and none needs your idea. > **Exercise:** Which question is the best replacement for “Do you think a food subscription is a good idea?” ## “Would you buy…?” **Alex Tutor:** Number two: “Would you buy a subscription if it saved you trips to the shop?” **Sofia:** A **hypothetical question**. And almost everyone says yes to “would you”. **Alex Tutor:** Because saying yes to an imaginary product is free, and people want to help. You'll collect plenty of yeses and no customers. **Alex Tutor:** Ask how the problem shows up now instead: “How do you get food home today? When did that last go wrong?” And one powerful question: “Have you looked for a better way?” **Sofia:** Why does looking matter so much? **Alex Tutor:** If she's never even googled a fix, the problem probably isn't painful enough to pay for. Someone who grumbles but never searches is a **complainer**, not a customer. She won't go looking for yours either. ![Left: a man on a sofa grumbles at an empty cat bowl and does nothing. Right: a woman compares online shops on a laptop with a delivery app open on her phone.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/bad-vs-good-questions-illustration-2.webp) > **Exercise:** A customer who has complained about a problem for years but never searched for a solution is a strong sign of demand for your product. ## Price questions **Alex Tutor:** Number three: “How much would you pay for the subscription per month?” **Sofia:** This one feels scientific. I get an actual number! **Alex Tutor:** A number that's still a guess about the future, just better dressed. People have no idea what they'd pay for something they've never seen. **Alex Tutor:** Ask what they pay now: “How much did you spend on cat food last month? Where did you buy it? Why that shop?” Real spending gives the price conversation something solid to stand on. **Sofia:** So if Olivia spends 1,400 UAH a month at the pet shop, our 10% discount is compared with something real. **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. And “why that shop?” reveals what she values: price, distance, a brand, a friendly shop assistant. The only price answer you can fully trust is a **cash commitment**, like a pre-order. That's module 4. > **Exercise:** Which question tells Sofia the most about what a subscription could be worth to a customer? ## “What else have you tried?” **Alex Tutor:** Your list is missing a question: “What else have you tried?” Other shops, delivery apps, buying in bulk, a phone reminder. What they tried, what it cost, why they stopped. **Sofia:** I asked Olivia something like that yesterday, after our last lesson. Here's her answer: **Olivia:** I tried an online pet shop, but delivery took four days, so now I keep a spare bag at my mum's. Last month I still ran out and paid 90 UAH for a taxi to fetch it. **Alex Tutor:** That's worth more than a hundred “I'd subscribe”s. A spare bag at her mum's is a **workaround**: her own makeshift fix. People build workarounds only for problems that really bother them. ![A woman leaves a spare cat-food bag at her mother's front door; across the street her own cat waits on the windowsill at home.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/bad-vs-good-questions-illustration-3.webp) *A spare bag at mum's is a fix she built herself, a sign the problem costs her something.* **Alex Tutor:** And if someone has tried nothing, ask about the **implications**: “What happens when you run out?” If it's “I pop downstairs, no big deal”, it's an annoyance, not a problem worth paying for. ![Ask what they've tried: a workaround like a spare bag at mum's means a real problem; if they tried nothing and running out is “no big deal”, it's only an annoyance.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/diagrams/m1-l3-problem-or-annoyance.png) > **Exercise:** Sofia asks Olivia what else she has tried. Olivia, sounding annoyed: “I tried an online pet shop, but delivery took four days, so now I keep a spare bag at my mum's. Last month I still ran out and paid 90 UAH for a taxi to fetch it. A subscription would be so convenient!” Which details in her answer are good evidence that the problem is real for her? Select all that apply. **Sofia:** And if someone has tried nothing at all, I ask what happens when it goes wrong? **Alex Tutor:** Yes, and listen for consequences. A shrug means an annoyance. Lost money, time or health means a problem someone might pay to fix. **Alex Tutor:** Strong feelings and promises sit in between: not evidence yet, but a good reason to ask about the last time. **Alex Tutor:** Try it on four customers who have tried nothing. > **Exercise:** Four customers have never tried any fix. Sofia asks each one: “What happens when you run out of food?” Which answer points to a problem worth paying to solve? ## Leading questions **Alex Tutor:** Number four on your list: “Don't you hate it when you run out of food at the worst possible moment?” **Sofia:** But everyone hates that! **Alex Tutor:** Which is why the answer is worthless. It's a **leading question**: it tells her what to say. She agrees, you feel validated, and you learn nothing about how often it happens. ![A person steers another by the elbow down a single garden path ending at a big thumbs-up; every other path is fenced off.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/bad-vs-good-questions-illustration-4.webp) *When the question picks the answer, agreement tells you nothing.* **Sofia:** So, neutral: “When did you last run out?” **Alex Tutor:** Yes. Let her decide whether it was a disaster or a shrug. **Alex Tutor:** Quick check before the full list. Two ways to ask about the same moment. Which one gives you an answer you can use? > **Exercise:** Sofia wants to know whether running out of food is a real problem for Olivia. Which question should she ask? > **Exercise:** Match each question from Sofia's list to its main flaw. ## How to end a call **Sofia:** How should I end a call? Right now I just say thanks. **Alex Tutor:** Add two questions before the thanks. “Who else should I talk to about this?” gets you the next conversations. **Alex Tutor:** And “Is there anything I should have asked but didn't?” By the end she understands what you're trying to learn and may point at what you missed. **Sofia:** What if she won't name anyone? **Alex Tutor:** That's data too. Maybe you were too formal or pushy, or the topic just doesn't matter to her. Either way, give her earlier compliments less weight. > **Exercise:** At the end of a friendly call full of compliments, a customer refuses to suggest anyone else to talk to. What's the most reasonable reading? **Sofia:** Doesn't the second closing question sound a bit odd? How would she know what I'm after? **Alex Tutor:** After twenty minutes of your questions, she knows exactly what you're after. And she knows her own life far better than your list does. **Alex Tutor:** Often the reply is “Well, you didn't ask about…”, and then comes the most useful thing you hear all day. **Alex Tutor:** So, true or false? > **Exercise:** “Is there anything I should have asked but didn't?” is a waste of time at the end of a call, because the customer can't know what you're trying to learn. ## Same mistakes in B2B **Sofia:** My friend Daniel is a PM at an HR software startup in Kyiv. He's asking HR managers exactly the same kind of questions. **Alex Tutor:** Everyone does. In B2B the pattern is the same, plus one more question matters a lot: “Where does the budget come from, and who approves a purchase like this?” **Sofia:** Because the HR manager he's talking to might not be able to buy anything. **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. Try fixing his main question. > **Exercise:** Daniel, a PM at an HR software startup in Kyiv, asks HR managers: “How much would you pay per month for automatic vacation tracking?” Rewrite it into one or two better questions. ## When they say “I'd pay anything” **Sofia:** One more from my notes. A customer said: “Buying food is such a hassle, I'd pay anything to fix it!” That's a great sign, right? **Alex Tutor:** Lovely energy, and worth nothing yet. “Anything” is a feeling, not a price, and it's about the future. **Sofia:** So I ask what he's tried and what it costs him now? **Alex Tutor:** Yes. One or two questions, neutral, about the past. Strong emotion is a great place to start asking, not a place to stop. > **Exercise:** A customer says: “Buying food is such a hassle, I'd pay anything to fix it!” Write the one or two questions you'd ask next. ## Rewriting the whole list **Sofia:** OK. I'm rewriting the whole list now. **Alex Tutor:** Do it. Six or seven questions are plenty; the best parts of the call will be follow-ups you can't script. **Sofia:** And the idea itself? **Alex Tutor:** Stays in your pocket until the end, if it comes up at all. > **Exercise:** Rewrite Sofia's question list for next week's calls. ## Your cheat sheet **Sofia:** My new list doesn't mention the subscription once. It feels strange. **Alex Tutor:** It'll feel less strange when the answers start surprising you. That's how you know you're learning something. > **Bad question → better question** > > - “Is it a good idea?” → “How do you handle this now?” > - “Would you buy…?” → “When did this last happen? Have you looked for a fix?” > - “How much would you pay?” → “What did you spend on this last month?” > - “Don't you hate…?” → “When did this last happen?” > - Add: “What else have you tried?”, “Who else should I talk to?”, “Anything I should have asked?” **Alex Tutor:** In module 2 we'll deal with what comes back: compliments, vague answers and feature requests, and how to dig beneath them. - Previous lesson: [Three rules for questions that get honest answers](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/three-rules-for-honest-answers.md) - Next lesson: [Compliments and how to deflect them](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/compliments.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.