# Compliments and how to deflect them

> Why praise is the most dangerous answer in a customer conversation, how social desirability bias produces it, how to spot it in your notes and how to steer back to facts without being rude.

- Course: [Customer Development: Talking to Customers](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews.md)
- Module: Bad data
- Lesson 4/15, ~40 min
- Source: https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/compliments

## Five calls, five fans

**Alex Tutor:** A week has passed on CatChow's product team, and you've been out talking to real customers.

**Sofia:** I'm back! Five real interviews this week, all by the module 1 rules. It went really well. Everyone loved the subscription.

**Alex Tutor:** Well done for doing them, that's the hardest part. But “it went really well” and “everyone loved it” worry me: they're classic symptoms of a notebook full of compliments.

**Sofia:** Why is that bad? People being positive sounds like good news.

**Alex Tutor:** Test each call with three questions. What exactly did they like? What would it save them? What have they already tried? If you can't answer, you collected a **compliment**, not data.

**Sofia:** Oh. For most of them I… can't. Here's what I posted in the team chat after the calls.

**Alex Tutor:** Let's read it like a sceptic: we're only looking for things that actually happened.

> **Exercise:** Sofia's team-chat update after five calls. Which lines are **warning signs** of compliments rather than evidence? Select all that apply.

## Social desirability bias: why praise is worth nothing

**Alex Tutor:** What filled your notebook has a name: **social desirability bias**. It's people's habit of giving the answer that makes them look good or keeps the conversation pleasant, instead of the accurate one. In customer interviews it shows up as praise: “I love it” costs nothing and makes everyone feel nice.

**Alex Tutor:** It has a close relative, **courtesy bias**: being polite to the person asking, especially when they look invested. Five calls, five fans, almost no facts: that's what both look like in a notebook.

**Sofia:** But some of them really meant it. Olivia wasn't just being polite, I could tell.

**Alex Tutor:** Maybe she did. It still doesn't help. A sincere compliment is an honest opinion about the future, and opinions about the future are guesses, however warm.

**Alex Tutor:** Our team knows the product inside out and still argued for weeks about whether it would work. Why would a customer who heard of it thirty seconds ago know better?

**Sofia:** Fair. So compliments are just harmless noise?

**Alex Tutor:** Worse than harmless. They feel like progress. After five calls full of praise you stop asking, and that's how a **false positive** is born.

**Alex Tutor:** Compliments are like treats for a cat: everyone enjoys them, nobody lives on them. Accept them politely, then go looking for real food: facts about what people did.

![A cat happily crunches treats tossed by a person, while a full bowl of proper food sits beside it untouched.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/compliments-illustration-2.webp)

> **Exercise:** If a loyal customer praises your idea sincerely, not just to be polite, the praise counts as evidence of demand.

**Alex Tutor:** The danger isn't the praise itself. It's what the praise does to the person collecting it.

**Sofia:** It makes me feel done. Five fans, so why keep asking?

**Alex Tutor:** Exactly. Praise feels like progress, so you close the notebook before a single fact is in it.

**Alex Tutor:** Now spot it in someone else's plan.

> **Exercise:** After three warm calls, a colleague from marketing cancels the other seven: “We've heard enough. They love it.” What is the main risk?

## Where Olivia's call went wrong

**Sofia:** Here's the part of the Olivia call I was proudest of. I started well: I asked how she bought food last time. She told me about the shop by the metro.

**Sofia:** Then I got excited and mentioned the subscription. Her reply:

**Olivia:** Oh, what a lovely idea! You're all so clever at CatChow. I'm sure everyone in my building would sign up.

**Sofia:** I said “Thank you so much!”, wrote “huge fan” in my notes, and we said goodbye.

**Alex Tutor:** Two slips. Mentioning the idea invited the praise (module 1). The bigger slip: you accepted the compliment and ended the call. That was the moment to steer back to her life.

**Alex Tutor:** So what could you have said right after “You're all so clever”?

> **Exercise:** Olivia says: “What a lovely idea! You're all so clever at CatChow.” What is Sofia's best reply?

## How to deflect a compliment

**Sofia:** Isn't it rude to ignore praise? She was being nice to me.

**Alex Tutor:** You don't ignore her, you ignore the praise as data. A short “thanks, that's kind”, then a question about her life. That's **deflecting compliments**: acknowledge, don't record, return to facts.

![A customer releases a heart-shaped balloon; the interviewer smiles, lets it float past and points to a calendar page in an open notebook.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/compliments-illustration-3.webp)

*Say thanks, let the praise go by, and ask about a real day.*

**Alex Tutor:** Good places to land: “How do you handle this today?”, “When did that last happen?”, “What have you tried so far?” Any question she can only answer with a real story.

![Deflecting a compliment: say a short thanks, don't write it down, then ask a question only a real story can answer, like “When did that last happen?”](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/diagrams/m2-l1-deflect-compliment.png)

**Sofia:** And what if the story shows she has no problem at all?

**Alex Tutor:** Then the call worked. You wanted the truth, not a nice ending. “We buy food by the metro, it's never an issue” beats ten lovely ideas.

**Alex Tutor:** Your turn. Another customer, Richard, said something similar.

> **Exercise:** Richard, a customer, interrupts Sofia: “Honestly, you guys always come up with great stuff. A subscription? I'd recommend it to all my friends!” Write Sofia's reply (1–2 sentences) that **deflects the compliment** and returns to facts about Richard's life.

**Sofia:** So deflecting is a few quick moves, not a speech?

**Alex Tutor:** Right. Acknowledge it, don't record it, steer back to their life. The skill is doing it in a second, so nobody feels ignored.

**Sofia:** And the notes come last, with facts only.

**Alex Tutor:** Let's replay Olivia's call the way it should have gone.

> **Exercise:** Put the moments of a well-handled compliment in order.

## Fishing for compliments

**Sofia:** Confession: part of me wanted the praise. Before one call I even wrote down: “So, do you think this could work for you?”

**Alex Tutor:** That's **fishing for compliments**: asking for approval instead of information. You've already decided, and you want someone to say “go”.

**Sofia:** How do I catch myself doing it?

**Alex Tutor:** Listen for questions with one pleasant answer: “Do you like it?”, “Will it work?”, “Handy, right?” A question about your idea is fishing; a question about their life is learning.

**Alex Tutor:** You can fish without a question, too. A long hopeful pause after describing your idea works the same way: people fill the silence with the kind word you're waiting for.

> **Exercise:** Dana, a PM at a Ukrainian accounting SaaS, plans calls with accountants. Which question asks for **information**, not approval?

**Sofia:** There's not a single “Do you like it?” left on my list. So I'm safe from fishing now?

**Alex Tutor:** Not quite. Fishing is about what you're after, not the exact words. Describe your idea, pause hopefully, and people fill the silence with praise.

**Alex Tutor:** Eager nodding while they talk about your idea does it too, and so does showing a demo and waiting.

**Alex Tutor:** Let's check that.

> **Exercise:** If you never ask questions like “Do you like it?”, you can't be fishing for compliments.

## The over-sharing trap

**Megan:** Hi both! My team starts customer calls next week. I've written our opener. Tell me what you think:

**Megan:** “We've spent six months on this subscription and our jobs depend on it. So please be brutally honest with us!”

**Alex Tutor:** Asking for honesty is well meant, but the first sentence cancels it. Once people hear how much you've invested, they start protecting you. Nobody wants to be the one who sank six months of work.

**Alex Tutor:** That's the **over-sharing trap**: the more hope and ego you show, the more kindly people lie. “Be brutally honest” doesn't help; it only shows how much the answer means to you.

![A presenter with a big heart on her sleeve stands before a tall tower of work boxes; her listeners smile while hiding frowning masks behind their backs.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/compliments-illustration-4.webp)

**Sofia:** So how do we get honest answers if asking for honesty doesn't work?

**Alex Tutor:** Leave yourself out of it. Ask about their life and their last purchase. People rarely bend the truth about last Tuesday, and your feelings aren't on the table.

**Alex Tutor:** Here are two openers Megan's team could use. Which one is more likely to get honest stories?

> **Exercise:** Which opener for a CatChow customer call avoids the **over-sharing trap**?

> **Exercise:** Match each line from CatChow's call drafts and notes to what's going on.

## Fixing Megan's opener

**Megan:** Ouch. Fine, no sob story. But I still have to say why we're calling, or people will think it's a sales call.

**Alex Tutor:** Fair point. A short neutral reason works: you want to understand how cat owners buy food. No project, no jobs on the line.

**Sofia:** And no mention of the subscription, so there's nothing to compliment.

**Alex Tutor:** Exactly. Write Megan a new opener her team can say in two or three sentences.

> **Exercise:** Megan's opener for her team's calls: “We've spent six months on this subscription and our jobs depend on it. So please be brutally honest with us!” Write a new opening (2–3 sentences) that avoids the **over-sharing trap** and invites real stories.

## Back to the notes

**Sofia:** Now I'm scared to re-read my notes from the other calls.

**Alex Tutor:** Don't be. Compliments usually sit on top of something useful. People mention facts in passing, between the nice words.

**Sofia:** So I dig out the facts and put the praise in a separate pile?

**Alex Tutor:** Yes. And note what you'd ask each person if you called back. A follow-up call is cheap, and people rarely mind.

> **Exercise:** Analyse Sofia's notes from three more calls and rewrite her team update.

## What to remember

**Sofia:** So the goal isn't to avoid compliments. It's to stop them from ending the conversation.

**Alex Tutor:** Right. Praise will come anyway, people are kind. Say thanks, write nothing down, and ask what actually happened.

> **Key ideas**
>
> - **Social desirability bias**: people give the pleasant answer, not the accurate one. In interviews it arrives as praise.
> - A compliment is an opinion about the future. Even a sincere one isn't evidence.
> - Warning signs in your notes: “it went really well”, “everyone loves it”, “lots of positive feedback”.
> - **Deflect**: say thanks, don't record it, ask about their life (“How do you handle this now?”).
> - Don't **fish**: if the question is about your idea, the answer will be kind.
> - The **over-sharing trap**: the more of your hopes you show, the more people protect you.

**Alex Tutor:** Next lesson: the compliment's vaguer cousin, **fluff**. “I always…”, “I would…”, “I might…”, and how to pin it down to one real story.

- Previous lesson: [Bad questions vs good questions](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/bad-vs-good-questions.md)
- Next lesson: [Fluff: vague answers and the say-do gap](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/fluff.md)

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