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Whitepaper

Shortcut to successful customer interviews for innovation

Ready for an interview?

Customer interviews, target group interviews and expert interviews provide innovation potential. If they are done right. But customer interviews are not sales calls. The sales department won’t let the innovation people get to the customers and the fear of burnt relationships and loss of reputation is high. A bad start, and the direct line to the customer is cut for a long time! Innovation consultancy TOM SPIKE provides shortcuts to successful customer interviews for innovation in the current checklist.

Simply asking the customer to come up with good innovation ideas is a common mistake. Henry Ford already knew that “If I had asked the customers, they would have wanted ‘faster horses’”. But of course, bad questions also provide bad answers. NOT asking the customer is just as big a mistake.

Free checklist as a shortcut for good target group and expert interviews.

A single good customer interview is more valuable than 100 completed questionnaires. And yet there is great reluctance to talk openly with future target groups. Too many things can go wrong. Too many things just don’t feel good. Even experienced sales teams like to hide from a customer meeting in which they cannot offer a ready-made solution.

Experience from hundreds of interviews, cold calls and trained interviewers are the foundation for the following checklist for truly successful customer interviews.

Customer and expert in an interview on the cover page of the TOM SPIKE checklist – shortcut to successful customer interviews.

Do you want to know what chances of success your customer interviews actually have? And where is more preparation needed? Then use the checklist from the innovation experts at TOM SPIKE.

Your advantages

  • Perfectly prepared customer interviews
  • All the pitfalls on a piece of paper
  • Directly for the practice

Insight

1. the right target group definition is crucial for success

Typical situation: Everyone is the target group. Everyone could benefit from a solution. We don’t want to exclude anyone. Better: Define compact target groups. Process one after the other. After initial probing, drill deeper or shelve it.

And it works like this:

What is our target profile for the customer interview:

User?

  • New customers?
  • Existing customers?
  • Stakeholders?

In which sector and industry do we want to explore?

  • Automotive?
  • Mechanical engineering?
  • Medical technology? …

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About the innovation consultancy TOM SPIKE

The Berlin-based consulting company TOM SPIKE supports B2B and industrial companies in creating innovations for their product and service portfolios. Our innovation consultants accompany you to faster, more successful ideas and support you with innovation workshops and consulting. This allows you to develop innovations faster and market them more successfully. From innovation strategy to repeatable innovation capability. Concept ready for decision within six months.

What questions are you urgently looking for an answer to?

Please let us know. We will be happy to answer your questions and dedicate our next white paper to your topic.
Just give us a call or write to us using the contact form.