User Interview Guide for Product Managers

Meesho’s well-structured Listen or Die (LoD) program

As shared in my last post on PM onboarding, user-first is a core mantra at Meesho. 

All new joiners are expected to connect with their end customers within the first month and hear about their experience using the company’s products. 

This not only helps develop customer empathy, but also a better understanding of the product. (and appear to do something at least remotely useful in the first few days 😛)

This program is aptly called Listen or Die (LoD) - either listen to your customers or perish. Even senior leaders engage in such LoD sessions to check the market pulse.

Here are my 8 key learnings for effective user interviews:

1. Determine the overall objective - any specific feature you want feedback on?

2. Fix the target user type and number you want to speak to - for eg 10-15 newly onboarded suppliers

3. Incentivize interviewees for participation (companies may have budgets)

4. Talk to experienced people and develop a structured Q&A script 

5. Record the session (get permission!) so that you are fully present during the interview and can take notes/ review them later

6. Ask more open-ended unbiased questions along with follow-ups using the 5 Why’s technique to get honest feedback

7. Summarize insights and share with your team to decide actionables

8. Conduct regular interviews with different customer types to stay in touch

Overall the LoD program was a great learning experience for me, given Meesho’s different target audience (Tier 2+ towns). I got to hear directly about user pain points and was also asked some hard questions, compelling me to better my product understanding. 

Have you conducted user interviews? How has your experience been?

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References

1. Product Managers: 4 UX Research Methods Are All You'll Ever… | Sprig
   (types of UX research methods, which stage of the product lifecycle to use which methods)

2. The Writer’s Guide to User Interviews | by Veronica Cámara | UX Planet
   (how many user interviews to do) 

3. How to Run Better User Interviews (Remotely and In-Person): A Step-By-Step Gu... | Planio (super comprehensive)

4. 10 Great Questions Product Managers Should Ask Customers (what questions to ask)

5. How to Use Customer Interviews in Design Process | Atlassian
   (what to do after conducting interviews)