Cheatsheet “Deploy Empathy”

6 minute read

Hello everyone, I took some notes during reading “Deploy Empathy” by Michele Hansen. If you want to learn how to talk to customers to make great business decisions, including product development, just read it. So, I am providing my notes here (also for me to come back to). However, I strongly recommend everyone to read this book, you will get a lot out of it!

What is this about?

use customer interviews to tell you why something is happening. It will save you a lot of frustration
empathy

understanding how another person thinks, and acknowledging [their] reasoning and emotions as valid, even if they differ from your understanding
- you do not need to agree
use interviews & empathy to include customers into decision-making & everyday process(es)
people will already feel good if you just listen, really listen

Part 2 - Key Frameworks

Jobs-to be done
Core questions
- what are they trying to do overall?
- What are all of the steps in that process?
- Where are they now?
- Where des the problem you are solving fit in that process?
- Where in that process do they spend a lot of time or money?
- How often do they experience that problem?
- What have they already tried?
Functional, Social, Emotional
- Processes have multiple purposes and motivations. They can have a functional, emotional and social dimension
Valuable, usable, viable, feasible
- Valuable: needed by customer?
- Usable: can the customer use it?
- Viable: can we make money with it?
- Feasible: can we build it?

Part 3 - Getting started

user interviews to “validate” idea: be aware of validation bias!
how many interviews
- max. 2 per day
Good interview? –> Walk away with “Wow! I didn’t know that!”
Narrow down your product scope if you get different insights from every interview
Analysis is right when you identify the overall goal
do regular interviews

Part 4 - When should you do interviews?

interviews are qualitative research (answering “why”). Also do quantitative research to answer “how many”
project-based research
- have narrow, defined question
ongoing research
- short surveys
  - the shorter, the better
  - open-ended follow-up question (e.g. NPS, what they used before…)
    - make sure they are straight-forward
  - answer to surveys to set up call
  - who to interview
    - just canceled
    - started within last 3 months
- interviews
how many people?
- discrete problem –> ~5 interviews (~80% of needs found)
- complex problem –> 10-15 interviews
- general: “Stop when no new insights anymore”
have a diverse group of interviewees
Research loops
- talk to 5 people
- analyze
- find interesting problems
- find another group of 5 people to narrow further
- repeat

Part 5 - Recruiting Participants

Where
- Reddit & Forums
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Facebook & email lists
- Email
- Surveys
Be nice & human
offer something (e.g. 20€ Amazon gift card)
follow up call with mail
DON’T SELL - it is research
include in proposal
- Who you are
- time needed for interview
- why you’re doing it
- why you want to talk to them
- when you want to talk
- what they get

Part 6 - How to talk so people will talk

Use a gentle tone of voice
- most harmless, gentle, friendly, soft, judgement-free
Validate
- validating statements
- use “think” instead of “feel”
- e.g.: “That makes sense”, “It sounds like that’s frustrating”, “Can you help me understand what wen through your mind when [X]?”
Leave pauses for them to fill
- at least 3 long beats
- don’t provide prompts or additional questions to not influence the answer
- if too long and the interviewee says something like “still there?”, make them feel important
- I was just giving you a moment to think
Mirror and summarize their words
- repeat words back to them
- summarize what they said
- use “it” not “I” when summarizing
Don’t interrupt
- Active listening word are ok (e.g. “Mhmmm”)
Use simple wording
Ask for clarification, even when you don’t need it
- without showing own knowledge, feelings, opinions
- can also intentionally misstate to get more details
Don’t explain anything or get defensive
- rather ask “Can you walk me through what happened?”, “Can you tell me how you expected it to work?”
Build on what they say
- Don’t negate them in any way
- Never correct them
- never say “no”, say “yes and”
Let them be the expert
- because they are in their experience
- if they are wrong where fact matter, mail them later but do not say in the interview
Use their words and pronunciations
Ask about past and current behavior
- they won’t tell you what their pain-points are or what they actually need
- Ask about time and money already spent
- Ask about how they do things now, what they use now
- Did they try to solve things already in another way?
Never break the bubble of trust
Never imply your own opinion
be a rubber duck

Part 7 - Interview Scripts

overall framework
- What they’re trying to do overall
- The steps they take to do that
- What they’ve already tried
- Where they spend time and money throughout the entire process [how much do they currently pay for the problem?]
- How often they experience the problem
- How long it takes them
How to conduct interviews
- if possible, only audio
- mute everything else, be uninterrupted
- be able to focus
- treat the day as you would for a job interview
- have your questions noted down with space to take notes
- it doesn’t need to follow the order
- take “fear” of interviewee to do anything wrong in the beginning of the interview
- stick to the time
- write a thank-you note
- use the “reaching for the door” question
  - be done with your question around half of the allocated time
  - then ask:
    - “Perhaps there are some things you’re wondering about my side?”
    - “Is there anything you’re curious about from me?”
- record the interview if allowed (ask before!) (e.g. Tool: Nugget)
- capture all feature requests
- ask others to join, but never more than 2 people
- DON’T SELL - it is research
- Types of interviews (scripts within book)
  - Discovery
  - New customer
  - Long-time customer
  - Canceled customer
  - Interactive interview (e.g. see how the user would use the product) - screen share
  - [Problems, Jobs] Prioritization interview (e.g. with card sorting) - screen share
- Willingness to pay
  - Never ask “how much would you pay for [X]
  - find worth of the current problem
    - how much time & money gets spend on the problem / current process
    - Be extra polite
    - example questions
      - Can I ask what you’re currently paying for that [tool] you mentioned?
      - Can I ask how often you have to do that?
Debugging interviews
- no-shows
  - give them 15min, then write a nice email to reschedule
- interview was shorter than expected
  - summarize, mirror, as digging-deeper questions
  - validate to take fear
- only get short answers
  - ask if another time would be better
  - should talk to someone else in the organization?
- Cagey person
  - What made you interested in talking to me today?
  - I understand this might be sensitive information. Would it be helpful if I signed an NDA?
- Only get feature request
  - switch to feature request script

Part 8 - Analyzing Interviews

Tools
- draw a customer journey map (include function, social, emotional and quotes) - p.220
- pain frequency matrix
  - helps for persona-pain match
  - can be done for general big-picture problems & areas and for each step of a defined process
Use both tools side-by-side
Pull from an interview
- What are they trying to do overall?
- steps of decision process
- functional, intellectual social and emotional dimensions that influence the decision-making & satisfaction
- How strong is the pain? How frequent does the pain occur? What is their willingness to pay?
- Immediate actions
- Longer-term thoughts
Always try to have quotes for your conclusions

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Kevin Liebholz