10 Questions That PMs Can Ask Customers

When a product is in question, plenty of open-ended questions can be aimed at users. Before you dive right into the development work, it is ideal for plenty of customers to analyze and validate whether your ideas align well with the customers. 

Here are some of the questions to ask customers that will be of huge help from the product perspective.

1. Start with “Why.”

As a product manager, you can’t just settle down to accept the initial response you get from the customer. Not only is asking ” why ” powerful, but it will help understand the vision behind their response.

A “why” can be asked as a follow-up question that will yield an enticing answer from the customers or end users. Additionally, it is a great way to get to the bottom of the issue that the customers are facing. 

2. Ask them about “How.”

When you are being asked to accomplish a specific feature of the product, play it the other way around. Don’t just take their request at the moment but instead raise questions right at them to figure out “how” they are getting the job done at the current time.

This will assist in giving you the vision to create a better product roadmap. 

3. How Do You Measure Success Over Years or Months?

This is one of the preliminary questions that will allow you to dive deeper into customer goals and uncover metrics. 

If your product is powerful enough to help customers get closer to their goals or even make them successful, you are on the way to creating a valuable product. 

4. How is the present solution working out?

This question targeted at the customers is efficient in analyzing the opportunities that await. Plus, it will also narrow down the gap between your product vs the competitors. 

To follow up with this question, further questions such as what are the current time benefits you can extract? The customers’ answers will give you a better understanding of the opportunities they are seeking, followed by the reason for their motivation.

5. What frustrates you the most about the current situation?

This question will really help in getting the conversation going. This is an open question that will also analyze the pain points of the conversation. 

Therefore, the solution that you are imposing should offer a solution to the pain point. Otherwise, it isn’t valuable enough for the target customers. 

6. If you could, what would you wish to do today?

For a product manager, this counts as a truly significant question. Although the meaning of the question can have multiple forms, the bottom of it remains the same.

This question is ideal in scenarios where the aim is to know more about the features or use cases. Also, make sure to understand the perspective of the customers before hitting them directly with the question. It will all be meaningless if the question makes no sense to them.

7. What are the changes you expect in your day-to-day tasks if this feature is implemented?

This is a circumstance-based question where the objective remains the same. The notion is to understand what are the ways in which the feature you are about to implement is solving the problem. 

Furthermore, it also must give you an idea of the type of problem the solution intends to take care of.

8. Can you provide an illustration or example to support your facts?

Asking this question to the customer is a great idea which will give you evidence of the feature or product being talked about.

When customers are asked the majority of questions, the conversation, questions, and tone are usually high level. However, when you ask customers to give relevant instances to support their answers, it becomes interesting to see their thought process on the subject or about the new feature in question. Furthermore, as a product manager, it will also give you an insight into their level of thinking.

9. How would you use the feature if you had it today?

First of all, there is no accurate answer to this question. What is more important is how you deal with the situation post this question is raised. Once you ask the question, remain silent and seek an answer from the customer. 

Give them 1 -2 minutes, and listen to them very carefully. Their answer will help you understand how they think and the value they plan to add to your existing product or feature. Also, don’t forget to pitch descriptive questions as a follow-up once you receive the answer for this one.

10. Why or how will this solution benefit others, and why would you recommend this solution to others?

The final question has to set the customer in the position they lift with variations of answers. Feel free to ask follow-up questions and post this to be completely satisfied with whatever you are looking for.

This question is weaved best with new product development strategies and can help align with feature validations.