How to talk to people - the exact questions to ask your customers in calls

Asking the right questions to decide what to do next in your company is nervewracking. It doesn't have to be.

Great customer research works because it's an ongoing conversation to understand the why behind a customer's decisions and what conversation you need to have determines what questions you need to have.

So, instead of muddling through a video call or accidentally making a well-meaning customer defensive, here's how to think about what questions to ask tailored to the goal of your customer research sprint. And several questions to get you started if your next call is in * checks notes * 10 minutes.

Let's get into it.

How to think about the questions you want to ask

Customer research falls into six main categories — and every useful interview question maps back to one of them.

How stuff works — what does their day-to-day actually look like? Not the polished version, the real one.

Pain points — what is making them scream inside (or outside). Where the friction lives.

Competitors — who are they mentally comparing you to, even if they don't say it out loud.

Why are you here? — what is their end goal at work, in life, or with this product or service. Not the feature they want — the thing they want because of the feature.

Objection your honor! — why they buy, or why they don't. What almost stopped them and what pushed them through.

Proof and next steps — what do you (and they) see as the natural next step. What would make them feel confident enough to move.

Every good customer research call covers all six. What changes based on your research goal is which ones you go deepest on — and which specific questions unlock the most useful answers.

The customer research questions to ask based on what you need to know

This is where purpose matters. Asking the same 10 generic questions to everyone gets you generic answers. Here's what to ask — and why — depending on what you actually need to walk away with.

To narrow down your target audience

You're trying to understand which customers get the most out of what you offer, so you can focus on finding more of them.

• "Walk me through how you found out about [product/service] — what were you looking for?"
• "What were you doing to solve this problem before?"
• "What made you decide to actually do something about it — what was the trigger?"
• "What does your day look like on a day when this is a real problem for you?"
• "Who else in your world has this same problem? What's different about you?"

Listen for: the trigger event, the context they're in when the problem hits, and whether they share characteristics with other paying customers.

To find your messaging

You're listening for the words they use — not the words you'd use to describe your product. You're building a vocabulary, not validating features.

• "How would you describe what [product/service] does to a friend who'd never heard of it?"
• "What's the thing you were most worried about before you started using it?"
• "What do you tell people when they ask why you use it instead of [obvious alternative]?"
• "If this disappeared tomorrow, what would you say you'd lost?"
• "What's the one thing you'd put on the box?"

Listen for: metaphors, comparisons, single-sentence summaries, and the specific frustration they name as the reason they're here.

To decide your marketing strategy

You're trying to understand where these people live online, what influences them, and what the path to "yes" actually looked like.

• "How did you hear about us originally? What were you searching for or reading at the time?"
• "What do you read, watch, or follow to stay on top of your industry?"
• "Whose opinion do you trust when it comes to tools like this?"
• "What almost stopped you from moving forward?"
• "Was there anyone else involved in the decision? What did they need to know?"

Listen for: discovery channels, trust signals (what made them believe you), and blockers (what almost killed the deal).

To plan your feature roadmap or services offered

You're looking for the gaps — what they've built workarounds for, what they wish existed, and what's not worth their attention.

• "What do you do when [product/service] can't do what you need it to?"
• "Is there something you wish you could do that you currently can't?"
• "What's the most painful part of your current workflow that nothing's fixed yet?"
• "If you could add one thing, what would have the most impact on your day?"
• "What do we offer that you've never used? Why not?"

Listen for: workarounds (these are features in disguise), patterns across multiple customers, and things they'd pay more for versus things that are nice-to-have.

This is the research process we run for every client before we write a word of strategy. If you want to skip the DIY and get straight to a complete plan, here's what that looks like.

How to act on the call (the short version)

The questions are only half the job. How you hold the space determines whether customers actually open up.

• Open with something personal. Not work. Ask about what they're watching, reading, or listening to — it shifts the energy from interview to conversation before you've asked a single work question.
• Ask open-ended questions only. "How did you handle that?" not "Was that a problem?" Yes/no questions produce yes/no answers.
• Paraphrase what you hear. Repeat it back: "So what I'm hearing is..." — it keeps you from misinterpreting and signals that you're actually listening.
• Get comfortable with silence. When someone trails off, let it sit. The next sentence is often the real answer.
• Do NOT mix selling with research. The moment you pitch, the data dies. Be patient. The insights you get now pay off in messaging at scale later.
• Close with two questions, every time. "What are your favourite movies, TV shows, books, or podcasts you're into right now?" ends on a human note. "Anything else you want me to know?" catches everything you didn't think to ask.

Close with these two questions regardless of your research purpose. Leave them on a personable note and get information to help with marketing crossover and to make sure nothing gets missed that didn't fall under your question list:

• "What are your favorite movies, TV shows, books, or podcasts you're into right now?"
• "Anything else you want me to know?"

And the big verbatim rule: note their exact words, not your paraphrase or how you “think” it sounded. The specific phrase a customer uses to describe a pain point or an outcome is often the best copy. You should be recording your calls, but make a special note every time you get a gem that writes itself. Write it down verbatim.

What to do with what they told you

The call is only the beginning. Here's the fast version of where each goal's answers go:

• Target audience: Look for the same job title, use case, or life circumstance repeating across interviews. That pattern is your ICP.
• Messaging: Pull the exact phrases customers used to describe the problem and the outcome. Those go on your website and your emails — verbatim.
• Marketing strategy: Map where customers said they found you or went looking. Those are your channels. What they read is your content angle.
• Feature roadmap: Count the workarounds. The one that comes up most often across the most customers is your next build.

Our full customer research guide covers how to go deeper on interview analysis. And if you want to see how interview answers become a real Messaging Matrix, start here.

If running ten structured interviews and turning them into a complete marketing plan sounds like a lot — it is. We do this in a month or less, hand you a report on a Tuesday, and walk through exactly what it means for your next move. Book a call.