💪 6 Little-Known Fixes for Interview Questions

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Whoever said there’s no such thing as a bad question must not have been a market researcher! Your interview questions can literally make or break a study. It’s such a missed opportunity when I see a good interview wasted on poor questions… or a lack of follow-up questions.

In a study with coffee drinkers, one of our clients asked their customers where they brewed coffee in their homes. Almost everyone said the kitchen. It was only after our team’s researcher’s took over that we learned a portion of their customers actually brewed coffee… in their bathrooms! 

Legitimately, these customers also had coffee makers in their kitchens. But the preliminary interviews didn’t dig deeper and ask the right follow-up questions. 

This client has made a fortune since these interviews selling a compact coffee maker. They might have sacrificed millions in revenue by not asking the right questions.

So here we go—the top 5 edits you can make to your next interview discussion guide:

Fix #1: Drop the leading questions

The #1 mistake I see is a leading question. Ask anyone who’s ever watched a cop show or courtroom drama, and they’ll be able to identify this type of question that leads a person to answer a certain way. 

What’s interesting though is that even if we can spot this coming from the lips of a prosecutor, so many people don’t even bat an eyelash when it’s found in a customer interview. 

Recently this question came up in an interview: 

“How important is sustainability in deciding where you’ll shop for clothes?”

That’s like asking someone if they’re for or against world peace. No one in their right mind is going to say they don’t care about the environment. But does it actually matter when they choose a store? There are so many other ways to ask this question… 

So how would we fix this question?

Change it to:

“What factors help you decide where to shop for clothes?”

If they don’t talk about environmental sustainability, it’s probably not top of mind.  

Fix #2: Establish rapport at the start of the interview

Often, interviews ask questions that might embarrass someone. They will answer in a socially-acceptable way instead of replying honestly. 

The fix here is really to set the interview up by establishing rapport. It also helps if you can tell the participant you’re an independent third party, you don’t work for the company, and they won’t hurt your feelings by answering honestly. That line usually gets some flat chuckles, but it’s flat-out effective too.  

You can also ask for stories that make your findings more objective. Instead of asking someone if they’re a hard working employee, ask about their daily routines, ask if they take their work home with them, ask things to give you an indication of how hard-working they are… without making them rate themselves on a scale of 1-10… my least favorite thing to do in an interview. 

Another trick you can try to dispel embarrassment is to tell the participant that others have told you something:

“We keep hearing from other participants that the practices and procedures at different centers are very different from each other. How have you experienced that in your time at Company X?” 

Fix #3: Ask one thing at a time

Another mistake I see is a classic double-barrelled question. This happens when you ask two questions in one. Here’s an example the team at Bixa fixed for a client:  

“Who cleans and maintains your home?”

Cleaning and maintaining are two different things. What if a participant cleans their own home, but hires a handyman for regular maintenance. 

The fix here is to break it into two questions:  

“Who cleans your home?” 

 and 

 “Who maintains your home?”

Fix #4: Be specific

This example of maintaining your home brings us to the next mistake: using terms that are too broad or ambiguous. The question “Who maintains your home?” could mean a lot of different things. I bet most people change lightbulbs themselves, but would never do roofing maintenance without hiring a roofer. 

Fix #5: Focusing on the present, not the future

 Often, interviewers like to ask people what they  would do or what they would pay for something:  

 “Would you subscribe to a babysitting service?” is a prime example of what NOT to ask.  

Humans are very bad at predicting what they would do in the future. A better way to ask this question would be to ask what types of services they have purchased in the past when it comes to babysitting, and what challenges they’ve come across in these services.  

Understanding past behavior is a much better way to predict what people are likely to do or buy in the future. 

Fix #6: Focus on the problem, not the solution

 Finally, asking for solutions is always so tough. There is a famous quote sometimes attributed to Henry Ford: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” 

Repeat after me: “Customers are not product designers.” 

Customers can easily describe a problem they're having — in this case, wanting to get somewhere faster — but they won’t know the best way to fix it. It’s your job (not your customer’s) to examine all possible solutions and come up with the best one, given the company’s goals, budget, and timeframe. 

Instead, guide interview participants  to talk about their challenges and pain points so that you can understand the underlying problems, and offer a sustainable solution.

Your business decisions are only as good as the data you base them on. And it all starts with planning your study and asking the right questions.