13 Open-Ended Customer Interview Questions for Product Managers

McKinsey predicts that the global SaaS market will be worth $10 trillion by 2030, which is a 233% increase from its 2022 value. This means business competition, business competition is only going to grow more fierce. And nowadays, users expect a lot out of their digital tools and can afford to be selective with so many available options.

So, how can you make sure your product attracts and retains customers in a crowded, saturated landscape? By asking about their wants and needs in 1:1 user interviews. 

There are plenty of different feedback channels product managers can use to capture the evolving voice of your customer, but customer interviews are ideal for gathering in-depth, granular insights. You just can’t replicate the same kind of organic conversations and rapport-building in a survey (though they’re still valuable). Plus, with 64% of surveyed consumers saying they want brands to connect with them, you should be able to find plenty of users eager to talk with you.

Giving users this space to share their perspectives means you can get to the heart of customer behaviors, challenges, and opportunities—all key customer data points that can help you deliver a better product and overall customer experience. 

Use these 13 open-ended customer interview questions as a starting point for your conversations, but don’t be afraid to go off script! No two users are exactly the same, so your interviews shouldn’t be either.

1. What Do You Think of Our Product?

This customer interview question is a great way to kick off a candid interview because it’ll give you an idea of the user’s general vibe—i.e., do they like or dislike your product overall? 

From there, you can steer the conversation to dig deeper into the reasons why they feel the way they do and whether they love or hate your product. Their answers will help you create a balanced, accurate picture of customer sentiment.

2. How Can We Improve Our Product?

While it’s great to hear positive customer feedback, constructive criticism is also invaluable for understanding which new features will be worth your team’s time and resources to launch. 

By having customers hone in on the areas that fall short for them, you can start to unearth repeat pain points and identify the smartest ways to solve them. With that knowledge in mind, you can move product development further in the direction that paying customers need it to go.

You can get even more granular with follow-up questions like:

• What annoys you about our product?
• What is our product missing?
• What features would you remove from our product?

3. If You Were in Charge of Our Product, What Would You Change?

Customers want to feel that they’re partners with the brands they support. This question emphasizes that kind of partnership, showing users that their input is valued and respected. 

By intentionally asking customers to imagine themselves in a leadership role, you’ll find that many of them will share big-picture product ideas with you and not just one-off feature requests. This type of feedback can help you better understand the long-term needs of your target audience.

4. Now That You Have Our Product, What’s the #1 Thing You’re Able To Do That You Couldn’t Do Before?

This product validation question confirms whether your product alleviates the issues it was designed to solve—along with other ones you didn’t know were a big deal to users. 

For example, while your platform’s primary purpose may have been to automate workflows for project managers, you might find that people resonate more with your tech’s ability to sync team calendars in one place.

The answers you uncover should be used to shape the product’s core value propositions along with Marketing’s product strategy. This way, your org promotes the product features that can best solve customer needs and draw them to your product.

5. How Would You Feel If You Could No Longer Use Our Product?

You can better understand the emotional drivers behind product use by getting users to acknowledge the way your product (or its absence) impacts their emotions. This question strengthens the user-brand relationship by creating greater customer empathy, and it’ll also help Marketing tailor their product messaging to resonate with prospects on a deeper level.

Strategic follow-up customer interview questions for this one include:

• What sort of issues would you run into if you stopped using our product?
• How do you feel when you use our product?
• Who do you believe can benefit the most from our product?