In order to gain an understanding of your ideal customer, you'll want to do customer development. You'll want to run a structured, focused process to validate their pain points in a neutral, non-sales environment. That means you need to get answers to a consistent set of questions, but it can be challenging to know where to start. Here are our recommendations for sample questions to run through during your customer development process.
General
What are the demographics/background?
How many employees do you have?
How many locations
How much revenue?
Workflow by decision maker
Could you please tell me about your role?
What does your typical day look like?
What are your main roles and responsibilities?
How much time do you spend on [work relevant to product area]?
What tools do you use that are most valuable to you? What tools do you like the most?
What tools do you dislike the most? Why?
Pain/problem discovery
What is the hardest/most frustrating part of your day?
What tasks take up most of your day?
What keeps you up at night?
What are they most insecure about?
Problem validation
Tell me about the last time you used your current tool [in relevant space]?
How much time do you spend on [subject area]?
What could be done to improve your capabilities in that area?
How motivated are you to improve this area at your company?
If you had a solution to this problem how would it affect you?
How would you improve your current process?
Purchasing/pricing
What is the last software solution you bought?
Tell me about that evaluation process?
If I told you that I have a solution to _____(based on pain) would you be interested in that? Why?
What do you think this is an acceptable price for a product that solves this problem?
What is an expensive price?
What is a really expensive price?
What is your budget for [this area]?
Information habits
Where do they hang out? Online, in person?
Where do they get their trade news?
Who are their trusted advisors?
Ending
Do you mind if I keep you updated on product developments?