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Deploy Empathy: A Practical Guide to Interviewing Customers

by Michele Hansen · 2021

In a nutshell

A practical guide to customer interviewing that teaches founders and product teams how to conduct effective customer research interviews. The book provides frameworks, scripts, and templates for discovering customer needs, testing hypotheses, and making better product decisions based on real customer insights.

Overview

Deploy Empathy teaches the skill of talking to your customers - learning to truly listen to them - so that you can pull out their hidden needs, desires, and processes. Written by Michele Hansen, CEO & Co-Founder of Geocodio, a SaaS company bootstrapped to multi-millions in annual revenue, the book draws on thousands of customer interviews across B2C and B2B contexts.

Key Features

  • Sample scripts and templates for customer interviews
  • Frameworks for analyzing customer feedback
  • Guidance on using AI in customer research
  • Customer interview workshop guide
  • Multiple analysis methods with worked examples
  • Practical approaches for different business stages

What You'll Learn

  • How to structure effective customer interviews
  • Techniques for asking questions that reveal true customer needs
  • Methods for analyzing and acting on customer insights
  • Ways to integrate customer research into product development
  • How to interview customers at different stages (pre-launch, growth, churn prevention)

Relationship to Other Books

Described as "a fantastic addition to the customer interviewing line-up of resources - a logical next step after reading The Mom Test." While The Mom Test is more geared towards the pre-launch/discovery phase, Deploy Empathy covers other phases as well such as stopping churn, getting more customers, and testing.

Updated Edition

The updated and expanded edition includes guidance on using AI in customer research, a customer interview workshop guide, additional analysis methods with worked examples, and more based on reader feedback.

Available for purchase through Amazon and other major book retailers in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook formats. Over 5,000 copies sold worldwide.

Reference

Deploy Empathy: A Practical Guide to Interviewing Customers — publisher / official page. Summary adapted from the Awesome Startup Books collection.

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