What is a customer interview cheat sheet?

The customer interview cheat sheet is a practical guide designed to help you ask smarter, more insightful questions during customer interviews. Whether you're launching a new product or refining an existing one, the success of your interviews often depends on the quality of your questions, not just the quantity.

This template provides a set of five golden rules for formulating questions that are focused, unbiased, and genuinely valuable.

What’s inside the template?

This cheat sheet covers the do’s and don’ts of effective customer interviews, including:

  • Five core rules for crafting high-impact questions
    (e.g. avoid bias, aim for open-ended responses, seek unique insights)
  • Examples of weak vs. strong questions for each rule
    (so you don’t just get theory—you get templates to use right away)
  • Tips to avoid common interview pitfalls, like asking questions you could’ve answered with a quick LinkedIn search

By following this template, you’ll be able to gather richer, more actionable insights from your customer conversations without wasting anyone’s time (including your own).

How to use the template

  1. Review the five key rules before conducting any customer interview.
  2. Use the strong example questions to shape your own interview guide.
  3. Avoid the common weak questions that lead to vague or biased responses.
  4. Scale your questions—start broad, then go deeper to uncover richer insights.
  5. Repeat and refine—the more you practice, the sharper your interviewing instincts will become.

Pro tip: Keep this cheat sheet open while you're planning your interviews. It’s like having a product researcher whispering great advice in your ear (minus the awkwardness).

Download your customer interview cheat sheet

Customer interview cheat sheet

Choose your file format
PDFMS OfficeGDoc