What tips do you have for successful “win interviews” and who is typically involved?

Conducting interviews with new clients following the successful sale - goal is to collect insight on our sales process, the client’s perspective of our product over competitors, what content was influential, etc.

Answer

7 Answers

Market Research

Ellie Mirman

Teikametrics Vice President Marketing • 8y

I prefer to have a two-person team to do interviews - one person to conduct the interview, the other to take in-depth notes and identify follow up questions. This can be less critical if it's possible to record the interview, but I find that the written notes are fantastic for sharing the takeaways with others afterwards. I found this post pretty thorough in terms of a process, questions, etc: https://labs.openviewpartners.com/how-to-conduct-win-loss-analysis/#.W2OIs9hKjVq Oftentimes, "win / los ...Read More

679 Views
James Winter

Telescope Partners Head of Marketing | Formerly Nexmo, Dialpad, Aspire, Brandfolder • 9y

One other point to add on to Derek's excellent advice. When setting them up for a case study down the line, I'd also encourage the customer to start thinking about/tracking any relevant metrics. Many companies, especially smaller ones, likely won't be very good at tracking results. So by talking to them about business results from the beginning you increase the likelihood that they might start to pay attention to those earlier rather than later. giving you the advantage of more compelling case s ...Read More

610 Views
Ryan Sorley

DoubleCheck Research Founder • 8y

Consider creating a pre-interview online survey and sharing with the interviewee prior to the interview. Done well, this will help you collect a ton of structured data over time so that you can conduct trends analysis. Their response to the survey will help you quickly identify where to probe during the interview. As an example, they may have selected you but scored the salesperson very low in a number of areas. Build an interview guide so that you're consistenly asking the same general questio ...Read More

645 Views
Sam Curcuruto

Commvault Director of Product Marketing | Formerly OneTrust, Expanse, RiskIQ • 9y

I do win interviews alone, but often have a warm up call with them and our sales rep for introductions. I've found this helps ease some anxiety from the sales side (some are nervous you may derail future sales/up sells, etc), but also presents a nice, warm hand off.

625 Views
Kristen Ribero

unitQ VP Marketing • 9y

I typically do them by myself without the sales person or product mgmt. I find the customer is more open about product and sales process that way pm and sales contribute to info we want to gather though

959 Views
Dave Daniels

BrainKraft Founder • 8y

Be inquisitive, dig for the 'story'. Use open-ended questions.

I agree with Derek. No salespeople. Keep them far away or you will get mixed results. Salespeople can be helpful with providing and intro and (maybe) giving some background.

For clarity, interviewing a sales rep is not a W/L interview.

481 Views
Derek Frome

Ouster Vice President Marketing • 9y

You're trying to figure out why they bought your product, what materials and conversations were most useful in their process, and setting them up for a case study down the line. Questions should go in line with those, and the interview should usually take under an hour unless they're talking your ear off. Dig deep for things that can be improved. Don't bring sales along for the ride!

1,227 Views