How do I better conduct client interviews to gain valuable insights?

Create a template with a number of questions that are well thought out, in advance. The questions serve two purposes:

1. To guide the conversation in a deliberate way (one that you’ve mapped out in advance, without the pressures of coming up with questions in real-time), and...

2. To drive a consistent process, which, hopefully, will help you identify useful patterns.

To emphasize the first point, you should approach every customer conversation with a very specific goal: Something you want to learn, or something you want to get feedback on, etc. Having tailored questions that guide you to getting the responses you need will help you.

That said, you also need to be agile and let the conversation flow in unexpected ways. Again, you won’t have thought of everything in advance, and by allowing a customer to steer the conversation, you’ll learn things that you wouldn’t have thought to ask in the first place.