Customer testimonial interview guide that gets quotable gold

# Customer Testimonial Interview Guide — Enterprise CRM Buyers **Total duration:** 45 minutes **Goal:** Extract 2-3 quotable lines + 1 hero metric + 1 emotional moment --- ## Section 1: Warm-Up (5 min) 1. "Walk me through a typical Tuesday morning for you — what's the first thing you do when you sit down?" 2. "What made you say yes to this call today? I'm curious what you were hoping to share." 3. "If a peer at a different company asked you 'what do you actually do all day?' — how would you answer?" 4. "What's the part of your job you wish more people understood?" 5. "When did you first realize your old way of doing things wasn't working anymore?" *Tip: Let them talk for 2-3 minutes uninterrupted. You are building trust, not collecting answers yet.* --- ## Section 2: Before (10 min) 6. "Paint me a picture of what your workflow looked like 6 months before you found us." 7. "What was the breaking point — the specific moment you decided 'we have to fix this'?" 8. "Who else was feeling the pain? Walk me through the conversations you were having internally." ## Section 3: During (10 min) 9. "What almost stopped you from signing up? Be honest — I can take it." 10. "Walk me through the first week. What surprised you — good or bad?" 11. "Was there a specific moment when you thought 'okay, this is going to work'?" ## Section 4: After (10 min) 12. "If you had to put a number on what changed, what would it be?" 13. "What's something your team can do now that would've been impossible before?" --- ## Section 5: Follow-Up Probes - "Can you give me a specific example of that?" - "What does that look like in a real day?" - "When you say 'a lot of time' — are we talking minutes, hours, days?" - "How did that make you feel in the moment?" - "What would your CFO/CEO say about that change?" - "If I told your past self what you just told me, what would they say?" --- ## Section 6: Money Quote Questions 14. "If you were writing the email to a friend recommending this — what would the first sentence be?" 15. "Fill in the blank: 'Before [product], we were ___. Now we're ___.'" 16. "What's the headline you'd put on this whole experience?" 17. "If you only had 10 seconds on stage to describe the impact, what would you say?" --- ## Redirect Playbook | When they say... | You respond... | |---|---| | "It's just better" | "Better in what specific way? Walk me through a moment." | | "It saves time" | "How much time? What do you do with that time now?" | | "The team loves it" | "Who on the team? What did they say that stuck with you?" | | "It's a game changer" | "That's a strong phrase — what game changed, exactly?" | **Closing script:** "Last question — anything you wanted to share that I didn't ask about?" (This is where the best quotes often hide.)